Feature
In many organizations, the same pattern plays out year after year: Frenzied scrambling among employees to finish the pile of work on their desks while also navigating announcements from leaders about what’s coming down the post-holiday pipeline — whether it’s a new product launch, staffing shuffles or a retooled strategy to promote growth.
Are you contributing to this chaos?
“I see a big deficit in leaders thinking strategically about the messages they’re sending, but not about the priorities they're emphasizing based on time of year,” said LeAnne Lagasse, an HR consultant and keynote speaker in Lubbock, Texas.
Lagasse said she’s noticed tension and disconnect developing between leaders and employees at year’s end. While directors are pumped about strategic planning kicking off in Q1, staff are rushing to close out current projects.
“Executive-level leaders’ heart is their vision, their mission and their strategy, but they often forget that it takes so much execution to carry these out, and they'll wear out everybody by sending messages that give employees whiplash at the end of the year,” Lagasse said.
A recent Harris Poll conducted for Grammarly estimates that US organizations lose more than $1 trillion each year due to ineffective communication. Here’s how to make sure there's coherence in your communications between your current and future plans so you can keep employees engaged while helping them understand how their hard work this year is feeding into a bigger story.
Understand What Your Team Needs Right Now
By sending messages focused on new ideas, processes and responsibilities ahead, leaders aren’t giving employees what they’re really craving heading into the holidays: recognition of their contributions, time for reflection, and clarity or stability in their roles, said Lagasse.
“The leaders I work with care deeply about the people working for them. They want to mobilize everybody, but they may not be thinking about how their messages impact everybody else in the organization,” she said.
Lagasse advises balancing messages between what you need to tell your team and what they need to hear. Employees who have worked hard all year don’t need a fresh to-do list; instead, consider dialing up your praise and recognition efforts.
Find the Balance Between Building Buzz and Championing Current Effort
Want your team to share in your enthusiasm for next year? Don’t treat it as an entirely new show, but rather as the next episode of your current show, said Dr. Michael Gerharz, PhD, a communications advisor in Cologne, Germany. Gerharz is the author of “Crack the Clarity Code” and host of the Irresistible Communication podcast.
“It’s a frequent source of frustration for teams when leadership seems to have forgotten the story they told last year,” said Gerharz.
He’s noticed a growing shift over the past several years where the most successful leaders are crafting communication that resonates with their employees.
“Part of that is treating employees with respect, showing empathy and tapping into the brilliance of the whole team, so it's not you leading the way and the team following you, but you and the team moving ahead much stronger than you would be if you were the only one making the decisions and choices.”
Related Article: Courage Coach: How to Deliver Communications That Stick
Be a Sounding Board, Not Just a Messenger
To be sensitive to the needs of your team, Lagasse suggests listening and then acting on employee feedback through upward communication channels.
“This is an opportunity for leaders to ask, ‘What are you really proud of from this year? What accomplishments have meant a lot to you? How do you feel we've grown as a team? How do you feel your relationships with co-workers have evolved?’” she said.
“These are questions that let us reflect together in meaningful ways, as we're coming to the end of something, instead of just launching into the next round.”
Foster Feedback That Flows Both Ways
Clear, concise, truthful communication is grounded in empathy, said Gerharz, noting that the right words inspire teams while uniting organizations around a common vision, especially at year’s end.
“Good communication starts with: mean what you say, and say what you mean. And stop trying to be right, but rather try to get it right,” he said.
“Don’t focus only on getting your point across; try to understand other people's points and then find common ground. When we stop fighting so hard for our own position, we're forcing ourselves to listen with more intention and to find the words that make our point clearer.”
Expressing gratitude conveys trust and authenticity, so you can propel your team into the future, he added.
“One of the best moves leaders can make is to take a step back and thank employees for the work they did and how hard they were trying to catch up with the changes you announced last year,” he said.
Related Article: Get Reworked Podcast: A Community-Based Approach to Employee Communications
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Reinforce Stability and Predictability
Clear expectations drive employee engagement, so when wrapping up Q4 by tracking and sharing metrics and KPIs, leave room to reaffirm role clarity, suggested Lagasse.
“What most people crave at the end of any cycle is rest, reflection and celebration,” she said.
“At the executive level, leaders get excited about hiring new people in January, for example. But there’s always a lot of uncertainty when you think about restructuring teams or shuffling org charts, and when that gets communicated at the end of the year, all it does is panic everybody.”
Leaders can be enthusiastic about the future, but exercising some restraint in their messaging is more respectful, Lagasse said.
Less Is More
When it comes to communication strategies, Gerharz asks clients: Could your message be shorter? He says it’s tempting to pile on more thoughts, and most leaders never think about what to cut, so he suggests asking “What's the essence here?” and then trying to capture and amplify that.
“There's a famous quote by computer scientist Edsger Dijkstra, who said the problem is that complexity sells better. Complex stories give the impression of sophistication. But simplicity is not the opposite of complexity, it's actually the prerequisite to complexity. If you find simple words to open your audience's minds, then they're willing to follow you deep down into the complexity.”
Ditch the Data Dump
Many organizations run employee engagement surveys and annual performance reviews throughout the fall, and leaders who have already analyzed that data might be tempted to share the results along with new initiatives for the coming year. But Lagasse said you may want to put that information on ice for now.
“Instead, tell them, 'We can't wait to share this data with you when we get back from the holidays.’ That way, people don’t think you forgot about it, but they're also not in a space to be brainstorming about how we're going to improve company culture in the middle of December,” she said.
“People working alongside us and under us on the org chart aren’t part of those strategic conversations most of the time, so the burden falls on them to execute. And when we come at them with vision, mission and strategy, all that sounds like to them is more burden and more work in the middle of December.”
Related Article: Always-On Communications Leaves No Time to Focus
Make Time for Informal One-on-One Conversations
Rather than adding to the noise by piling on messages, engage employees in regular, casual chats. Ask how someone’s feeling, whether they’re struggling with anything and if you can help them close out the year strongly, said Gerharz
“It's important you see things from their perspective and understand where they’re at. And the most powerful tool is to ask them,” he said.
“Seek out conversations from genuine curiosity, to understand what's going on in their minds and then, use that information to craft and frame the story, so they’re able to follow the perspective you’re taking. When you have that understanding, you can find the stories or metaphors that resonate with them, rather than investing energy to make them see what you understand and see.”
Give Your Employees the Gift of Peace and Quiet
Your team likely needs solid focus time to clear their desks, so cut back on collaboration overload.
“Nobody wants to have to leave work on December 22nd feeling stressed, and most of the leaders I know don't want that for their people, either,” said Lagasse. “Create space to celebrate and reflect as opposed to just steamrolling ahead.”
Next time you feel compelled to unload another long list of corporate goals for 2024 onto your team, hit pause, said Gerharz.
“Step off the hero's pedestal. It's not about you, it's about them,” he said. “They don't read the memo to cheer for you, they want to be cheered by you.”
