Talking To Your People

10May

7 Check Up Questions To Diagnose Your Team

by Steve A Blog, Talking To Your People, The First Team & Organizational Health, Uncategorized

It’s straightforward to be on a sports Team. You know your position, what is expected, and who’s with you and who’s against you.

The rules are clear.

In organizations, things are more ambiguous. Often, you’re not entirely clear about your role, the expectations placed on you, the expectations of others, the rules, and what success looks like.

Let me offer a model to check the health of your Team and make things clear.

Each section considers the people you serve and those you work with.

Vision

Often, “teams” are a loose collection of people who happen to work on the same project and usually appear more like a conglomerate and less like a single unit.

Simon Sinek would ask, ‘Why.’

In other words, what are we all working to achieve?

If there’s no shared vision, is this even a Team?

Two questions you might wrestle with:

Who are we helping?

To successfully serve, you need to know who you serve. Savvy marketers make their ideal customers’ avatars real.

Who is your Team serving?

What dent are we making?

If you step away from the inbox and your calendar for a moment, what can your team achieve?

What will be different if your Team is successful in all they do?

If that’s unclear or just a little bit “meh,” then perhaps there’s work to be done to clarify the why.

Communications

What’s the data?

Communication has two parts: the data (the facts) and the judgments (our opinions about the facts).

What’s interesting is just how easily we slip from one to the other or how quickly judgments come to resemble facts.

As you make decisions as a Team, ask yourselves, “What do we know to be true?”

What do you want?

An essential element of leading teams is understanding wants and needs.

If you find yourself at odds with someone on your Team, one of the most powerful things you can do is ask them what they want and share what you need.

First, it’s shocking how hard it can be to articulate what you want.

Second, it’s shocking how quickly that knowledge can remove superficiality and focus the conversation on what matters.

Read about communicating

Connection

Who matters?

You can’t treat everyone as if they were equally important to the Team’s goals and ambitions.

Who’s on the A-List among your stakeholders? If you could have only five names, who would they be?

I bet that you’re probably underserving your ‘A-List.’ How could you give them the support and service that they deserve?

Who is on the B-List? You are probably over-serving these stakeholders.

How can you scale back here, so you can direct more time and effort to your A-List?

Accountability

What’s the promise we’re making, and to whom?

Our very first question was, “Who are we helping?”

Now ask, “What’s the promise we’re making to them, and how are we doing delivering on that promise?”

Where are the soft spots?

Where do you need to lift your game?

How can I help?

Ironically, one of the ways we break promises is by over-delivering

We think we know what’s wanted, so rather than check it out and get clear, we leap in and start doing stuff.

Before rushing in, slow down and clarify how you can help them. Sk, “What do you need from me?”

Final Thoughts

Here is your four-point health check for your Team.

The questions may not always be easy to answer, but the answers are vital to your success.

Get clear on the questions, and you will raise your Team’s impact, happiness and focus.

26Apr

Are You ‘Off Message’? How Misaligned Communication Kills Execution

by Steve A Blog, Talking To Your People, Uncategorized

Based on Team of teams: New rules of engagement for a complex world*. Portfolio/Penguin.

Seriously, we’re drowning in noise. Everywhere you look, someone is shouting a message at you, and as leaders, we’re supposed to cut through that noise.

The problem is that most of us try to do it by following a pre-approved, focus-grouped script. That’s a big mistake; that stuff sounds completely fake.

Think about it. When was the last time some boardroom-crafted speech made you feel something? Never.

It’s all sterile and robotic. In a world where AI tries to fake authenticity, we need the real deal more than ever.

Why “On Script” is a Total Fail

Get the 27 powerful, open-ended questions that will improve your communication.

Newsflash: people aren’t robots.

We don’t process information like some algorithms do. We filter it through our biases and experiences. We respond to emotion. That’s why corporate talking points make everyone roll their eyes. Nobody believes them.

You appeal to the receiver’s emotions. Otherwise, it’s just noise.

Forget Buzzwords, Build a Story

We need to abandon top-down messaging and share stories that connect. Stories that evoke emotions. Stories that empower individuals. Stories that foster trust. And that story requires a few key ingredients:

Trust: People need to have faith in you. They must know that they can communicate with you openly.
Shared Understanding: Everyone must be on the same page, not only regarding what, but also why.
Empowered Execution: The people on the ground understand the situation. Allow them to take charge. They will adapt the message to fit their reality.

Six Strategies to Connect with Empathy, But Lead with Compassion

The “Feel” Factor: The Secret Sauce You’re Missing

We all know stories move us. Great writers, musicians, and even brands get it.

But companies? They’re so busy telling people what to do that they forget to consider how people feel. They’re missing the point.

If you want people to listen, care, and take action, you must connect with them on an emotional level.

Be The CRO – 2 Ways to Communicate with Clarity

Ditch the script.

Tell a real story.

And make them feel something.

That’s how you cut through the noise.

Thanks for reading. Please reply at any time with questions or feedback for our Team.

When you’re ready, here are a few ways we can help:

Work with me 1:1: Book a coaching or strategy session to help you achieve your goals for 2025 and beyond!
Book me for your next keynote or event. This message is not just “another keynote.” It inspires, engages, and accelerates you, your Team, and your organization to success!
Organizational Consulting: I have never met a leadership Team that was too stupid to be successful, but he has met teams that were too dysfunctional to succeed.
I am a consultant for leaders who want to make their organizations more effective & more robust. And I do two things:
- I help leadership teams become more robust, better aligned, and clear about their work. I also help develop culture and employees.
- I help organizations struggling with politics, confusion, morale, productivity, turnover, wasted time, money, and energy.

11Feb

How Do You Want People to View Your Advice?

by Steve A Blog, Talking To Your People

Advice.

As leaders, we give quite a bit of it—so much that we probably don’t think that much about it. We need to think much more about it. We need to consider it in three dimensions: why we are delivering it, how we are delivering it, and what we want people to do with it.

Let’s look at each dimension.

Why Are You Giving Advice?

I believe that whether we are thinking about it or not, every time we give advice to anyone (as a leader, parent, spouse, friend, or stranger), we are considering that advice somewhere on the scale between taking it as gospel (do it exactly like this) and its guidance (here’s something to consider). But these two goals aren’t exact or perfect – instead, we see our advice somewhere on this scale:

In my experience, most leaders consistently place their goal for advice on this continuum, whether based on habit or style or without even thinking.

We call the tension between the ends, both/and thinking, the underpinning of being a flexible leader.

There are times when the context warrants your goal being far to the “gospel” left (when the context is clear and the outcomes and situation are known), and times when perhaps there are many unknowns and your experience might be helpful but should be seen on the “guidance” right side of the scale. Even given those considerations, you might have goals for delegating and developing your Team members, leading you to lean to the right or left on this continuum.

First, I would suggest that you be clear about your intention—why are you giving this advice, and how do you want others to use it? If you don’t think about that, how people interpret your advice will be left to their perception, which might not match your goals or needs.

What Do You Want Them to Do with It?

Your answer to this question flows from your intention. Consider this situation and these two employees. You face an apparent problem. You have seen this situation or challenge before and have successfully overcome it with a specific set of reliable steps.

One has been on your Team for a couple of months. He shows promise but lacks extensive experience and doesn’t know all the players involved in the situation well.

The other has been on your Team longer. She does have experience with this situation. She also shows great promise and is ready for advancement and skill development.

I propose that each employee has different contexts, so your intentions for each differ. Based on this information, even though you have a proven process each could follow, you should have slightly different goals for each.

I might lean the intention of my advice to the left for less experienced – giving him more of a “how to” approach and more to the right for the other – giving her guidance and things to consider.

Note that your current intention concerns your experience and knowledge and how you want others to apply it.

Hopefully, it will be in a way that makes either Joel or Jael crystal clear on your expectations.

How are You Delivering it?

The big idea is that your delivery should match your intention and desired action.

Given your positional power, if you want people to follow your advice verbatim, deliver it clearly and maybe even pointedly. If you have a current approach and want them to follow it, clarify it.

But if you want your advice to be seen as guidance – and more suggestion than imperative – make sure that is clear, too. You will likely want to use a softer tone and delivery as well.

As “the boss,” people may likely default to a “yes, boss” belief about your intent unless you are clear about yourself and with them.

Thanks for reading. Please reply at any time with questions or feedback for our Team.

When you’re ready, here are a few ways we can help:

Work with me 1:1: Book a coaching or strategy session to help you achieve your goals for 2025 and beyond!
Book me for your next keynote or event. This message is not just “another keynote.” It inspires, engages, and accelerates you, your Team, and your organization to success!
Organizational Consulting: I have never met a leadership Team that was too stupid to be successful, but he has met teams that were too dysfunctional to succeed.
I am a consultant for leaders who want to make their organizations more effective & more robust. And I do two things:
- I help leadership teams become more robust, better aligned, and clear about their work. I also help develop culture and employees.
- I help organizations struggling with politics, confusion, morale, productivity, turnover, wasted time, money, and energy.

10Jan

As Curious Leaders, What Are The Right The Questions to Ask

by Steve A Blog, Talking To Your People, Uncategorized

How many open-ended, idea-prompting questions do you ask every day?

Do you ask more questions than you give orders or provide answers?

Recently, I worked with a client, and we explored the vital topic of curiosity as a leadership attribute and questioning as a behaviour.

At the start of the work, most individuals assumed their ratio of questions-to-orders/answers would be high.

Read about why leaders need to be curious.

It was their belief they were curious and used open-ended, provocative questions about customers, markets, competitors, processes and so forth. One manager offered, “It’s my job to help them think about the possibilities, not provide the answers.“

Imagine their surprise when a survey of their direct reports demonstrated that their directives and answers significantly outnumbered questions.

I was once called out for blathering instead of listening. I was disappointed to admit that I tended to opine and answer rather than stimulate thinking through listening and questions.

Moving the ratio in the right direction became a developmental exercise for me.

And here’s why I believe this is so important.

Questions are the Seeds of Ideas and Innovations

In a world drunk on the speed of change and filled with uncertainty, the right questions provoke thinking and give way to actions, experiments, and ideas that provoke more questions and beget more ideas.

As the leader, you set the tone for curiosity in your team. Questions free people to think, speculate, and follow threads to strengthen some aspect of the business.

Read about the power of silence in conversations

What Is Your Ratio?

For the next few days, keep a log of the number of times you ask open-ended, exploratory questions (“Did you finish that work?” doesn’t count!) versus issuing answers or directives.

If your ratio is skewed toward the questions, keep it up. If not, here are some question prompts to put to work as part of your developmental activity.

7 Questions to Stimulate Curiosity on Your Team

1. “What if?”

“What if we develop a new product that eats our old one in the marketplace. Will it eat the competitor’s as well?”
“What if we changed this process to empower our employees to make decisions directly with customers without seeking approval from a manager?
“What if we changed our view of who our real competition is in the marketplace?”

2. “What do you know that is new?” Former GE Chairman and CEO Jack Welch, upon first meeting someone would ask, “What do you know that is new?” and took the time to listen to the answers.

6 essential questions that are good for children & employees

3. “What do we need to know to make this decision?” Most decision-making processes are fraught with incomplete data, opinions, and biases. This simple question challenges groups and individuals to consider a problem before making an informed choice.

4. “What does this mean for us/our customers?” I use this question liberally when changes in the external environment, industry, or competitor announcements send everyone into panic mode.

5. “How would you approach this situation if you framed it as an opportunity instead of a problem?” This question forces people to move beyond their defensive mode and into the world of possibilities.

6. “What events in markets and technologies will change everything? This question moves people beyond the four-wall and inside-out thinking.

7. “What are the real burdens our customers hire our products to remove?” Reframing questions about what your products and services do to resolve customers’ problems is a great way to rethink your innovation efforts.

Read about leadership regrets.

Closing Thoughts

If you ask more open-ended, thought-provoking questions, the number of ideas people and teams generate will grow.

Of course, you have to bring those ideas to life.

But for the moment, focus on asking more and directing less.

And see where it takes you.

Remember, your curiosity is contagious.

15Nov

‘The Times They Are A’ Changin’ … 9 Questions To Check If Your Team Is Ready

by Steve A Being A Leader, Blog, Talking To Your People, Uncategorized

There is a proverb that teaches that living in interesting times is both a curse and a blessing.

Most of my clients are facing change or a looming disruption, such as the advent of autonomous and electric trucks in the motor transportation industry.

We, the leaders of organizations, invest inordinate amounts of time in looking over the horizon, divining the future and developing strategic plans to protect and defend our organization or to prepare to exploit the disruption for growth and success.

Leaders and their organizations fail to prepare their people for disruption and whatever its impact is on them, their careers, their families, and their dinner plates.

watch the article where I explore why people are afraid of change

Because the leadership has spent all that time thinking, considering, and envisaging the change, they feel like they are already living in that new place where cats sleep with dogs, it only rains at night, and it is just enough to keep the golf course green.

Our employees only see the change in the area of old maps labelled ‘There Be Dragons.’

How prepared is your organization?

Click the image to download this 9-question assessment to see if you are ready to change ….

If you are not scoring 4s and 5s across the board, your big plans are at risk of being eaten by the dragon.

I have seen battles lost, money squandered, and opportunities frittered away because we have not brought our people along.

22Jun

8 Strategies To Improve Your Virtual and Remote Workplace

by Steve A Blog, Talking To Your People, Uncategorized

Creating a better workplace is hard.

Creating a better workplace virtually is the same as in person, but 8 times as hard

Consider doubling down on these eight strategies to improve your virtual and remote workplace:

Make the conversation as “rich” as possible.

People often think first about using webcams. Of course, they add richness by allowing you to see facial expressions, body language and the like.

But richness also considers the ability to share documents, so you are both looking at the same data and information and making the conversation a legitimate 2-way conversation in real-time.

When coaching, follow a process.

Many of us use a model for our coaching conversations to guide our discussions, we may also take notes. The same is true online.

Make sure the person knows what you’re doing so that when your eyes drift off-camera to check your list, or if they hear your fingers on a keyboard. Let them know that it is in service to your coaching conversation, and not a distraction.

Start conversations with, “So, what do you have?”

Too often we start with what’s on our list, then ask the employee, “So, what do you have?”

By finding out what is top of mind for the other person, you can address what’s most important or most concerning to them.

You need to do everything possible to reinforce the idea that this is about them, not you.

The secret of asking ‘And Waht Esle?”

Stick to schedules and time frames.

When working remotely, time with the boss is precious and your people look forward to having your attention more than you might think.

When you are constantly rescheduling or keeping an eye on the clock, it sends the message that this coaching time isn’t as important as other duties. What might seem like no big deal to you can send a powerful message about your priorities and where they fit in that list.

Create more pathways

One of the biggest mistakes made in communicating virtually across an organization is assuming that since you have said it, it has been communicated.

Creating more pathways means having more ways and methods of sharing messages. Townhall-type sessions have a limited value. Emails and slide decks are never enough. Cascading communication is helpful but can lose clarity.

The solution isn’t finding one communication pathway but using more of them more often.

Allow more feedback loops

Even one-on-one communication is hard without a feedback loop.

While we know that, we don’t often create the sort of feedback loops we need in an organization.

Do people have ways of asking meaningful questions? If they do, are they used (and are the questions answered)? Make sure people at all levels have more chances and ways to ask a question, share a concern or make a point and feel safe in doing so.

Communicate more frequently

Once is never enough.

Organizations create ad campaigns knowing that messages need to be repeated, but often shy away from repeating internal messages often enough. Research shows that a message needs to be heard at least seven times to be assimilated.

Leaders must become the CRO (Chief Reminder Officer) and communicate their most important messages over and over and create an overarching message that is part of all communications.

Category Talking To Your People

Vision

Connection