 Hello and welcome to today's Red Back Business Skills webcast series. I'm Michael Bunker, I'm an employee here at Red Back Conferencing. I am joined today by Catherine Holliman. Catherine, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. I'm really excited about today's topic because I know we're talking about communicating to create a high-performing team. So once again, Catherine, thank you so much for taking the time. So you're joining us from behind-the-scenes communications. Great. Great. So look, before we get started, guys, I'm just going to go into asking the audience to you guys a question. So how effective is your communication? So this is a poll. So this will be coming up on your screen right now. So Catherine, you've been in this space for a while. You've been doing these talks for a while. So tell me, how do people normally rate themselves on their communication? Normally, could be better, which is fair enough. It's a skill, so it could always all be better. Well, the audience is starting to submit their responses now via the poll question. So I'll wait a little while longer just because I can see it all coming through. I know I try the best intentions when it comes to my communicating, but it sometimes fall a little flat. So I'm going to probably put myself down to somewhat effective on it. The different options that we have for you guys is not effective, somewhat effective, very effective, and extremely effective. We're going to close the poll now or stop the poll. So I've got 54.5% of the audience saying somewhat effective, which is where I would have put myself as well. So you guys are in luck because this is why we're having the topic today because we know that communication is key for any organization and the success of it. So the next thing I want to ask is what high-performing teams can you think of? So for the audience out there, use the ask a question button in the bottom right-hand corner of your screen and you can start typing in different teams that you think are high-performing. So Catherine, tell me, what are some of the high-performing teams that you consider out there in the poll today? I mean, you can't go past sports teams. So you think of the All Blacks, for example. I mean, a prime example of a high-performing team. For me, somebody working on a production crew of a movie is a part of a high-performing team. You watch the movie credits roll and the endless people are part of that team to make the movie. It was amazing to me. But working in a hospital, high-performing team right there operating on those patients. But right down through to a small team, a family. Mum and Dad trying to get the kids to work on time, the kids to work, the kids to school. Getting the kids to school, yeah. Well, from the audience, we've got a couple of people that have come through. Sports teams are the ones that people are saying. We've also got on TV shows. I've got one that's come through from Road Crash Rescue teams, which absolutely, I wouldn't even consider that. So yeah, I guess your state emergency services and stuff like that. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, any others there? Not at the moment. We got train workers. Yeah. Yeah. They come from Karen. Thank you so much for that. And yeah. Teams dig. They come in all shapes and sizes. You know, from thousands, millions even, right down to, as I said, just a couple, but they all have one thing in common, and that is that their success relies on effective communication. Communication, yeah. And you can't get anywhere without effective communication. So I thought what we'd start with is a definition of what effective communication actually is. So if you think of communication, it's a process. It's a process of using signals, so words, voice, body language, behaviors, to share information and exchange ideas and share thoughts and feelings with somebody else. Now, when that message is heard and interpreted and understood as the sender intended, then what you have is shared understanding. And so the communication is said to have been effective because the message sent is equal to the message received. Conversely, if there is misunderstanding, misunderstanding, misinterpretation, then you have confusion and that's really class's ineffective communication. So the audience or the receiver hasn't received the message that the sender had intended. And in personal lives, in business lives, that ineffective communication can have really negative impact. So let's take somebody mentioned about responders to an emergency environment. And absolutely, there's a high-performing team right there, but if there's ineffective communication amongst that team, it can sometimes be the difference between life and death. There are really serious consequences there. Less serious perhaps, but still very serious for themselves would be sports teams. Ineffective communication can be the difference between winning or losing. But again, take it right down to the family unit. Ineffective communication at home can mean there's no food in the fridge because wasn't sure who was going shopping because kids' uniforms aren't clean. In a business context, though, which is really what we're here to talk about today, ineffective communication can result in lost time, resources, employees, customers, and even your reputation as a leader. There's been countless studies on the cost of poor communication. So David Grossman in the U.S. did a research survey amongst large businesses. So with over 100,000 employees, big teams, and per year, per company, they cited an average loss of over 62 million U.S. dollars per year per company as a result of ineffective communication between or two and between the team. But it's not just big teams. So SIS International did research for small-to-medium organizations, and they found that 17.5 hours a week is spent clarifying miscommunication. That's 40% of the work week. That's absolutely crazy, because I look at this as well. And I know you've got employee engagement and retention there, but the time and productivity in a business like Redback, where we are service delivery and we're actually working with customers, if our event managers or project managers weren't effectively communicating, that 17 hours of clarification and everything can be blown out even more. Yeah, absolutely. I would totally agree. Is that a minimum? Can you imagine, particularly for small teams, what you could achieve as a team if you got those 17.5 hours back, how much more productive you could be. And that really is the difference in between ineffective communication, which we've just talked about, and the power of effective communication. So effective communication, as I mentioned before, is really what creates shared understanding. So everybody knows what they're on board for. Everybody knows their role. They know what's expected of them, and they know what they're working towards. So there's that shared understanding, that meeting of meaning. And that really creates a platform for trust to be built. And trust, as we know from the likes of Gallup and Great Places to Work and many employee engagement surveys, it is one of the driving forces behind high employee engagement. Now Gallup defines a highly engaged employee as somebody who's invested in their work, invested in their workplace. So they're committed to it. They're dedicated to it. And as a result, what we find is that they tend to put in extra discretionary effort, and that increases their performance, and then that produces greater results for themselves, but also for the team as a whole, and for the business or the organization, but also for other stakeholders, so your customers, for example. So effective communication isn't the sole source of these great results, but it goes a long, long way to helping to achieve these fantastic results. If you look at some research again by Gallup, they found that employees or employers who've achieved high engagement scores in their culture, they're able to achieve four times the success levels of those with lower engagement scores. And Towers Watson did a survey a few years back around the return of shareholders and highly effective communicators were able to deliver 47% higher total returns to their shareholders than organizations with less effective communicators. So what you're finding here is that, think back to those high-performing teams that we mentioned at the beginning, behind every high-performing team, you'll find a highly effective communicator. So really important, and that's something that I'd be really interested. Well, yeah. Well, let's open this back up to the audience again. So guys out there, which leaders do you consider to be highly effective communicators? So again, use the ask a question button in the bottom right-hand corner. Type in a couple of leaders that you think. So Catherine, tell me, who do you think out there in the world right now would be a highly effective communicator? So there's a few that spring to mind on a global level. You've got Obama. We were having a conversation earlier about whether Trump should be up here and, I mean, in some discretion, yes. Yes, he should. I don't want to be on the list, but for anyone who communicated effectively, he did it. That hurts me to say it's American. He did, yeah. Highly effective team. His campaign team. Yes, it was amazing. They got the results. But the likes of Steve Jobs, he was a fantastic communicator. Richard Branson, Elon Musk, Oprah Winfrey. They've all built really high-performing teams as a result, by and large, due to their... Sorry, I just got something from Karen online. Thank you. She said not Donald Trump. Not Donald Trump. She shouldn't be in there, but kind of should at the same time. We don't want to give it to him, but I'm going to say we kind of have to. Richard Branson's come through as well, again. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, closer to home, you've got the likes of the founders of Atlassian. Scott Farmer, Matt Cannon, Briggs. Great communicators, though. High-performing team. Michael Abid from SBS, he's just been voted CEO of the year. Yep. Lisa Messenger, Gail Kelly. All of these guys have built really high-performing teams, and they're all great communicators. Yeah. Got some of the comedians in here. Jimmy Kimmel has come in. Yeah. So, not one I would have thought of off the bat, but I absolutely agree. Yeah. Good communicator. Perfect. Let's continue on. I think the key with these guys is that they all understand the power of purposeful communication. And by purposeful communication, I mean, they communicate with a purpose. So, back to Donald Trump, he had a purpose, and that was to get elected, and to communicate in a way that led to that. And that's why... Anyway, we'll leave that to him. We'll leave it to him. We'll leave it to him. But yeah, it's a purposeful communication. Absolutely. And it's so key because we're doing it anyway. We're constantly communicating something. And in a team environment, you're constantly communicating messages. You're sending signals. You're delivering words. You're acting and behaving in a certain way. So, it's about making those signals more purposeful with intent. Yep. And as the leader of a team, that purpose for your communication should really be to inform, inspire, engage, and unite your whole team. So, by informing, I mean, you need to inform your team of all that they need to know to be able to do their job to the best of their ability. And you need to inspire them to go the extra mile to be committed to their work, to be the third one they're engaged in their work, because that's when the magic happens. But primarily, you need to work to unite everybody behind a common vision, a common purpose, a common goal and direction. Because that's when, again, if you think of those high-performing teams, they're all blacks. They all know exactly what role they need to play. They know how they contribute, and they know what they're trying to achieve. And that's the power of this, and that if you can inform, inspire, engage, and unite your team behind a common vision, goal or purpose, then it results in everybody pulling in that same direction. And that's where change happens. That's where you get those fantastic results, because everybody's contributing towards the same result. It's really quite powerful, and there's lots of messages that you can do to help you achieve that, because that's probably an obvious question that you might have there, and how do you go about informing, inspiring, engaging, and uniting your team? What sort of messages should you be sending? So I think you look here to the best of the best. You look to what they're doing, what the companies who have got the high-performing teams, what are they doing? If you look at some of the engagement surveys, the questions that they ask, many of those questions that they ask employees to rate are around communication. So we've got some of them there on the screen. Communication flows effectively from upper management to frontline employees, or when good or bad things happen, and that's really important, good or bad things. Absolutely, yes. It's not all sunshine and roses, but your managers tell you about it. I don't know if you've ever been on the wrong end of ineffective communication. Oh, yes, I think everyone has. Yeah, it's horrible. You feel confusing, you feel a bit lost in the dark, whereas one of the main things that you should be communicating, or could be communicating, is the mission and the purpose. That's probably the primary one, is to start connecting your team with that vision and purpose for your business, because whilst 82% of senior managers have a vision or a purpose and a direction for their team, and again, this doesn't matter whether it's a team of two, or a team of 2,000. It's still, you know, where are you now and where do you want to get to? You might have that, but only 38% of managers effectively communicate it in a way that their team connect with. There's a big difference here if we go back to the definition of communication that we talked about at the beginning. Yep. It's one thing to say it, it hasn't been understood by the audience, so in this case, by your team. So that means, have they connected with it? So you may have a vision, you may have communicated in a way that, I mean, you've told your team, but have you communicated it effectively? Do they really understand it? Do they connect with it? Gallup Research has found that even just a 10% improvement in connecting your team with your vision and purpose for your team can have great impact. So it reduces employee turnover by 8%, and it can increase profitability by 4%. So just that slight shift in connecting with your purpose for your team can make huge inroads. It really can. And those stats still astound me. Yeah. Now, I think I think every manager and every employee has always struggled with the communication aspect at one point in their career or not, but yeah, it is that understanding, clearly articulating and making sure that they've connected the dots to see how they are actually impacting what you're trying to achieve. Really? Yeah. It's so important, there's a start there, 41%, this again was from a Gallup survey, but only 41% of employees in the survey cited that they know what my company stands for and how it differentiates to competitors. So again, if you think back to the high-performing teams, they all have really, really strong visions, really strong purpose. They know why people show up to work every day, whether it's like Atlassian to unleash the potential of every team or Virgin employees to change business for good, no matter which part of Virgin business you're in. It's all in the same message. Everybody's in that same direction. Westpac, they aim to help communities, people, customers to prosper and grow. That's their vision, that's their purpose. And Gail Kelly, the former CEO of Westpac, was quoted in an interview saying, her communication of that purpose is absolutely key to their success. She talks about it everywhere. And as a result in their last employee engagement surveys, 97%, that's a huge response rate, but 97% of their employees have said, yes, I understand how the work I personally do supports the vision of the company. And as I mentioned before, if you can unite everybody behind that, then you've got all these people, everybody in your team, working to achieve it. That's where massive results happen. That's so fantastic for alignment, for productivity and to get those huge results as a team. So that's ultimately, we talked before about what sort of messages should you be or could you be communicating to your team to help with the performance. And that's where I'd start, is start connecting them to the big picture. So think about what's your vision? What's your purpose for your team? And what's the strategy and the plan to help you achieve that? What are some of the key measures of success? But fundamentally, how can individuals contribute? Make sure that there's a clear line of sight between the individual's role and the big picture. I'll be printing out this line. And secondly then, there's a quote on here that I love, and I have to start with it, because Tom Roll and Barry Contrary, so they wrote the book, Strengths Based Leadership. And in there, they write that a leader charging forward without any followers is just out for a walk. And I think that's such a great quote, because it's absolutely true. You might have the best vision. You might have the most profound purpose. You might have a really clear plan and direction. But if you've got nobody following you, if nobody's bought into it, if nobody's connected with that, well, then you're isolated. You're on your own trying to do all the heavy lifting. So the other messages that you need to send into your team are messages that instill confidence in the future, but also in today and in you as a leader. So they want to know that they can trust you, that you have their back, that you're in it for the long haul, that you are going to do all that you can to help drive towards that vision and what they can expect from you as well as what you expect from them. The same book there from Gallup, they talk about the four needs of followers, what inspires a follower to follow a leader. And it's four things. So stability, hope, compassion and trust. So you need to communicate messages that instill confidence in today, in the security of their job, that the business is safe, that the team is doing well, or even if it's not doing well, that they are well equipped to face any challenges. Then you need to also communicate messages of hope of the future and messages that instill confidence in yourself. And lastly I think, messages that foster a culture of collaboration. You are all in it together, it is about uniting your team. So any sorts of messages that you can send that talk about the successes that you've had as a team, we've achieved this together, imagine what else we can achieve if we do this. So it's about sharing experiences, good experiences, bad experiences, but you're all in it together. And if you can do that, if you work to break down silos, then it goes a long way towards achieving your purpose of informing, engaging, inspiring and uniting your team. Very nice. Question. Question. Well, yeah. This is going to be a question for the audience. And so this isn't a poll or asking you guys to type anything in the chat box. I really just want to leave this up on the screen and ask to every one of you is, do you have a purpose, vision and or mission that your team knows, understands and connects with? Because I think that is a struggle that everyone has. I know that there's probably a bit of a disconnect between some of the members of my team and what we're trying to achieve. So I'm already in my head trying to address that and how I'm going to effectively communicate it after this. So yeah, just everyone think about that while we're going to the next part of this presentation. I think you mentioned a good part there in terms of how to effectively communicate it. We've talked a lot. You know why communication is important? I think we've covered that and people already have an innate understanding of why it's important. Yes. Hopefully I've just shared some of the messages that you should be communicating in terms of connecting them. But it's a big difference to then know it and to do it. So there's Warren Buffett, the quote there on the screen, talks about if you lack the skills to effectively communicate and to get your ideas across to other people, then you're not fulfilling your potential. And as a leader, your potential really exists or relies on your ability to persuade your team to follow you. Your role as a leader is to paint the picture and then persuade them. But in order to persuade your team to follow you on your path and to help you achieve the vision that you have for your team, you first need to connect with them and to connect with them, you need to be able to communicate with clarity, credibility and compassion. Yes. I call this my connection point framework. Everybody loves a good friend diagram. So connection point is really important. You need to be able to communicate with all three variables before you find that connection with your team and set the stage to persuade them to follow you. So the reason that you need all three is you might be clear and concise in your communication and you might have a lot of knowledge and authority on your subject. You might be a credible leader. But if you're always communicating from your point of view, from your perspective and you lack empathy and understanding of your team's perspective, then they're going to see you as self-serving and so they're not really going to connect with you. They're not going to buy into you as a leader. They're not going to join you on that journey. Conversely, you might have the clarity and concision in your communication and you might have taken the time to really understand your team's point of view to get to know them. But you might lack credibility by way of you might not really believe what you're saying or you might not know what you're talking about and in which case they're not going to believe you either. They're not really going to trust in you and they're going to see you as untrustworthy so then they won't connect with you. They won't follow you as a leader. Then on the flip side, you might have that trust and credibility and you might have taken the time to really get to know your team and understand their hopes, their fears, their wants, their needs, their driving motivators. But if they can't follow you and really understand what you're talking about then you're going to confuse them and if we're confused, then think back to that communication process. 17 hours. 17 hours and ravelling, miscommunication and so you're not going to connect with them, they're not going to buy into you, they're not going to follow you on the journey. But if you can learn to communicate with clarity, credibility and compassion, then you'll connect more meaningfully with your team and that will help you set the stage to persuade them to buy into your vision, to buy into you as a leader and all charge in that same direction and that's where you start seeing the results of high-performing teams. Very nice. Perfect. Okay guys, we've got another poll question for you. So the poll's going to pop up on the screen in just a moment but which do you struggle with the most in your communication? So clarity, credibility, compassion. Out of those three, which do you think? So you've been doing this for a while and you've educated a lot of people. Where do people think they fall short? Where do they think they struggle the most with? How do I do all this? There's a lot to think about here and it's a real mix and this is in it for the long haul so you can't build credibility, for example, overnight. You build it day in, day out, minute in, minute out whereas something like clarity, it comes down to your day-to-day communication. You can see the changes of that instantly. So I think the biggest mistake that I see people make is that they think it's a short term and it's a long-term process. Perfect. Well, we've got a number of responses from the audience and I also thank you all so much for participating in the poll. We've got about 54.5% of the people saying clarity and then 13% saying credibility and 31% saying compassion for this result. So thank you guys so much. Well, hopefully we can help you with some of those. The theory's always great but it's about the practical implementation so I hope that some of these tips and tricks will really help you start to improve your day-to-day communication in whichever area is most applicable to you. So I'll start with clarity and in particular one of the things to start really is about understanding how you think about your team. Where is your team now? Where do you want to be? How are you going to get there? What do you value as a leader? Who are you as a leader? What are the key messages that you want to get across? You need to get clear on those in your own mind before you can actually start articulating them to your team. So, perhaps write down some or take the time to think about what's your purpose for the team? What's your vision for the team? What direction and what are your values as a leader and how can people contribute? Once you know that then you can start to communicate it outwardly to your team and one of the ways that we communicate one of the signals that we send is through our written work emails, newsletters, blog posts, however it might be but in that written communication remember that we're all human. So don't just write about the facts don't just write about the sales figures or the profit number or the market share it's about the feelings as well remember you're communicating to individuals so find a balance between facts and feelings and your written communication makes sense. We talked about earlier with the collaboration of the team and sharing success stories and everything so the technology we're using today which is just education and inspiring we also use it internally for our sales development and training so we use this for the purpose of doing a similar setup right now where I'll be interviewing one of the sales guys on deals they've been doing how they do it, what were the stress points and all that stuff but it does come down to this the facts and feelings is where you can portray facts, details but also can try the emotional journey and stuff that does allow people to connect and you just shared a story there and that's why stories are so great in writing because it allows you to make the general more personal and it allows people to connect and that's what we're trying to do here is to connect with your team so that's one way facts and feelings in your writing also keep your writing simple keep it simple and succinct nobody reads legal documents I do because they're so convoluted and so wordy this is everyday language your team want to be able to understand you they need to follow your train of thought you don't want to confuse them so keep your language simple and then lastly another thing is to re-read things all too often people just kind of go blurt it out and hit send on the email or hit publish on a blog post without going back and thinking does it make sense so always re-read it and think what did I intend to achieve what was my key message here has that come across have I articulated myself accurately is it easy to read is it easy to follow and easy to understand you know writing is always a tricky one because people read it with their own emotional intent so they can read a very different way from how you portrayed it especially in heightened emotional situations or high stress situations if you had a bad day and you've written an important email off the back of this emotionally charged experience always pause go away re-read it because again it's all about if you think about that communication process it's all about your audience I always remember that I sent an email once by a manager when I was working for a company and the manager said can I see you on Monday and they sent this at Friday at 5 o'clock oh god so it's just simple things like that are you sending it at the right time and what are you putting in it to alleviate any misinterpretation and therefore ineffective communication so next we've got verbal communication so you might have written this fantastic presentation this keynote speech but the way that you use your voice can actually change the meaning of those words so it's really important to think well how can I use my voice to maximum effect to start connecting with my team and you've got great tools in your verbal toolbox so she says hitting her microphone so you've got your voice you've got your volume you've got your emphasis so where you place the intonation and the emphasis you've got the rate at which you speak the pitch, the tone, the range you've got the articulation you've got the use of your lungs which is like your power source to your breath so really start tuning into your own voice listen to yourself I know a lot of people don't like that but if you just listen to yourself to see how or year rather how you come across to your audience and to your team members you'll start thinking well if I think I sound monotone then my team will probably think I sound monotone so how can I inject a bit more enthusiasm into my voice so that they get enthused by what I'm talking about and simple things like that can go a long way to helping connect and the last part here is about articulation especially if you're trying to increase somebody's understanding of what you're saying if it's a complex subject taking the time to really articulate your words accurately is really important and lastly on the clarity side we've got non-verbal communication and this kind of falls into two parts one is your body language, your facial expressions and then the other side is what are the non-verbal tools do you use like signals, diagrams for example like the one you see on the screen now you're trying to communicate a message so use all the signals available to you to help you communicate it so in this instance right here right now I'm using my words, I'm using my voice I'm using my body language and I'm using the slides that are on the screen so we've got four signals that I'm hoping is getting the message across to you movement's one of my big ones I talk with my hands and I get very loud so this is to keep me restrained I read a quote once about if you get an Italian to sit on his hands you're rendering him speechless I thought well I'm not Italian but maybe I shouldn't be but when it comes to your body language just again tune into your remember the nursery rhyme head, shoulders, knees and toes and just think about well where's my head am I keeping my head down is my head proud and I feel a sense of confidence so you need to make sure that your body language is mirroring your words it's one thing if you're giving a talk to your team, a team meeting if you need to instill confidence but you're sitting small and you're shrinking into yourself when you actually need to project confidence so start tuning into your body language to make sure that it's reinforcing and it's in harmony with your written communication and your verbal communication perfect okay well it goes into another poll question for our audience okay everyone so on the screen right now we're launching another poll to go into our next section so where can you improve the clarity of your communication so we just went through all of this right now so this is the practical side of things so after hearing that where can you improve clarity of your communication I think definitely one of the ones that I would be looking to do in the future is my verbal side because I think I'm quite an emotional person in all the best ways it's not a bad way I'm not going to just do it for no reason but I'm reactive to my emotions because that's what drives me I fight for customers I like to work internally and make sure things are happening but I get a little bit too passionate in my email sometimes and do exactly what you say run over keyboard warrior hit send and then instantly regret what I've just sent instantly I think that's a great one and it's something that you can start to do today there's no reason why you can't implement some of these immediately using this as practical tools to help improve your communication with your team so the audience has come back and thank you guys so much for participating where can you improve the clarity of your communication so we've got 10% in thinking 16% saying writing 53% saying verbal and 19% saying non-verbal really good mix perfect the next thing we have is credibility credibility is a long term game so we talked about clarity in your communication and you can start to make improvements in that straight away and see the impact as a result credibility is more about the long term and it's how can you communicate in a way that helps you entrust and build credibility and that's how credibility is defined credibility is probably the number one reason in fact it is cited by researchers as the number one reason people follow a leader so it's really important to start thinking well in my daily communication with my team how can I build credibility how can I entrust and first and foremost tell the truth open and honest there's no room and no need for insincerity with your team so open honest authentic communication is what's called for that's how you build your credibility it's about keeping your word it's about making realistic promises and following through the expression talk the talk walk the walk it's one thing saying something whether it's written communication written and verbal or presentation but you need to follow through if something goes wrong or mistakes are made that's okay we're all human we all make mistakes but be accountable own up to the issue take responsibility and be accountable that's a great quality in terms of a great way to help at least build trust and entrust absolutely the next one is knowledge and expertise so share we tend to trust people that are able to help us solve problems or to provide insight to help us progress in our lives so if you've got knowledge and expertise in an area then share that knowledge generously with your team to help them progress and provide insights it's not about being and know it all here it's about using your knowledge and experience it's what you're doing today but yeah exactly right it is what I'm doing today so think about ways that you can share knowledge and your experience so far and what has got you to where you are today with your team members so they too can progress and can learn more perfect and then lastly it's about having confidence and conviction not only in yourself as a leader but in your vision for the team in your ability to achieve it and in your team's ability to achieve it so that confidence and conviction is really key it's about self assurance it's not about arrogance there's a huge difference between being assured and being arrogant so it's about having that self belief and it's not just about having it it's about demonstrating it in your communication so the way that you write the way that you use your voice the way that you hold yourself and conduct yourself not just in presentations and from the stage but how you greet people how you greet your team in the morning how you address them in a team meeting it all should signify this confidence in you as a leader and in your team and in your abilities as a team perfect we're looking at credibility now let's go into another poll question so that's the why how are you guys going to put this into practice so how will you build your credibility through your communication so on this poll question we got truth and authenticity knowledge and expertise confidence and conviction so straight off the bat I think knowledge and expertise is one of my favorites when I look at people doing the credibility I love running these business skills series because I get to work with lovely people like yourself but you get to expose people into the knowledge and expertise while also upskilling and educating other people out there because you never know by giving out into the world you want to take it back and that's what it's all about isn't it you expect something from your team so by sharing this knowledge freely you're helping them to live up to your expectations so why wouldn't you share it what's the danger of it audience thank you so much everyone participating in the poll we've got 23% saying truth and authenticity we've got 52% saying knowledge which is great and then 23% saying confidence and conviction so there's a nice great split there so thank you guys so much let's look at the last part of your circle and Stephen Covey in his book 7 Habits Highly Effective People the sixth habit and brilliant habit to adopt is seek first to understand then to be understood and I think that goes a really long way in terms of explaining really what I mean by compassion it's not about sympathy it's not about being the other person from their perspective and understanding them so that you can communicate in a way that connects with them so be present, ask questions get to know your team if you think of the most effective leader that you've perhaps had in your life think about the time that they would have taken to get to know you as an individual I can think of some great managers that I've had where it wasn't all just work and I'm not saying you need to go out for beers or coffees but you need to just ask questions show genuine interest in them use active listening techniques to show that you're seeking to understand to deepen your understanding and really engage them in that conversation to help demonstrate and to help you improve your communication with them I love the diagram I can't remember who does it but it's the iceberg model where you only see above the surface level of the water a never understanding of truly below what's happening in a person's life and it's only by asking questions and taking it interested you'll actually see below the surface so yeah, that listen and learn very much so and then let's say about flexing your style by that in mind we all have our individual personalities we all have our unique styles and the way that we like to do things the way that we like to communicate but as a leader the onus is kind of on you to flex your style in order to match or mirror your team members people like to spend time with people that they feel comfortable with so it's in your best interest to help you connect with your team just to learn how to flex your style a little bit by that I mean if you've got a a shouter in your team perhaps meet them with a bit more volume than you would do normally mirror body language and I don't mean exactly what they say you scratch your head but make them feel comfortable or work to make them feel more comfortable and the best way to do that is to observe them if you can see that somebody's acquired a person then tone it down a bit be a little bit more relaxed with them if you can see that somebody is a bit more formal then perhaps become a little bit less formal yourself or conversely if you see somebody who likes the rules and the regulations then meet them with that to help them feel more comfortable and to help you connect with that individual and the last one is about knowing your filters so we'll run on our own sort of operating software and that's based on the lens or the frame of which we view the world we will have our own lens and much like the lens on your smartphone where you take a photo and you put the lens on top of it you've got filters to change the perspective and that's really what you need to understand from your own perspective that what lenses or what filters do you have in place that may bias your communication so the way in which you not only send communication but also the way in which you interpret it the more familiar you can become the more aware you can become of your own filters so for example each group in relation to your team, your gender, your background, your ethnicity your work experience your sporting interest or non-sporting interest whatever it might be but these all frame the way in which you view the world and so therefore inform how you start to communicate so if you can understand your own you can remove any bias and likewise if you can learn to understand any filters that your team members might have then you can start communicating the way that matches them or that will connect more meaningfully with them we were talking before about age differences in big teams and the need to communicate with a 25 year old and a 55 year old there's a huge filters that play there just from an age perspective alone in terms of how they view the world and your role as a leader is to get to know those filters so that you can get through them and really hit home and start to connect with each of those team members accordingly and it's really important to remember that one size doesn't fit all so you can't just send a blank email out to the team and expect everybody to interpret and to understand it the way in which you intended if you haven't catered for the different filters and that's something that we'll touch on shortly around how to go about doing that perfect well that leads us into our final poll for today so everyone out there so how can you show more compassion in your communication so we've got listen flexing my style and know the filters and we spoke just briefly before we went live today about I had a member of my team who English was the second language and every time I was trying to provide feedback or anything their face would scrunch up and they get the body language would completely change and I thought it was an arrogant thing that they thought they knew more than me and it wasn't until I realized that they were actually translating what I was saying in English back into the first language and the look on their face was trying to just understand it so it completely changed the way I was communicating with that person afterwards because I was getting very defensive it was like why do they just think they know better than me but it wasn't until I flexed my style and changed and actually looked at them with compassion it was like oh no I'm actually doing this completely wrong so the audience perfect so we've got 34% of you guys saying that listening is one of them flexing my style with only 7% and then know the filters 57% so quite a large side there is the difference that that can make so that's a circle complete so tell us more so the biggest barriers to this actually taking place is a lack of consistency as I mentioned at the beginning this is a long haul thing communication is a life skill Richard Branson describes it as the most important skill that a leader can have so it's about making sure that you're embedding this day in day out and it takes time there's no denying it it starts to get blurred messages and an inconsistent picture of you as a leader and these are just images of the leaders that we mentioned before and if you can't see them if they don't know the real you if you're communicating with them in one way one day and then another way another day and it's inconsistent over time then that whole trust will be jeopardized and so it's about thinking how can I be consistent in my communication with them that is with the communications plan it doesn't have to be complex but it does just need to have a few things in mind that hopefully I can share with you now so first and foremost before you put together a plan ask your team make sure you ask them how do they want to be communicated with what information do they need to know and want to know what frequency do they want to receive the communication what channels do they want to receive the communication through and again some people will say email other people will say I want face to face and that brings me to the next point there you need to have a mix of channels one size doesn't fit all so as a leader it's about making sure you are getting your key message across so you want to make sure they understand your vision for the team and how they can all play a role you don't just communicate it once you have to consistently communicate it through a mix of these channels and it goes then to the third point there was a conversation I was having with the client I was just like I'm so bored of just saying the same thing over and over again that's fine you might be but your team won't be just because you've said it it doesn't mean that they have heard it interpreted it and understood it as you intended and it's not a flash in the pan particularly when it comes to messages around your purpose and your vision that's more of a long term message but it warrants repeating it is about having a consistent feedback loop and you consistently checking in with your team to make sure that they have understood you as you intended that there is in fact shared understanding that your communication has been effective and you're not going to hit the mark every single time but it's like any plan it's a moving piece so it's about changing and tweaking it to make sure that you're getting that cut through over time as much as possible and lastly it's about practice practice practice like any skill it takes practice so start thinking about this for the long term rather than just like today I'm going to change it and all will be done ticking the box next not really realistic well everyone we do have a few minutes left we're probably going to run over if you guys have any questions that you'd like to submit please ask a question button in the bottom right hand corner for those of you that do have to leave us now because we have taken up our 45 minutes thank you so much for joining us we will have this online in the next 48 hours for you to come back to our workshop watching the Q&A section but Catherine before the three main key takeaways that you want to give people right now because you've gone through a lot of information what are the three main things that you want to leave our viewer I'll probably just drill it down to one to one key message for you is that there's something of a paradox in the simplicity of communication but in its complexity it's very simple to understand and I'm sure that viewers have been saying yep I know that I know that I know that and that's great the complexity comes particularly during times of high stress or high stakes or when we're busy in terms of communication tends to fall by the way but the problem is it doesn't fall by the way because we're constantly communicating something to another person and so in your team so it's about tuning in to the messages that you're sending because you're communicating with them anyway so start practicing purposeful communication and start communicating on purpose in order to inform inspire, engage and unite your team then that's really when you'll start to see the results happening that's when they'll start to get more engaged that's where they'll start to put in that extra effort but it all starts with effective communication nice very good well Piper thank you so much again for joining us I got a lot out of this and I know my team's got to get a lot out of this afterwards one question from the online audience so Karen's asked how do you delicately inform someone else that their communication style especially clarity is lacking especially if they're more senior open honest authentic communication say I would sit the person down first off I'd check and observe them how you think they like to receive the information and if it warrants more of an informal chat take them for a coffee and say I've been a bit confused around this and there's perhaps let them know I'd like to receive communication and what works for you and then prompt the question how do they like to be communicated with and hopefully that will just open the dialogue for you then to make improvements perfect I got a question from Luke and he's asked how do I know if I've been effective in his communications that goes back to what is the purpose of your communication what how do you want to measure the success so we typically communicate with a reason to inform or to educate for example in this a way that I know if I've been effective is whether or not you're answering the questions to the poll whether or not you're submitting any questions yourselves if this was a live conversation it would be if there were nods of the heads if you were taking notes so that's how I would start to gauge my effectiveness and then obviously the ultimate test is if I was to check back in with you in a weeks time or two weeks time and then a year time is that feedback loop in place so think about with any piece of communication whether it's a single email or whether it's about the purpose of your team and benchmark where you are now and where you want to be and see if it's instilled a change in behaviour perfect so I have a question from Guy what are the best communication channels to use depends on your audience yes but it's always a case of a mix of channels in particular from a team perspective firstly ask them as I mentioned before ask them how they like to receive their information now that's not always easy to do particularly if you've got a remote team but there's technology is a great thing exactly as we're doing here today use technology to send a survey and say how do you want to receive information when do you want to receive it do you prefer online offline one way two way there should always be a mix of one way communication from you out to your team but two way make sure that they're able to communicate back to you I really like that I didn't think about it in that way some of the technologies in the marketplace and I know our delivery team they use WhatsApp chat for all their on-site communications and that's even blast up messages for updates to platform everything it's not a conventional corporate communication tool but it works for them we even have snapback conferencing there's a snapback snapchat channel of stuff that happens on sites and everything so it's fun and it's informative so there are a bunch of different technologies you can use out in the marketplace but it is that as you've just said there should be a two way communication receiving and giving feedback as well as communications as well as the one way that direct communication that you need to be providing it's all about asking them and then creating a mix I've got a question from Paul is there such a thing as over communicating with your team there's such a thing as creating noise for the sake of creating noise but in terms of consistently communicating the big picture and how individuals can and are contributing to success then no it's the repetition of it as long as it's for a purpose and again it goes back to ask your team what they want to receive because there's no point in spending all this time putting together a load of communication materials just for it to fall on deaf ears so you might as well take the time up front to find out how they want to receive their communication to find out anyone else that has any questions please send them through we'd love to get to them in the next couple of minutes but for our audience who are joining today well like giving away but you provide a free consultation session where it's a one on one session which is great so at the bottom of your screens next to the ask a question button is a link just there so you can submit a form and Catherine will reach out to you straight away but look our audience you've provided a lot of information to today and you've covered a lot of stuff that people do need to implement what's the number one mistake that you have seen from people who know that they have to do all this and then they jump into it what's the big mistake to avoid I think to give yourself time to know that it is a nudge forward nudge forward like any skill and I was talking to an entrepreneur last night who has the flip the switch has suddenly flipped and he's just understood the power that effective purposeful communication can have on his team but he's in it for the long haul and if you are if you think back to the greatest leaders that you've had in your life and their communication skills you know that they would have been practiced and practiced over time so stick with it nice got a question that's just come through from Andrew so thanks for the question any ideas on addressing a lack of emotion within electronic communications lol doesn't cut it and emoticons emoticons don't cut it and again it would come back to your use of language so the first thing I say what message is it that you're trying to communicate and is written communication the most appropriate channel for that would a video message be more appropriate or an audio message is it that you're trying to communicate typically the more complex or the more emotionally charged the message then perhaps written communication just isn't the best channel so that would be my first point and secondly just think about the words that you're using and some of the evidence and remember that it should be a mixture of facts and stories and real life human elements nice and to anyone that's out there who wants to learn about different communications tools such as the one we're using today please provide your feedback we have the slides in there as well as a little section if you'd like to reach out to you and talk to about these different communication styles we're happy to do that as well Catherine thank you so much for joining today I got so much out of this and I'm knowing the audience has as well but I will point everyone's attention back to that feedback we do value your feedback it helps us create more content like this and for us to tweak it so please provide as much detailed information but again thank you so much for joining I got a lot out of it for our audience out there I hope you did too we'll be online within the next 48 hours so once again thank you thanks everyone