Over the past two months, I have been coaching leaders on how to inoculate themselves from the predictable bad news. Your employees need the same.
If you have watched my videos you have heard me talk about becoming a radio station for your employees.
They hear so much bad and confusing news…they need a constant source of constructive and believable news.
Many of you have told me this advice has been extremely helpful, so here is a follow up on why it’s so critical and how to implement it.
Why it’s important:
- Facebook is full of conspiracy theories, political potshots and fake news that can distract and shake one’s faith.
- The news outlets fight for eyeballs by using headlines that scare and create fear.
- Your team’s lack of knowledge can create fear of the unknown. These are stressful times for your team.
What it means to be the radio station:
- Be on the air every day; don’t let a vacuum get filled by nonsense.
- Use a variety of ways to communicate: video, email, or group text. Get creative by using them all. Mix fun and serious.
- Share the communication duties among all the leaders of your team. A good radio station always has different announcers. Too much of one announcer can get boring.
- Share facts and figures about how you are doing. People would rather know the truth than have to guess. And their guesses are usually slightly or terribly wrong.
- Keep future focused plans on track, and share updates. (Are you experimenting with automowers? Keep on that plan, and tell us how it’s going)
- Describe the sacrifices you are making, in line with what you are asking of your team.
- Share the new goals and protocols you have set for productivity, and also tell them why it’s important.
- After your weekly leader’s meeting, share a few relevant decisions or discussions. They have seen you meet behind closed doors and always wondered and even worried about what you discussed. So tell them!
- Emphasize your staff’s most important radio station WIIFM (“What’s in it for me”.) Let them know how all this impacts them, and ultimately helps them. Connect the dots for them.
Your challenge:
You are super busy selling and managing, and so you usually communicate just enough to keep things moving. Yet poor communication is the biggest issue I am asked to solve by employees in their companies.
The true proactive leaders out there understand that communication is actually your main job.
So treat your entire team as your inner circle, and they will begin to step up and act like it.
Of course, you do have to parse out certain information carefully, so have different reports for different groups as you grow larger.
Give out trust and respect to all, and you will get it back in abundance.
