Maximise Your Important Business Conversations

FIONA COHN
MAXIMISE YOUR
IMPORTANT BUSINESS
CONVERSATIONS
ACHIEVE A POSITIVE AND
PRODUCTIVE RESULT IN
ANY CONVERSATION
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Maximise your important business conversations:
Achieve a positive and productive result in any conversation
1st edition
2016 Fiona Cohn & bookboon.com
ISBN 978-87-403-1556-1
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MAXIMISE YOUR IMPORTANT
BUSINESS CONVERSATIONS Contents
CONTENTS
About the Author 6
Section 1 11
1 Its more complicated than you think common myths 12

1.1 Giving information is communicating 12
1.2 Communication is two way 12
1.3 What you say is the most important element of communication 13
1.4 Its obvious what you mean when you communicate 14
1.5 Communicating effectively takes too long 15
1.6 You dont need to plan your communication 15
1.7 Stories are for children 15
1.8 Big words make you look clever 16
2 The key components and basic principles of communication 17

2.1 Verbal and Non Verbal Communication 17
2.2 Choose your Channels wisely 25
2.3 Speaking and Listening 27
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BUSINESS CONVERSATIONS Contents
3 Communication breakdowns 30
3.1 Test understanding 30
3.2 Lack of consistency 31
3.3 When Words and Behaviour dont match 31
3.4 Having a preconceived idea 32
3.5 Lack of Trust 33
3.6 The consequences of communication break-down 33
Section 2 Putting Communication Theory into Practice 36
4 Conducting productive appraisals 37

4.1 Frequency 37
4.2 Responsibility 38
4.3 Preparation 38
4.4 How not to do it 40
4.5 Intent 41
4.6 Physical surroundings 42
4.7 Focus 42
4.8 What are you noticing? 43
4.9 Questioning 43
5 Giving and receiving Feedback 45

5.1 Feedback is a gift 45
5.2 Golden Rules of Feedback 49
6 Making Change Work 55

6.1 Why change fails 55
6.2 The Change Curve 56
6.3 Principles of change communication 56
7 Delegating to get great results 65

7.1 Delegating versus Dumping/Abdicating 65
7.2 Understanding preferred management style 66
7.3 Basic principles of delegating 67
Section 3 Conclusion 73
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BUSINESS CONVERSATIONS About the Author
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Fionas background is in media, marketing communications and management and she

brings a wealth of experience gained in a variety of business sectors. She has sound
commercial acumen and experience of supporting businesses to grow their market
share and profits. She works with business owners, executives and teams, improving
efficiency and productivity and saving them time, and their businesses moneyby doing
things differently.
After a 15-year career in the competitive world of sports broadcasting, marketing, PR

and sponsorship, she moved into business development and consultancy, in industries
as diverse as insurance, distilling, international courier services and sport. Using her
marketing skills, she built and enhanced clients brands to increase market share. She
has also managed major accounts in IT and Telecommunications businesses to increase
profitability and provide communications expertise.
A frustration with the way businesses communicated with their staff, led her to specialise
in corporate and internal communications. She has run successful communication
activities for a range of business transformation, consultation, organisational change and
employee engagement projects. She has experience of embedding change, making it work
for staff and the organisation; and coaching and mentoring staff through the process.
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Passionate about effective communication and employee engagement, often overlooked

by businesses, but fundamental to business success, she has worked with organisations
to improve management/staff relationships through better engagement. This has resulted
in more commitment and productivity from staff, improved customer service, retention
and financial performance. She has also been responsible for ensuring the success of a
variety of change initiatives including organisational and people change, IT and systems,
business transformation and client transfers.
She has a natural coaching style, and even before qualifying as a coach, she successfully
coached and mentored staff in the workplace for many years. Her coaching qualification
gave her the confidence to set up her own business with the aim of making workplaces
happier, healthier and more productive.
That often starts with focussing on leadership behaviours, attitudes and communication
practices. She works with ambitious business owners and senior staff to help them
overcome barriers to growth, helping them develop the mindset, skills and systems
essential for high performance.
She is an engaging trainer who has worked with managers and teams to make them more
effective. In addition, she has coached small business owners to become more productive,
focussed and successful.
Fionas strength is a natural ability to solve business problems. Her client led, pragmatic
and goal centred approach is designed to achieve improvements in performance.
Additionally, her clients benefit from increased confidence, more focus and more
structured, client focussed ways of working. She provides a balanced external
perspective and holds her clients to account so that they implement changes and make
sustained improvement.
Fiona enjoys working with businesses on the following activities:

Communications and engagement consultation, employee lifecycle, recruitment
and retention, induction, channel creation and management, messaging, event
creation and management, feedback, employee investment, performance and
productivity measurements.
Leadership and management development including diagnostic, communication and
presentation skills, performance improvement, training and behavioural change
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Customer Focus and Marketing Internal engagement building the business

strong from the core; sales, marketing, account management, client and supplier
relationship management
Making Change work overcoming resistance to change, embedding change,
maintaining productivity during the change process
Strategic Planning bringing the business plan to life and ensuring staff support
business growth and work to further the business objectives
Business diagnostics, planning and systemisation research, analysis and action
planning making businesses scalable, monitoring and evaluating
People are the reason why businesses succeed or fail and that means employing the
right staff and treating them with the care and respect they deserve. Workers are no
longer willing to tolerate a command and control management style and that means
that business owners and leaders will have to become better at leading and inspiring,
communicating with their teams and working with them to achieve better results.
Most business owners I speak to believe that the customer is the most important focus
for their business, but they often focus on the customer at the expense of their staff. I
believe that businesses are built from the inside out and the internal brand and values
need to be strong and inform behaviour if the customer is to be served well.
Ive been a professional communicator for my whole career and I have seen and
experienced the benefits of great communication on business performance. Sadly, the
instances of poor, ineffective and destructive communication practices vastly outweigh the
positive experiences. Im on a mission to help the businesses I work with change that.
If you are interested in finding out more about how Fiona can support you or your
business, please connect with her: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/fionacohn
email her at: excelarate.uk@gmail.com

Call her on: +44 (0) 7971 103232
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BUSINESS CONVERSATIONS
At work and everywhere else for that matter, ineffective conversations lead to
misunderstanding and conflict. In business, not only is this frustrating for business
owners, managers and staff, but it costs everyone time (something we all complain we
dont have enough of ) and it costs the business money. It is possibly the single greatest
barrier to achieving business objectives and business success.
George Bernard Shaw summed it up perfectly:
The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place
Can you remember the last time you delegated a piece of work or asked someone to
do something for you and what you got back just wasnt what you expected? How
frustrated were you? And what about the other person? Was there a bit of strained
relations syndrome going on as a result?
This happens at work every day of the week and all because people dont know some
of the basic rules about effective communication. We think that because we were born
with mouths and ears that we use every day, and we often get away with it, that we can
communicate. But in my decades as a communication professional I have seen otherwise.
This book sets out to help you understand the basic principles of effective
communication and show you how to put them into practice. And unlike most books
covering this topic that are aimed at managers, Ill be looking at conversations from a
variety of perspectives so it will be as relevant for you if you are the most junior person
on the team or the business owner. Thats because its all about perspectivenot yours
but the person you are communicating with.
The book will focus on four of the most critical business communication conversations
that regularly take place at work and have the greatest influence on staff productivity and
business performance. These are:
Delegating to others
Giving and receiving feedback
Appraisals
Managing change
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BUSINESS CONVERSATIONS
This book will give you strategies and tools so youll know exactly how to have these
conversations to get the positive and productive result you want. Youll help others get
it right first time, most of the time, get rid of employee apathy and make the place you
work better at making change work.
Much of what is in this book will seem like common sense. Sadly, it is not common
practice in business. In my work Im constantly amazed by how uncommon, common
sense is.
Communication is how we do business we get it wrong at our peril.
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SECTION 1
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BUSINESS CONVERSATIONS Its more complicated than you think common myths
1 ITS MORE COMPLICATED THAN

YOU THINK COMMON MYTHS
Im talking about communication. We think we know what it is but many of us dont.
This chapter will unpick the principles of how to communicate effectively, what
communication is and is not, and what works with different personality types.
Before you can put it into practice, you need to understand the theory.
Id like to start by busting the most common communication myths.
1.1 GIVING INFORMATION IS COMMUNICATING

In business, people often mistake giving information for communicating. Its not. Giving
information is one way. It is either broadcasting if youre giving the information to a
group or narrowcasting if youre in a one to one situation.
You can give people as much information as you like but youll not know their reaction
unless you engage in a dialogue of some sort.
1.2 COMMUNICATION IS TWO WAY

Two-way communication usually referred to in business as top down and bottom up is
better than one-way communication. Communication is in fact three-way, peer to peer
communication plus the other two. Never underestimate the influence of colleagues
within teams to influence each other. Peer to peer communication is vital if you want to
create a culture of innovation and collaboration.
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1.3 WHAT YOU SAY IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ELEMENT

OF COMMUNICATION
Research done by Professor Albert Mehrabian in the 1960s came up with the
statistic (now hotly disputed) suggesting how the key elements of communication are
broken down.
Figure 1: Elements of Communication
Words are probably much more important than this study suggested but they are only
one element of communication. Think about the last time you asked a colleague who
seemed in a bad mood if they were OK and they hissed back at you through clenched
teeth Im fine. How much did you believe them? Or another colleague who habitually
apologises for not responding. They say they are sorry, but if they keep doing it youre
left wondering if they really are.
It would be more accurate to say that communication can be broken down into
two elements:
Verbal communication the words, or raw data you use and
Non-verbal communication the flavour of the words. This is the element that adds
underlying emotions, motives, feelings and attitude to what you say.
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What you say, how you say it and how you behave (what you do) are all important and
to communicate effectively youll want to master all three. And a word of warning, if you
contradict something you say with something you do, everyone will believe what you do
and not what you say.
1.4 ITS OBVIOUS WHAT YOU MEAN WHEN YOU COMMUNICATE

Lets paint a scenario here. Youre asking for someone to help you with a project at
work. You tell them what you want them to do and leave them to it. You are completely
familiar with the project and they are not. So you believe you have been completely clear
in your instruction. A few days later they come back having completed the task you
asked them to do. Its not remotely what you expected. What did you assume when you
were asking them in the first place? This is all about perspective. It was obvious to you
what you meant by the instruction but it was not obvious to your colleague. And thats
360
your fault. If you communicate from your own perspective, more often than not, you
wont get what you asked for.
thinking .
360
thinking . 360
thinking .
Discover the truth at www.deloitte.ca/careers Dis
Deloitte & Touche LLP and affiliated entities.
Discover the truth at www.deloitte.ca/careers Deloitte & Touche LLP and affiliated entities.
Deloitte & Touche LLP and affiliated entities.
Discover the truth at www.deloitte.ca/careers

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Another common misconception is that if you repeat yourself enough times, the other
person will get it. Im sure youve heard an exasperated colleague saying but Ive told you
a hundred times. Thats the communication equivalent of the definition of madness
doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result!
Its not about what you say but rather what the listener hears. All communication takes
place in the mind of the listener.
1.5 COMMUNICATING EFFECTIVELY TAKES TOO LONG

I dont have time to explain things in detail, is a common management complaint.
Thats fine if you have the time youll need to spend redoing the work when it was done
incorrectly in the first place. Communicating effectively does take a little longer to start
with. In the end it will save you a lot of time when things are done right first time, most
of the time.
1.6 YOU DONT NEED TO PLAN YOUR COMMUNICATION

Im astounded by the lack of preparation people put into important conversations or
meetings. They dont take the time to think about what they want to achieve and how
they will know when they have achieved it. This is the reason why many conversations
and meetings fail to achieve their objectives and are a waste of time. Planning your
communication is the first step to improving productivity.
1.7 STORIES ARE FOR CHILDREN

Everybody loves stories. If you can illustrate your point with a story, people will engage
with it. This is as important when communicating a business strategy as it is when
encouraging colleagues to get involved with a project. Stories are a powerful way to
present a business case or argument. Create stories based on a simple formula:
What the situation was

Who was involved
How it resolved
Why this information is useful
Start to build a bank of relevant stories that you can use at work.
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It is impossible not to communicate. As soon as you walk into a room youve

communicated something whether you say anything or not. Your facial expression, how
you move, whether you make eye contact or not. It all says something about your frame
of mind.
1.8 BIG WORDS MAKE YOU LOOK CLEVER

No they dont especially if youre spouting some management BS that you dont
actually understand. People who communicate well use plain language. People who use
plain language are more interested in being understood than in trying to impress.
Plain language is about making things more easily understood getting the meaning
across clearly and concisely to the intended audience. Plain language is something that
the intended audience can hear, read, understand and act upon the first time they hear
or read it. Its not about dumbing down, but about using the appropriate language for
the audience.
If you dont understand exactly what you mean when you communicate, how can you
possibly expect anybody else to?
I was once interviewing a company director for the staff magazine. He started talking
about how important it was to engage staff. As this is a subject Ive been interested in for
years, I wanted to know more. When I asked him what he understood by engagement
and what would show him that staff were engaged he admitted he didnt have a clue.
So I asked why he said it if he didnt understand it. His answer was interesting
because everyone else on the senior leadership team was talking about the importance
of engagement he thought he ought to do the same. To say any respect I had for him
diminished in that moment is an understatement!
I developed my own definition for effective communication which has helped many of
the staff Ive trained understand the fundamental principle of communication:
You know that communication has taken place when the person or people youve
communicated with do, behave or feel exactly the way you intended them to as a result
of the communication.
Communication is about achieving an outcome not for its own sake.
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BUSINESS CONVERSATIONS The key components and basic principles of communication
2 THE KEY COMPONENTS

AND BASIC PRINCIPLES OF
COMMUNICATION
We are going to get technical in this section so that you understand the key components
and how to use them in principle.
2.1 VERBAL AND NON VERBAL COMMUNICATION

2.1.1 VERBAL COMMUNICATION
The verbal part of communication is the words we use. And those words impact on
others and leave a lasting impression, good and bad. Words can make or break a
relationship so choose them wisely. In business your choice of words could make or
break your career or relationships with important stakeholders.
Words are free. Its how you use them that may cost you
Dont mix bad words with your bad mood. Youll have many opportunities to change
a mood, but youll never get the opportunity to replace the words you spoke
One kind word can change someones entire day
Using different language will impact how others react to you. If you use passive verbs,
people are less likely to trust or believe you. If youve ever been in a position of needing
to complain and the person you complain to responds with something will be done or
there will be an investigation your subconscious goes into overdrive. What will be done?
Who will do it? When will they do it?
If the response had been I will investigate / do (something specific) you automatically
have much more faith that the person you have complained to is taking ownership of the
issue and will do what they say they will about it.
You should use active verbs for 80% of the time. Sometimes using passive verbs is better,
usually to avoid hostility. A mistake was made is much less threatening than you made
a mistake.
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For the next few days, notice how people use active and passive verbs and how you react
to them.
Using positive language rather than negative language will make what you say easier to
understand. For example:
If you dont bring your report to the meeting we wont be able to plan the next steps,
which is negative, as opposed to:
Please bring your report to the meeting so that we can plan the next steps.
Not only is the negative sentence less clear, it carries a veiled threat. The positive
sentence is more motivating.
2.1.2 DIFFERENT PERSONALITY TYPES
I have a client who wants to have every last detail before she is able to make a decision.
Her business partner hates all the detail and only wants a snapshot. Observing them in
a conversation is interesting. You can see him switch off as she starts getting into the
detail. Psychometric tests showed that they are polar opposite personality types (although
it didnt need a test of any sort to work that one out).
Think of your colleagues and the way they react in conversations. If you notice that they
arent interested in the detail, dont give it to them. The more you speak, the less they
will listen anyway. If youre sending them emails its probably wise to limit each email to
one subject or issue, use bullet points and keep it brief. They will respond much better
to that than to a long, wordy email.
Likewise, if you have a colleague that wants lots of detail, give it to them. Even if you
dont think all the detail is important they will, and remember: communication always
happens in the mind of the listener or receiver so its what they want that is important.
2.1.3 NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION
The non-verbal part of communication adds tone and context to the words you use. Or
it may be a total communication in itself.
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I once worked for someone who had violent mood swings. He would come storming
into the office some mornings, march to his glass fronted office and shut the door. On
days like that nobody enjoyed working there. Staff were afraid. The culture he created
led to staff turnover in his business of around 30% year on year and the business
had fewer than 50 members of staff. On the basis that it costs between 100150% of
an annual salary to replace a member of staff, that cost his business many thousands of
pounds every year.
2.1.4 TONE OF VOICE
How you use your voice influences others reaction to your words. Have you ever had
to listen to someone talking in a monotone for any length of time? It doesnt matter
how interesting the subject is, you tend to switch off. Varying your tone makes you
interesting to listen to.
2.1.5 PITCH
High and low pitched voices are difficult to listen to for any length of time. You may
think there isnt much you can do about your natural speaking voice and youd be
wrong. Women with lower pitched voices are deemed to be more authoritative. Margaret
Thatcher and Nicola Sturgeon are two good examples. If you listen to recordings of how
Margaret Thatchers voice changed from when she was first elected to when she became
Prime Minister, youll notice a big difference.
And think about your own reaction to men with high pitched voices. If you notice the
pitch something needs changing.
2.1.6 PACE
Varying the pace of your speech makes you easier to listen to. People who speak too
quickly often find that people havent understood them well. They can also be viewed
as excitable. And when you listen to someone who speaks slowly, do you find yourself
losing concentration?
2.1.7 PROJECTION
The way you project your voice gives people an impression of your confidence. Mumble,
talk behind your hand, speak too softly and people could think you dont believe in
what youre saying or lose trust in you. Conversely, speaking too loudly could give the
impression you are brash, or threatening.
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2.1.8 PAUSE AND USING SILENCE
Using silence well is a communication art. Most of us hate silence, which is a shame
because it can be very valuable. Silence gives you and others time to think in the middle
of a conversation. Youll need to be able to tell the difference between silence because
someone is thinking and silence because they are confused or dont understand. And with
practice youll get better at that.
Next time you ask someone a question and they dont respond straight away, avoid the
temptation to jump straight in and ask the question again in a different way. Let the
person have time to think about it and the quality of their response will more likely than
not be better than it would otherwise have been.
2.1.9 BODY LANGUAGE
Body language will give you great clues to how someone is feeling. There are lots of
books about body language so I wont go into too much detail here. Maintaining open
postures where your arms and legs are not crossed, sensible eye contact and smiling are
all good body language indicators. Also nodding when others are speaking to you so that
they know you are engaging with them is good practice.
2.1.10 BUILDING EMPATHY AND RAPPORT
Figure 2: Elements you need to create empathy and rapport
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Communication is how we do business and building empathy and rapport is a large

part of effective communication. We build empathy and rapport through the way we
communicate verbally and non-verbally.
This is going to sound obvious so please stay with me. We are all different and we all
have different communication preferences. When you can recognise others preferences
youll be able to connect with them and build rapport more easily.
Most human beings process information by using their five main senses. Although
we have these senses, some will be more developed in us than others. Its through our
preferred senses that we make sense of the world.
Visual see it
Auditory hear it
Kinaesthetic do it
Most people have a preference for one of the three primary senses seeing or visual,
hearing or auditory and feeling, tactile or kinaesthetic.
Do you know if you have a visual, auditory or kinaesthetic preference? Do you even
know how to work this out?
If you think in pictures and say things like I see what you mean, I get the picture, and
that looks right you probably have a visual preference.
Alternatively, if you hear things in your mind and say I hear what you are saying,
sounds good to me, thats clear as a bell, or were on the same wavelength you
probably have an auditory preference.
If you get a feeling about things and use phrases like I cant get a grip on that,
I feel that wont work, that touched me or I get it, you probably have a
kinaesthetic preference.
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Once you are aware of this you can detect the preferred sense of anyone that you are
talking to.
This is important at work because it affects how people learn and their ability to take
instruction. If you speak to someone using language for a different preference, they will
find it more difficult to understand you or even understand you at all.
The other reason its important is because if affects how people learn, so if you are
teaching someone something and they just dont get it, that may be because youre asking
them to learn in a way that doesnt work for them.
I had a client who was mentoring two trainees in the business. One was making really
good progress and the other wasnt. Ive done exactly the same with both of them, my
exasperated client told me. She was surprised when I said that might be the problem.
When she worked out the preference of the trainee who hadnt progressed and trained
him in a different way, he started making better progress.
Briefly, someone with a visual preference will learn best by watching. Someone with
an auditory preference will learn best by listening and someone with a kinaesthetic
preference will learn best by doing. Its a bit more complicated than that but for the
purposes of this book, it will suffice.
Learning style Traits How to train/explain
Visual Seeing, Reading Use graphs, charts,

diagrams, videos
Auditory Hearing, Speaking Have colleagues ask

questions and verbalise
what they have learned
Kinaesthetic Touching, Doing, Demonstrate skills or tasks,

Experiencing let colleagues have a go
Figure 3: Using VAK to train/explain more effectively
So speaking using the same language preference will help build rapport and help you
have more effective conversations.
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One word of caution. These are preferences not absolutes, and although there is a
dominant style, we draw on all of our senses. That may make it a bit more difficult to
spot someones preference at first. A learning style may also vary from task to task so the
learner may prefer one style of learning for one task and a combination of others for a
different one.
Other ways to build rapport are by matching voice and body language. This is
particularly helpful when you are talking to someone who is agitated and may be raising
their voice and speaking quickly.
You can also raise your voice and speak quickly and start pulling back lowering your
voice and slowing down. Very often this will prompt the other person to do the same
and they will become calmer.
You can also mirror someone elses body position and posture to create rapport but
please be careful and dont make a sudden change to your body posture that looks like
you are mimicking them.
Look at the photo below. These two friends are naturally mirroring each other.
Figure 4: Mirroring body language
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Activities
1. Over the next few weeks, watch a wide variety of television programmes.
Include the news, chat shows, quiz shows, drama etc
Pay attention to the presenters, reporters, interviewers, interviewees, actors and notice
how they use their body posture and tone of voice. They each create a mood or state.
Work out what it is. Decide how successful they are and what you can learn from what
they do. Contrast their styles.
2. When you are out, shopping, in a bar, restaurant, petrol station, at the gym etc.
notice how people interact with you and how that makes you feel towards them.
3. Again when you are out, especially in restaurants, notice how friends and
couples are sitting and interacting with each other and how they may naturally
be mirroring each others posture.
4. Finally, practise a little discreet mirroring (body posture) and matching (voice and
tone). Notice how quickly you can build rapport and whether the service you
receive improves.
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2.2 CHOOSE YOUR CHANNELS WISELY
Figure 5: Examples of communication channels
Communicating is difficult enough without being made even more complicated

when faced with the plethora of ways or channels we can use to communicate with
each other.
What do you consider when choosing your communication channel? It may be a

conscious or unconscious decision. And what is the driving force behind your decision?
The fact is that most people dont make much effort to choose the channel that will give
them the result they are looking for.
How many times have you become involved in a long exchange of emails when a quick
telephone conversation or face to face communication would have taken less time? When
have you used an email because you feared the response you might get? Weve all done
it. The channel you use can render your communication useless.
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By far the most effective way to communicate is face to face, and the more complicated,
contentious or sensitive the communication, the more important it is to do it face to
face. Consider the irony of Twitter sending an email to staff saying it would be sacking
more than 300 of them. Not only was this insensitive to the staff affected, but when
employees took to Twitter to tell the world what the company had done, it caused
Twitter huge reputational damage.
When you communicate face to face you can pick up nuances and gauge other peoples
reaction to you much more easily all those non-verbal communication clues that tell
you how someone really feels about what youve just said.
If face to face isnt possible, there are all manner of video conferencing options that you
can use many are free and all you need is an internet connection. And if you cant
use one of those, pick up the telephone. All of these options allow for a discussion to
take place and for people to ask each other questions which is exactly what you want to
happen. Communication is not a one-way street.
A few years ago I was working for an organisation that had hundreds of outlets. It was
approaching the end of the tax year and one of the HR officers had to get a message
to all staff about their travel expenses. Many of the staff in the outlets would have been
affected by the tax implications from claiming travel expenses and needed to complete a
form within a few days.
The HR officer asked me to send an all staff email, asking them to complete the form
and return it to HR in time for the tax deadline. I pointed out to the HR officer that
most of the staff affected rarely checked their emails as they were usually working in a
hospital environment caring for patients. Often, more than 20 people shared a single
PC and we knew that internet access was poor. The likelihood that most of them would
see the email before the deadline for returning the form was slim. Nevertheless, the HR
officer asked me to send the email because it was the easiest thing for her. Ill never
forget that response because it really shocked me.
I suggested she thought about the resource implications of having to make hundreds of
calls to staff who had not returned their forms in the following couple of weeks. Sending
an email that day may have been a quick and simple exercise, but it almost certainly
would not have achieved its objective and in addition, would have caused a huge
amount of follow up work. The message was right; the audience was correctly targeted
but the channel was completely wrong. And it would have rendered the message useless.
Fortunately, she decided on another more appropriate channel.
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Like my HR colleague, too many people rely on email to convey time sensitive,
complicated or difficult messages. Email is a great tool but like any tool, it needs to be
used sensibly. Just because you have sent an email, it doesnt mean the receiver will do
anything with it. A couple of years ago, I discovered that there were more characters in
the subject line of an email than you can use in a tweet. If you use all those characters
in the subject line well, youll notice a difference in how people respond.
People also use email as a cover my back tool. If you do that there is a problem with
the culture of the business you are working in. You should not have to prove you did
something by sending an email and ccing it to a bunch of people who dont need
to know.
With public message boards, intranets and social media platforms you should make sure
that you dont post anything that you wouldnt say in a room full of people you were
trying to make a good impression on.
2.3 SPEAKING AND LISTENING

Every good conversation starts with good listening
Most people think that the most important element of communicating is speaking. Its
not. Listening is the most important communication skill and also the most difficult one
to master. The best listeners make the best bosses, sales people and colleagues. Its the
thing that my clients find most difficult.
Its easy to take listening for granted. Many of us hear, but we dont really listen. How
many times have you thought that a colleague or boss has two ears and one mouth, yet
uses them disproportionately? How well did you respect that person?
The dictionary defines listening as: to give attention in hearing the key words here are
give attention. Listening requires you to be active rather than passive.
So much has been written about listening so Im only going to give you a brief precis
here. Hearing and listening are two very different things. Hearing is a built in ability,
a physical attribute, while listening is a mental process. Listening is converting what
you hear using an intellectual process, turning what you hear into something you
can comprehend.
27
The lowest level is pretend listening. Have you ever been in a meeting or having a
conversation with someone where they have been dipping in and out, sometimes
checking emails on their phones or tablets? Perhaps youve done it yourself. Alternatively,
you may be giving the appearance of listening but in reality youre thinking about
something else that project you need to get finished, what you fancy for lunch! People
in this state are tuned out of the conversation.
Next comes selective listening. This is when you interpret what the other person is saying
from your perspective. You decide that you agree or dont agree with them quickly and
may interrupt and give your point of view. You jump to conclusions. Or you only listen
to the bits of the conversation that interest you. This is the predominant type of listening
Ive witnessed in organisations throughout my career.
Someone may say, I understand what youre saying but As soon as you hear the
word but you know they havent really been listening. Using the word but has serious
connotations. It negates anything that was said before. It indicates that the other persons
mind is closed to other possibilities.
The other indication of selective listening is when you listen with the intent to reply,
control or manipulate the outcome of the conversation to your viewpoint. You are
formulating a response while someone else is talking. As soon as you start thinking about
how youll respond you have actually stopped listening to the other person.
The next level is listening with attention. You are tuned into the words, paying attention
to what the other person is saying and making an effort to understand the other persons
point. You will most likely ask questions. You are not distracted by any internal dialogue
and are thinking about what they are saying rather than what your viewpoint is.
28
Finally, at the top is listening with empathy. Empathetic listening is when you are
listening to really understand the other person. Its also known as appreciative enquiry.
When you listen like this you listen to the conversation through the other persons frame
of reference. You genuinely appreciate their point of view and listen for the feeling
behind the words and the real meaning. You notice the behaviour and how the other
person is feeling and you use your intuition to pick up those things that are not being
said. Empathetic listening allows you to ditch the assumptions and interpretations you
habitually make and understand the reality inside the other persons head. It is not about
agreeing with someone; it is about understanding them. It is listening on their terms, not
yours. When you can listen like this, you will build genuine rapport. This is because you
meet someones emotional need to be affirmed, appreciated and validated. Once youve
done that you are in a position to problem solve or influence.
Mastering this way of listening is a challenge and to listen like this all the time would
be exhausting. Keep practising so that you can use it in the important conversations
you have.
Activities
1. In your conversations and meetings over the next week, notice your own levels
of listening. Once you are aware of how well you listen, you can do something
to improve it.
After those conversations, consider how much you achieved from the way you listened
and how you could change the way you listened to achieve more.
2. Practise higher levels of listening and ask for feedback from the person you are
speaking to about how well listened to they felt and why.
29
BUSINESS CONVERSATIONS Communication breakdowns
3 COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWNS
Misunderstandings occur at work on a daily basis, for a variety of reasons. Many of these
relate back to listening so you may want to refer back to the previous section about
listening as you read this one.
As well as the reasons Ive already highlighted:
Speaking the same language (understanding preferences in language)

Adopting the communication style your listener will respond to best
Using plain language
Using active language
Using the most appropriate channel
there are a number of other reasons why communication breaks down.
3.1 TEST UNDERSTANDING

If youre old enough, you may remember the Two Ronnies sketch when a customer
goes into a general store to buy fork handles. The shop assistant tries to sell him four
candles. (Say them aloud they sound identical). The customer then asks for a variety
of other items. Throughout the sketch the shop assistant misunderstands his customer
and becomes increasingly agitated, eventually refusing to serve him.
Watch the sketch here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cz2-ukrd2VQ
This very funny sketch highlights many of the reasons why communication breaks down.
It is an extreme example, but highlights the point. The shop assistant makes some quite
understandable assumptions that (for comic effect in this case) turn out to be wrong.
They are effectively speaking a different language to each other. The words are the same
but the interpretation of the meaning is completely different.
The shop assistant doesnt ask enough questions although he asks more as the sketch
goes on. Asking questions to clarify your understanding is a useful habit to develop. Itll
prevent a lot of misunderstandings.
30
How often do you test your understanding of a conversation or instruction youve

received or given? I guarantee when you make this a habit, itll save you a lot of time
and aggravation. Its always your responsibility to test understanding rather than blame
someone else for the misunderstanding.
If youre the one doing the instructing, you can ask questions like:
Can you tell me what you think Ive asked you to do?
Can you tell me what youve understood by what I said?
Can you explain that back to me so I know Ive told you correctly?
If youre on the receiving end of a request or instruction, you can say:
If Ive understood you correctly, this is what you want me to do

Id like to explain that back to you so we know Ive interpreted it correctly
So this is what youre looking to achieve
Doing this will also force you to listen more intently. Hearing rather than listening is a
prime reason why communication breaks down.
3.2 LACK OF CONSISTENCY

We all like to know where we stand with our colleagues. During my career Ive worked with
many inconsistent people bosses, peers and subordinates. On any day I wouldnt know
which version of them would turn up to work, happy, grumpy, enthusiastic, bored, moody,
shouting/aggressive, committed, disengaged. How do you deal with the person who comes to
work enthusiastic and committed one day and argumentative and moody the next?
Its usual behaviour to avoid dealing with people who change their moods like they change
their socks. Often, these people lack the self-awareness to realise the effect their mood
swings and behaviour have on those around them. So what do you do in these situations?
Often you avoid dealing with them. You dont ask them to join a project or help with a
piece of work, even if they may have the knowledge and skills to do it. Communication
literally stops as you tread on egg shells around them, avoiding interaction.
3.3 WHEN WORDS AND BEHAVIOUR DONT MATCH

Most people believe that what they say represents their thoughts and feelings. But while
they may mean what they say, they often do something else. This happens a lot (its part
of the human condition).
31
When peoples words are not matched by their actions, it is almost impossible to have a
relationship with them. Think of the person who always promises to deliver by a certain
deadline but consistently misses it. They are apologetic and have a reason (aka excuse).
After the first few apologies, how much do you believe them?
What about the nurturing manager encouraging you to take on a task to develop your
skills and when you make a mistake, making a point of blaming you?
Or the person that agrees with you on a course of action and then goes and does
something completely different.
Dealing with people who habitually behave this way is frustrating and often leads
to conflict.
I have a golden rule in life I believe what people do and how they behave ahead of
believing what they say.
3.4 HAVING A PRECONCEIVED IDEA

In my work with senior executives and business owners I witness this phenomenon often.
They will ask their staff for suggestions having already consciously or subconsciously
decided on the answer. Im sure youll be able to recall a time this has happened to you.
While youve had a conversation of sorts, theres been little true communication. Some
people just need to be right all the time and any alternative ideas fall on deaf ears.
Studies showed that if you have volunteered an idea that has been dismissed without
a valid reason three times, you are unlikely to put forward another idea. In your mind
theres little point. This crushes innovation and creates a culture where staff become
disengaged. Thats bad for business.
One of the reasons employee surveys fail to deliver improvements is because the
organisation has already decided how it will and wont change. I once found myself in
the awkward position of analysing the results of an employee survey where the overriding
conclusion was that staff had little trust and faith that the senior management of the
organisation knew what it was doing. Trust in the organisation was extremely low. These
results were so unpalatable to senior management that I was instructed not to feedback
the survey results to staff.
32
3.5 LACK OF TRUST

I would argue that without trust, it is impossible to communicate effectively. Implicit in the
reasons Ive cited for communication breaking down is lack of trust. In business relationships,
you need to trust that people will do what they say they are going to do, when they say
they are going to do it. You need to trust that people will own up to mistakes, and that they
made those mistakes honestly (as opposed to conscious sabotage). You need to trust that the
organisation you work for will provide a safe working environment, along with the tools and
condition you need to do your best possible job. And you need to trust that what people say
to your face is the same as what they say behind your back.
3.6 THE CONSEQUENCES OF COMMUNICATION BREAK-DOWN

When communication breaks down, trust evaporates and this has serious consequences
for everybody in the business and the business itself.
3.6.1 FOR YOU AS A MEMBER OF STAFF
At the most basic level, you play safe. You withdraw like a turtle into its shell, keep your
head down and hope nobody notices you. You may have ideas for improving things
but you probably wont share them, so you continue to work to an inefficient process
or system.
Over time, you become frustrated and withdrawn. You turn up to work and do your
job but you have no ownership. You stop caring. You become disengaged, simply going
through the motions every day with a false smile on your face. Its not long before youre
looking for a job in a different organisation where you can contribute.
Ive found myself in this position several times in my career so I say this from
experience. But you dont have to take my word for it. Here are some statistics:
Only 29% of UK employees believed their senior managers were sincerely

interested in their wellbeing; only 31% thought their senior managers
communicated openly and honestly; only 3% thought their managers treated them
as key parts of the organization and no fewer than 60% felt their senior managers
treated them as just another organisational asset to be managed. (Towers Watson)
Only 51% of staff felt they were involved or consulted on decisions that might
affect their work area, team or department; only 27% thought senior managers
involved staff in important decisions. (NHS Survey)
Only 40% of employees are satisfied with relations between managers and
employees in their organisation. (Kingston Business School)
33
3.6.2 FOR YOU AS A MANAGER
Your role as a manager is to get the best results from your team. The way you do this is
by communicating effectively verbally and non-verbally.
75% of people voluntarily leaving jobs dont quit their jobs; they quit their bosses.
(Roger Herman)
The 2009 Engaging for Success Report found:
43% of managers rated their own managers as ineffective

Four fifths of workers didnt think their manager set a good moral example
When you fail to communicate well, your staff will make more errors, they will waste
more time waiting to be told what to do next. Underlying conflicts that arise from a lack
of effective communication cause the working atmosphere to become toxic, affecting the
whole teams performance. Staff dont try new things because they may fear the reaction
if they make a mistake. And if you manage an unhappy team what does that say about
your capability as a manager?
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3.6.3 FOR THE BUSINESS
Effective, honest and open communication has been proven to deliver better business
results. That is because it creates a cultural environment in the business where staff
understand how they contribute to the success of the business and are encouraged
to do so.
Engaged employees are 87% less likely to leave their jobs (The Corporate
Leadership Council)
59% of engaged employees feel that their work allows them to be creative and
thus brings out their best work (Gallup)
Engaged employees generate 43% more revenue (Hay Group)
Engaged employees take on average 2.7 sick daysper year Disengaged employees
take on average6.5 sick daysper year
A final thought
Communication is a serious business and its your responsibility
Everybody is responsible for communicating effectively so before blaming someone else

when communication has broken down, look in the mirror and ask yourself how you
could have communicated and behaved differently to have achieved a different result.
Well explore how you put this theory into practice in the rest of this book so that you
can achieve a positive and productive result in any conversation. For now, consider this
one of my favourite business quotes:
Always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers.
Stephen R. Covey
Now ask yourself what is my responsibility in this?
As a business owner, a manager and a team member no matter what your rank in the
business is, decide what you can do to make sure this happens.
35
SECTION 2
PUTTING COMMUNICATION
THEORY INTO PRACTICE
From here on were going to explore a number of important kinds of conversations
that go on in business. And were going to explore them from a number of different
perspectives. So no matter where you are in the hierarchy of the business, it will help
you see how you can make a positive contribution to these conversations to get a
better result.
36
BUSINESS CONVERSATIONS Conducting productive appraisals
4 CONDUCTING PRODUCTIVE
APPRAISALS
One of my clients was complaining about the upcoming round of appraisals. She
admitted that if appraisals hadnt been a statutory obligation for the kind of professional
services firm she was a partner of, she wouldnt bother. She described the activity as
a box ticking exercise that wasted everybodys time and made little difference to the
business. We all dread it, she told me.
And with an approach like that Im not surprised. I certainly wouldnt want to be
appraised by a manager with that kind of attitude. Another client took a very different
approach. He used the annual appraisal interview to go through all the evidence hed
collected throughout the year when staff hadnt done what hed asked them to, or when
theyd made a mistake. I bet those meetings were a bundle of fun, leaving staff really
motivated to go away and do better. (Im joking here).
Sadly, these examples are not uncommon in businesses across the world. They
demonstrate a wasted opportunity to have meaningful conversations that leave everyone
motivated to improve their performance and do the best possible job they can.
4.1 FREQUENCY
Many appraisals are an annual event. This is little better than having no appraisal at all.
They are often tied to reviewing pay and bonuses. This misses the point.
Appraisals are there to help staff improve, identify new skills they want to learn, plan
their next career moves, and allow them to give vital feedback to their manager about
what its like to work in the business.
My belief is that formal appraisals should take place at least every four months and
between the formal appraisals, monthly one-to-ones should be taking place. In other
words, appraisals should be part of business as usual activities.
You may not be in a position to influence your companys timings for formal appraisals.
You are completely in control of how often you have the meetings in between.
37
If you are a manager, talk to your staff about how often youd like to meet them on a
one-to-one basis to see how they are getting on.
If you are being managed, talk to your boss about how often youd like to meet them
and what you hope to achieve from those meetings.
4.2 RESPONSIBILITY
As with all communication managers and members of the team have to coin a legal
phrase joint and several responsibility for making them productive conversations.
Firstly, its your joint responsibility to make sure that the conversations happen in the
first place. These are high priority interactions and all too often, they are viewed as
something thats getting in the way of doing work. So next time you have one arranged
and you feel the urge to say can we get this over with quickly or Im too busy to do
this now, think again. Whats gone wrong with your planning that youre too busy to
give it the time and attention it deserves?
If youre a manager, what this is effectively saying to your staff member is youre
not important enough for me to spend quality time with, or Im not interested in
supporting your development, or I just dont care how youre doing. If you worked for
that manager, how would you feel about them?
If youre a team member, the message youre sending out is Im not very good at
manging my workload, or I have something to hide so dont want to have the
conversation, or I dont care about making any progress.
Think about the effect this may have on your managers opinion of you, your capability
and your potential.
4.3 PREPARATION
Preparation is just like any other planning you would do before a project so to
have a productive conversation youll want to be well prepared. It may be that your
conversations are based on an agreed appraisal format. You need to know if thats the
case and what that format is. If there are things that youd like to discuss that are not
part of the format, forewarn each other that youd like to discuss them. It may mean
allowing a bit more time for the meeting.
38
Youll want to know the format at least a couple of weeks beforehand to give you time
to prepare for the conversation. What I mean by prepare is gather any evidence to back
up what you will be talking about, know what you want to achieve by the end of the
meeting, research any relevant training that you are interested in having.
If youre a manager, I would expect that you are gathering evidence on an ongoing
basis noticing those times when your team member has done something well, needed
help, showed behaviours that reflect the business values or not. Your role as a manager
is to be aware of this. Prior to any formal appraisal you may want to do some additional
evidence gathering. Here are a couple of ideas for what else you could do:
Talk to the team members peers to find out about the things they may have
done that were helpful, thoughtful or useful.
Talk to people outside your team about their impression of your team member.
This could give you valuable insights about how the team member comes across
to those who dont work with them. This could affect their and your teams
reputation and standing within the business.
If your team member deals with customers (internal or external) or suppliers,
call a couple of them up and ask them what their experience is of dealing with
the team member.
Talking to other people will give you valuable insights that you may not have noticed as
the persons manager especially if your relationship with the team member s not a close
one, or you manage remotely.
Youll also want to know what developmental support you can offer your team member;
what projects may be coming up that your team member can get involved them to build
their experience. That may mean talking to your manager or the business owner.
If youre the person being appraised, youll also want to gather evidence of good work
that youve done. One way to do this is to keep a brag file. Throughout my employed
working life, I had a brag file where I stored pieces of work I was particularly proud of,
as well as notes and emails of thanks from colleagues, customers and suppliers.
39
This is useful for helping you track your progress. Something you were proud of a
few years ago, you probably take for granted today. We all forget how much progress
we make so it serves as a useful reminder. It also helps when youre going through a
challenging time. Looking back and seeing how youve achieved things in the past helps
you through those times. Likewise, knowing that your efforts have been appreciated
makes your work worthwhile. Whether you realise it or not, as a human being, you crave
belonging, knowing you are part of something bigger and that youve made a difference.
Your brag file will show you that you have. And you can use it to demonstrate what
youve done in the period since the last appraisal.
As well as your brag file, you may also want to do some additional evidence gathering
by talking to people. And here you have to be honest with yourself. It would be too easy
only to speak to people you know are going to give you positive feedback. And while
you should have one of those conversations, your question to that person should focus
on what you could have done even better.
More importantly, youll want to speak to colleagues, customers or suppliers where you
have had to resolve a problem, or manage a conflict. The feedback from them will give
you valuable learning and show you where your knowledge or skills gaps are. You can
use this feedback to highlight ongoing development needs that you can discuss with
your manager.
Preparation also involves thinking about what questions you want to ask. Formal
appraisals may have a pre-determined set of questions, but that doesnt mean you cant
ask more. This is true for manager and team member.
4.4 HOW NOT TO DO IT

I worked for a large organisation who introduced a new People and performance
management strategy. Part of that strategy was a brand new appraisal process the most
complicated and time wasting process Ive ever had the misfortune to be a part of. It
demanded I produce evidence for every element of the form. (Remember I already had
my brag file but what I collected in that was nowhere near enough). It took more than
a month for me to gather the evidence I was required to produce, and for that month
I barely had time to do any other work. And the absurdity of the situation was that
everybody in the organisation was in the same position. They may as well have shut the
place down for a month. It was absurd and a waste of time and resources. And do you
think my boss even looked at the evidence folder I produced which was more than 3cms
thick? Of course not.
40
So a cautionary note about preparation. Make it proportionate. Spend a sensible amount

of time gathering evidence and preparing. And prepare for the right reasons so that
you can discuss what you have done well, know where you want to improve and
demonstrate that you are taking responsibility for supporting your team member if youre
the manager, and taking responsibility for your progress if youre being appraised.
4.5 INTENT
Im not sure that many people think about their intent when they go into an appraisal
meeting. If they do, its probably to get it over with as quickly and painlessly as
possible. Heres a tip thats not a very helpful intent!
So what do I mean by intent? Intent governs your approach to the meeting. The more
positive the intent, the more productive the conversation.
If as a manager, your intent is to exert your authority and use the meeting to point out
all the team members wrongdoings and misdemeanours, youll have a very different kind
of meeting than if your intent was to use the meeting to develop the team member.
Likewise, if as a team member your intent is to cover up any errors you may have
made and defend your position and actions, that wont make for a productive
conversation either.
It comes back to what the point of an appraisal is to check up and catch staff out or
to help staff develop and grow.
Irrespective of what side of the desk (metaphorically speaking) youre on, your intent
should be to learn something about yourself and the other person so that you can
develop a strong, professional working relationship and improve your performance to
help the business achieve its objectives.
That requires you to:
Understand the other persons position

Be honest about errors youve made and where you need help
Ask for what you want and have a good reason for wanting it
Look for a win-win solution for both parties
41
As well as measurable performance, appraisals should focus on how staff model

behaviours that are in line with the business ethos and values. So, for example, if a
salesman smashes his sales targets, but in the process, schemes against his sales colleagues
to steal business that otherwise would have been theirs, how would you judge him?
In the words of the song it aint what you do its the way that you do it. More
often than not, the way that you do something is more important than what you do
or achieve.
So go into all appraisal meetings with positive intent and youll have a more productive
conversation.
4.6 PHYSICAL SURROUNDINGS

Where are you going to have the meeting? This is part of the preparation for managers
who may need to book a room, or somewhere off site where you can have a confidential
conversation without being interrupted. Ive had appraisals in coffee shops, hotel
reception areas, even outside on a park bench when the weather has been amenable. It
doesnt matter where the meeting happens, it matters that both parties are comfortable
with the location.
If the appraisal is taking place in the managers office, youll have a much better meeting
if youre not on opposite sides of the desk. A physical barrier creates unconscious
negativity. Sitting at a 45 angle from each other is good, especially if youre reviewing
documents together.
If you create a comfortable, tidy space in which to have the meeting, youll have a more
productive conversation.
4.7 FOCUS
It seems obvious but for the duration of the appraisal meeting your focus should be on
that and that alone. Allowing interruptions, answering calls and checking your phone is
disrespectful. Ive certainly been in appraisal meeting where my manager has taken a call
and it made me angry. This was my time.
Focussing also means really listening to each other. Not listening to respond, but
listening to understand, checking understanding and reflecting on whats being said.
Focus on achieving your intent. As a manager that will be to find out more about your
team members needs and ambitions, how they feel about working in the business and
gathering information about how you can help them achieve more.
42
As a team member that will be to find out what pressures your manager is under and
what you can do to help your manager achieve their objectives (which in turn will help
your career), and get the support you need to do that.
4.8 WHAT ARE YOU NOTICING?

Notice how the other person behaves in the meeting. Remembering that behaviour is at
least 50% of communication, how they react during the conversation will give you clues
to whether they have really understood you or meant what they have said.
As a manager, if you notice that your team member agrees to something half-heartedly,
its your job to highlight that. A question like I noticed you dont seem particularly
enthusiastic about doing that, help me understand the reasons? is non-threatening and
allows the team member to voice their reservations.
If your boss agrees to follow a course of action but youre not convinced they mean it
you could say, Im grateful that you say youll do (whatever it is). I feel that youre not
convinced thats the right thing to do.
This is about being honest and using your intuition.
4.9 QUESTIONING
This chapter has focussed on how to approach appraisal meetings to make them and
their outcomes more productive. The last piece in the appraisal jig-saw is questioning.
Asking good questions is fundamental to making the meeting a success. If youre the
manager doing the appraisal, youll want to be well practised in asking probing, open
questions. Open questions are those that cant be answered with a yes or no. Your job
is to be genuinely curious not ask questions that you have a preconceived idea what
the answer should be.
Open questions start with:
Who
Where
What
When
How
43
Why can also be used to ask an open question, but its best to avoid why as it usually
results in a defensive response.
Tell me more about that?, Id like to understand more about that, and And what else
are great questions for getting more information.
In the appraisal, the team member should be talking for the majority (probably 60-70%)
of the time. The managers job is to ask questions and listen. Not merely to respond, but
to understand.
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BUSINESS CONVERSATIONS Giving and receiving Feedback
5 GIVING AND RECEIVING

FEEDBACK
1x5= 5
2 x 5 = 10
3 x 5 = 15
4 x 5 = 21
Figure 6: What do you notice?
Whats the first thing you noticed about the table above? If youre like most people you
noticed that the last sum was incorrect. And you are right. If youre the exception, youll
have noticed that three of the four sums (75%) were correct.
Your reaction to the sums is indicative of how you choose to see things. Do you go
looking for the good stuff or the bad? And how does that affect your view of what
feedback is for and how you give and receive it?
Good, regular feedback within an organisation can be an essential tool to help improve
performance and morale.
5.1 FEEDBACK IS A GIFT

Think about the last time someone said to you Id like to give you some feedback.
Often, that phrase puts knots in our stomach, because were used to getting feedback
when something has gone wrong much more often than when something has gone
well. We associate feedback with being attacked. This is a missed opportunity. We need
feedback if we are to grow and develop and the reasons we fear it so much is because,
for the most part, were lousy at giving it.
45
5.1.1 FOR MANAGERS
What is your intent when youre going to give someone feedback? If its merely to
point out that theyve made a mistake, it wont help anyone. If its to help them learn
something, thats a great starting point. That learning can be to reinforce behaviours,
abilities and effort that you want repeated based on something they did well. Or it could
be to help them identify where they have made a mistake, behaved badly and identify
what needs to happen to stop that occurring again.
Its a privilege to be able to give someone feedback provided you are doing it out of
genuine desire to help them. Thats what turns it into a gift.
So know what you want to happen as a result of giving feedback, which includes how
you want the recipient to feel as well as what you want them to do, and give feedback
for the right reasons. Its not about preaching, its about helping. Telling someone how
youd have done something if youd been in their position wont help them helping
them work out for themselves how they can do it better the next time will.
5.1.2 PEER TO PEER
You may not realise it, but you probably give people feedback all the time. Thanks for
helping me, your input was really useful is one way of giving feedback. Or When you
said youd get me that information by this morning and you didnt, it made me late
finishing my report.
Think about your intention when giving your peers feedback. If someone has been
helpful, pointing that out with gratitude will make them want to be helpful again. If
someone has let you down or put you in an awkward position, youll want to explain the
consequences for you and for them. If theyve made a genuine error and you can help
them learn from it, offer to.
Your reason for giving feedback will usually be to have productive working relationships
with your peers and to help them do well. You have every right to feed back what you
notice about the way they behave and the work they do, provided you do it out of
genuine desire to help.
46
5.1.3 STAFF TO MANAGER
Ive noticed, during my employed working life, and in the work I do with my clients,
that few staff feel they have the right to give feedback to their boss. Especially feedback
that might be construed as a criticism. When you give feedback you need to be assertive.
When youre in an assertive frame of mind, youre looking for a win-win solution.
I once worked for someone who was a bit of a bully and would lose her temper and
blame me (usually for her own failures) in meetings often with other senior managers
there. I let it go the first couple of times but when it happened again I plucked up the
courage to speak to her about it. My objective was to make her aware of what she was
doing, what the consequences for both of us were, and get her agreement not to do
it again. So I picked my moment soon after the meeting and when I knew she wasnt
under any deadline pressure and had the conversation. She was barely aware of her
behaviour (emotional intelligence wasnt one of her strong points), even less the impact it
had on me and the other attendees. It wasnt an easy conversation, although we reached
an understanding of sorts.
I was once given some really useful feedback about how I behaved in meetings where my
enthusiasm habitually got the better of me and meant I often interrupted other people.
This may have come across as disrespectful or overpowering and may have impacted how
people thought about me. For a while afterwards, Id ask someone sitting next to me to
kick me under the table the first time I interrupted someone to remind me to be aware
of my behaviour. I started listening more and the contributions I made were fewer but
had greater impact. It worked!
Meaningful feedback is central to performance management.

Feedback guides, motivates, and reinforces effective behaviours
and reduces or stops ineffective behaviours.
An organisational culture that welcomes and is comfortable with giving and receiving
feedback is one where staff will develop and have honest, productive conversations.
5.1.4 REQUESTING FEEDBACK
We crave feedback. We all want to know how were doing. But were often afraid to
ask. Some businesses have 360 surveys done on their managers, precisely to identify
strengths and development needs.
47
But you dont need a survey to get feedback, be proactive about asking for it. And
request it from a variety of people, boss, team member, peer, manager from another part
of the business with whom youve had dealings.
And make your questions specific, asking for examples. Its probably best not to use the
word feedback either because of the negative connotations so many people have with it.
You may have asked people How am I doing? This isnt a useful question because its
too vague and often prompts a great response. Theres no learning in that.
Here are some questions you could ask when requesting feedback:
What particularly pleased you about the way I handled that (meeting/
conversation/project etc)?
What one thing would have made what I did better/more useful?
What do you think is my biggest strength?
What other skills/knowledge do I need to improve my performance?
What parts of my style/behaviour most concern you?
Who should I work with more closely?
What do you appreciate most in your interactions with me?
What do you wish I did more/less of?
How could I be more helpful to you?
Another simple way to ask for feedback is to use the Stop, Start, Keep formula.
This is where you ask three questions:
1. What should I stop doing?

2. What should I keep doing?
3. What should I start doing?
The answers to these questions will highlight behaviours that are holding you back and
those that will help you develop.
As a manager, youll want feedback from your team to gauge how well you are managing
them and what more you could do to get the best from them.
48
As a team member, youll want to know how youre doing and what more you can do to
prepare you for more stretching work or your next role. And as a colleague, youll want
to be assured that people like working with you because you help make their working
lives easier and more enjoyable.
5.2 GOLDEN RULES OF FEEDBACK

To make feedback effective, you will want to follow a few golden rules:
5.2.1 FEEDBACK SHOULD BE ONGOING
The closer to the event you address the issue the better. Feedback isnt about surprising
someone so the sooner you do it, the clearer your recollection of what happened. Think
of it this way: its much easier to feed back about something you observed very recently
than it is to feed back about something that happened weeks or even months earlier.
The exception to this is if the situation involved is highly emotional. Here, wait until
everyone has calmed down before you engage in feedback. You dont want to risk
someone getting worked up and saying something they will regret later.
5.2.2 FEEDBACK MUST BE EVIDENCE BASED
Establish the facts of the particular situation. Base your comments on facts and what you
know first-hand. Youll quickly find yourself on shaky ground if you try to give feedback
based on other peoples views or hearsay. Give feedback from your perspective.
5.2.3 FEEDBACK NEEDS TO BE SPECIFIC
Tell the person exactly what they need to improve on, or what they did /how they
behaved well so that they can repeat the behaviour more easily. Specifically, what was it
about what they did or how they behaved that was good or bad. Ive been told in the
past, you did/didnt do that very well, which left me wondering how I could improve
next time or repeat something Id done well consistently. If you get vague feedback,
always question it and ask the person giving it to be more specific.
I was angry yesterday when you criticised my report in front of my boss, is better
feedback than you were insensitive yesterday. Calling someone insensitive is
labelling them as such which is only your opinion and only your opinion of that
particular situation.
49
Make sure you both know what needs to be done to improve the situation, and that
youre giving feedback because you care about the other persons development or
reputation (irrespective of whether you are the manager or not). Agree on what action
needs to be taken and decide how youll both monitor and evaluate progress.
5.2.4 FEEDBACK MUST BE OBJECTIVE AND BALANCED
If you base feedback on evidence and being specific, it should be objective and balanced.
Be careful about using emotive language, especially telling someone they always or
never, do something. All youll do is elicit a defensive response. Discuss the direct
impact of the behaviour, avoid getting personal and getting into a blame game.
5.2.5 LIMIT THE FOCUS OF YOUR FEEDBACK
You shouldnt discuss more than a couple of situations when delivering feedback
either positive or developmental. Giving someone too much praise may start to sound
disingenuous and might embarrass them. Likewise, too much criticism risks the other
person feeling attacked and demoralised.
Remember my client who monitored his staff throughout the year and at the annual
appraisal, fed back all his staffs failings? Unsurprisingly, these meetings did not result in
any improvement in performance. Conversely, hed missed countless opportunities during
the year to help his staff make small incremental improvements.
5.2.6 FOR DEVELOPMENTAL FEEDBACK FIND A POSITIVE
Im not a fan of the feedback sandwich often used by people who are not confident
with giving feedback. In case youre not familiar with it the formula is to give a positive,
then the developmental feedback and then end with another positive. This rather swamps
and devalues the developmental feedback.
A better way is to find two or three things that you liked about what they did followed
by two or three things youd like to see more of in future. The things youd like to see
more of in future replace where you may have criticised in the past and gives the person
receiving the feedback something to aim for. This method allows people to be more
receptive to feedback.
For example:
I liked the fact that you were willing to take on that piece of work and you showed a
lot of enthusiasm for it.
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What Id like to see more of next time is that you analyse the trends in more depth so
that you can make stronger recommendations based on more solid evidence. Id also like
you to plan your workload more carefully so that your other work doesnt fall behind.
Then stop and let the person consider what youve said. Wait until they speak - however
long it takes.
If there are no positives and you have no option but to point out someone elses
wrongdoing, do it in private. Find somewhere to talk where you wont be interrupted or
overheard. Public scrutiny is never appreciated.
A model for giving feedback in coaching can be used very easily in the workplace for
giving feedback about behaviour to your boss, peer or team member. Its based on the
acronym AIDE:
Action
Impact
Do differently
Explore/explain
Action is the observable behaviour that you want to feedback about. Following the rules
above, youll want to be objective and use facts, be specific and cite examples as evidence.
The point of your description is to draw the other person in so they agree with what you
have observed.
For example, Ive noticed that the last couple of times I asked you to do (a specific piece
of work), you asked me if I could ask someone else to do it. When I said I wanted you
to take it on, you agreed to, but rather reluctantly and then you went straight over to
speak to Jane and spent a few minutes talking to her and glancing back at me from time
to time.
At that point you might like to invite the person to comment on what you observed
by asking, is this is fair description? or less directly what would you like to say
about that?
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Once agreed that this is a fair description you will want to describe the impact, effect
and possible consequences of what you saw, from your perspective on you, on them,
and on others. So to continue the example above; Im concerned that you arent
enthusiastic to do (the piece of work) because although it is a bit of a stretch for you, it
will help to build your skill to go for that promotion you want. Your seeming reluctance
to take it on makes me wonder if youre as ambitious as you told me you were. When
you were talking to Jane and glancing over at me, I wondered what you might be saying
about me that you didnt feel you could tell me directly. And involving Jane interrupted
her from the work she was supposed to be doing and could have inconvenienced her.
Because of your reaction, I may be inclined not give you the kind of projects in future
that would stretch and develop your skills and knowledge.
At that point youll pause and ask the person how they saw the situation while
not asking if they agree with you. Let them explain what was going on from their
perspective. There will be reasons why they reacted like that and its in understanding
those reasons that you can move on to the next stage. For example, they may struggle
with a particular aspect of the task and are embarrassed to admit that, and that Jane
knows how to do the thing they struggle with. Glancing at you may be embarrassment
on their behalf. Or they may be disengaged and have a poor attitude to pulling
their weight.
Now you understand each others perspective, you can move on to what they might do
differently in a similar situation in future. Its always better if you can ask the person to
suggest how they might do it differently in the future because they will own any solution
more if its their idea. If they cant come up with any ideas, have a couple of suggestions
for them. These might be great for them or give them ideas of other ways they could do
it differently.
Once the different behaviours are agreed, make sure you both share the same
understanding of what will happen in future and how you will monitor and measure the
different behaviour.
Ask the other person what they think about the options for doing things differently.
How committed are they to them? How confident do they feel about doing them?
52
Finally, youll ask them to articulate the possible damaging consequences of not doing
things differently as well as the potential benefits of making the changes. Again, its much
better that they come up with these themselves than you having to tell them.
On reflection, this was the how I dealt with the feedback I received about how I behaved
in meetings. It broadly followed the AIDE model. I was attending regular management
meetings on behalf of my boss, full of senior managers from around the organisation.
Being a naturally enthusiastic person and being keen to show that I could make a
contribution, I jumped in at every opportunity to add something to the discussion. An
insightful director took me aside and quietly pointed out that while he understood what
I was trying to do, that the impact I may have been having on the other attendees was
to appear Tigger like at best and rude at worst. My intention had been to contribute,
but the impact I made was disruptive. We discussed how else I could achieve the impact
I wanted which was to become a valuable member of the group and provide insightful
and helpful contributions. The first phase in that was to have instant feedback (a tap
under the desk) when I jumped in too quickly. Over the months I learned to hold my
tongue, listen more effectively, analyse what was being said and make fewer but more
useful contributions. Many months later when I was gathering evidence for an appraisal
meeting, I had feedback from a senior manager saying that I was a delight to have in
meetings because I always added value. Changing my behaviour took time and was
incremental, and absolutely worth the effort it took.
I hope your view of feedback has changed since you started reading this chapter and you
now have some ideas for how you can give your colleagues feedback whether they are
senior to you, junior to you or your peer.
A final thought. People dont usually go to work to do a poor job and they dont mess
things up on purpose. If theyve done something wrong, they probably know it and are
already feeling guilty about it. So giving feedback more sensitively with the intent to
improve performance will always result in a more productive conversation.
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And if you were one of those that thought that all feedback was to point out someone
elses failings, remember that its a fact that you notice more of what you go looking for.
So if you go looking for bad stuff, youll see lots of bad stuff. However, if you go looking
for opportunities to praise and notice effort and good stuff, youll see more of that.
1x5= 5
2 x 5 = 10
3 x 5 = 15
4 x 5 = 21
TMP PRODUCTION NY026057B 4 12/13/2013
Figure 6: What do you notice?
6x4 PSTANKIE ACCCTR00
gl/rv/rv/baf Bookboon Ad Creative
What do you notice now?
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2013 Accenture.
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54
BUSINESS CONVERSATIONS Making Change Work
6 MAKING CHANGE WORK

Change is inevitable. Change is constant.
(Benjamin Disraeli)
6.1 WHY CHANGE FAILS

Human beings are creatures of habit. Few of us genuinely like change because it means
stepping outside our comfort zone. When we are used to doing things a certain way it
becomes a habit. We get more proficient and faster at doing whatever it is. When we are
asked to change even though we are given good reason to do so we resist because it
means breaking an old habit with which weve become comfortable, and creating new one.
Ive witnessed many change and business transformation projects during my career most
of which were brilliantly planned. Sadly, many of them failed.
Research carried out by the Ken Blanchard companies revealed that 70% of all change
initiatives fail. Ive seen other research that pushes that figure higher than 80%. And
apart from those initiatives that are poorly planned which account for around 29%, the
main reason for failure is their inability to deal with human resistance.
If youve ever felt that a change has been done to or imposed on you, youll
understand how that resistance happens. If youre a manager or business owner who has
unsuccessfully attempted to make changes, carry on reading so that you have a better
chance of succeeding next time.
Our default position with change is to pay it lip service, and carry on doing what weve
always done. Effectively we bury our heads in the sand and hope it goes away. We forget
that things are changing incrementally all the time and we are actually very resilient
and able to cope with change. Think about the way you do your job today compared
to the way you did it 6 months ago. You may well have found more efficient ways of
completing certain tasks in your role, or changed a process to make it better. Thats
change. And in todays fast moving business environment, change isnt an option. Its a
necessity. The world is changing at an ever increasing rate and businesses are finding it a
challenge to keep up. We have to change to remain relevant so we had all better get used
to it. Even better, when we change our attitude to change, we will be able to manage the
resistance we feel towards it. As employees, its our responsibility to make change work.
As George Bernard Shaw said:
55
Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot
change anything.
The good news is that when you learn the basic principles of communicating change,
you massively improve your chances of successfully introducing the change and making it
work. Adding the communication element to the change also means that youll highlight
poor planning early on and be able to mitigate that reason for failure.
6.2 THE CHANGE CURVE

The change curve demonstrates our emotional reaction to change.
Shock
Denial
Integration /
Commitment
Anger
Exploring /
Frustration Seeing
possibilities
Accepting
Blocking / Depression
Figure 7: The change curve
Communicating effectively at every stage, eases our emotional journey through the
change process and maximises our potential to commit and make change work.
6.3 PRINCIPLES OF CHANGE COMMUNICATION

Getting buy-in from your staff requires you to address their concerns at each of the
stages on the change curve. People will want information and answers to their questions
about why the change is needed, what will be involved, how quickly it will happen.
Theyll also want to understand what it means for them individually and how it will
affect them. For example, will they have to learn something new? This means there will
be lots of conversations about any change and youll want to have them well before you
start trying to implement anything.
56
Here are the basic principles youll want to follow to make change work.
6.3.1 TIMING
Communicate little and often.
If you are planning a big change, carefully consider when you want to announce and
implement it. Give people ample warning, and remind them regularly that something
may be happening. Make sure it will not impact detrimentally on your other business
functions or busy periods. Only you and your staff will know when would be a good or
bad time to implement a change and it will be unique to your business and the business
circumstances. Ive witnessed change programmes rushed through to meet arbitrary
deadlines that have been doomed to failure, when delaying implementation by just a
couple of weeks would have meant they would have succeeded.
If, as a manager, having discussed things with your team, you dont feel there is sufficient
time to implement a change successfully, make a business case for altering the timing.
This wont always be possible but your team and everyone affected will see you have
tried so if long hours are needed to make it happen, they are more likely to support you.
If the change affects you and you know that its planned for a time that will cause the
business hardship, its your duty and right to point that out.
6.3.2 BEWARE OF CHANGE FATIGUE
Its not right or wrong to introduce a number of big changes simultaneously. Only you
know your staffs ability to cope with this so take this into account at the planning stage,
talk to your staff and go with the consensus. After all, its your staff that you want to
commit to the changes so let them guide you. Make it clear you understand this may be
a big ask for your staff and keep asking for their support.
6.3.3 COMMUNICATE HONESTLY
If a cost reduction objective may result in redundancies, say so. If you dont youll
create a communication vacuum which will fill with rumour and gossip. On the basis
that you cant not communicate, your actions and behaviour will signal something is
happening and your staff will spend time worrying about what might happen rather
than concentrating on their jobs. If they see managers disappearing into rooms more
frequently than usual, theyll notice and, in the absence of no communication, make up
their own stories about what may be happening.
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As a team member, if you notice behaviour that makes you nervous or youve heard
things on the rumour mill, talk to your managers about it. You can help them
understand how their actions are affecting staff and how that might impact the business.
6.3.4 SEGMENT YOUR AUDIENCE
You need to be crystal clear about the various audiences that you will want to
communicate with during the process. Your messages to each will be different. A
one message fits all approach, which Ive seen all too often, simply wont work. As a
communications lead in many successful projects, I found that segmenting the audience
proved to be one of the hardest things for people managing projects to do.
Audience segmentation seemed pretty obvious to me but it wasnt for them. Would
you want to give the same message to directors, managers, front line staff, suppliers,
customers? Of course not. The messages would be bland and lack the specific detail you
would want to communicate. These different groups would need different messages. For
example, you may detail high level business strategy reasons for the change, financial
and other desired outcomes, and request particular activities for directors to do. You will
have to explain things differently to front line or customer facing staff. You may need to
provide more context, more justification and ask for support in a different way.
So next time you are planning change, think very carefully about every audience. Here
are some examples of audience types you may want to consider:
Shareholders
Directors
Senior managers in departments directly affected by the change
Senior managers in departments not directly affected by the change
Team leaders in departments directly affected by the change
Team leaders in departments not directly affected by the change
Staff directly affected by the change
Staff not directly affected by the change
Customers
Suppliers
There will be more segments. But these are the bare minimum groups you should
consider when planning any change communication.
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The more contentious or sensitive the change, the more carefully youll need to segment
your audience groups. Having worked on a few change initiatives that would inevitably
result in redundancies (my own included), I know this only too well. The challenge here
is that the business maintains a professional service through the change and supports
the staff during and after the process so that they continue supporting the change and
perform at their highest level.
6.3.5 INVOLVEMENT
In my experience, people managing change in business rarely involve the right staff at the
appropriate time.
If you were planning a change, at what point would you start involving others?
Thats a bit of a trick question because the time to involve others is long before you plan
the change. Involve others when the idea is in its infancy.
And who would you involve?
Most business owners or managers would involve staff who will be affected by the change
long after theyd discussed it at a more senior level. This is why so many of us who have
experienced change at work have felt it was done to us, building the kind of resistance
that causes change to fail.
The best time to start involving others is before youve made any firm decisions. You
have identified the objective the change will achieve. That will be a high level objective,
for example, to improve profits, reduce costs, reduce wastage, work more effectively and
efficiently as a business. Staff understand that businesses need to remain competitive in
their marketplace.
Before you decide what change is required to achieve the objective, involve staff, and
not just the senior staff. All your staff will be impacted by the change so get their ideas.
After all, they are doing the jobs and will know how to improve what they do or
whether what they do should be radically changed. Tell them what the objective is and
ask them to contribute their ideas and make suggestions for things the business could do
to achieve it. Itll be the role of the senior staff and/or business owner to evaluate those
ideas before proposing the method.
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One thing to say here is that your organisational culture will determine how successful
this approach will be. If your culture is one of fear, command and control and poor
trust, people will do whatever it takes to preserve their own position and you wont get
the honesty and creativity you will need to define what the best route or method to
change will be.
Human nature is to resist things we are told to do unless we have sought the advice,
which is why predetermining a change method is much less likely to be embraced by staff
than one to which they have contributed. When youve gathered ideas from your staff and
evaluated them, youll need to explain why or why not they can be implemented. Thats
just courtesy and to demonstrate you have carefully considered their comments. If you are
rejecting an idea explain exactly why. They may not like it, but at least theyll understand.
This is a crucial piece of communication that is often overlooked.
Even if youre a junior member of staff, if your company is proposing a change and you
dont think youve been given the opportunity to be involved, have the conversation with
your boss, or someone more senior to request that you are.
Many businesses pay lip service to consulting their staff, usually because they are already
wedded to the method. I know Ive been subjected to some of those change projects
during my career. They made me uncomfortable and disengaged, and few ran smoothly.
As a manager or business owner listen to the concerns of team members and understand
they provide useful feedback about the change plan. Getting to the bottom of their
concerns and answering their questions is crucial to involving them. Your skill in asking
insightful questions could be the difference between the change succeeding or not.
Answer their questions honestly. If you dont know the answers, agree to find out and
report back to them.
Its all too easy to dismiss a comment like: that (the change method) just wont work. Ask
what bit of it wont work, specifically and what suggestions the person has for doing things
differently and their reasons. This reveals the objections they have to the proposed change
so you can address them. They may also have a better idea than you had thought of.
If youre a team member and you havent been convinced of the change need, then make
it your business to ask questions so that you do. If your manager doesnt have the answers
challenge them to get them. How can you support the change process if there is no clear,
specific and compelling reason? Your role isnt simply to accept, its to ask questions so you
understand and if you believe you have a valuable contribution to make, whether that
is challenging the proposed way forward or making suggestions to improve things more
then do. Just make sure you have a good case for what you are suggesting.
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Its all too easy to get sucked into the feelings of being a victim of change if your peer
group are in that mind set. Ask yourself and your colleagues, how that attitude will help
the situation and what you can do collectively to get involved and have some influence.
6.3.6 CASE STUDY
I was part of a change team for a successful project that involved the department being
affected (the post service for a large organisation), from an early stage. They were asked
for input into how the department could run more efficiently to reduce costs. They were
given opportunities to try some of the changes they suggested, changes management
suggested and they were also allowed to blog about their experience on the company
intranet. When they were prevented from trialling some of their suggestions they were
told exactly why.
At the start, their blog posts were very negative, highlighting the pain they were
experiencing from doing things differently and musing about the need to achieve the
business objective (cost reduction). But over the course of the project, and as they
became more familiar with the changes and refined their own processes, their attitude
altered. They started talking more positively about how things were going. They
commented on some of the earlier negative posts acknowledging that while things had
been tough at the start, now that they were actually experiencing the benefits and their
jobs were being made easier, they appreciated the gain had been worth the initial pain.
They experienced every element of the change curve very publicly, and showed how they
reached the stage of commitment
6.3.7 CHAMPIONS
Some members of staff will be more enthusiastic about a change project than others. If
youre one of them, how about offering your support as a champion? A champion is an
early adopter, someone who may test out the change before it is implemented, and who
will help convince their peers that the change is going to make things better. Champions
play an important communications role because they will be talking to their peers about
what is going on. It wont always be appropriate to have champions, but for IT and
process change projects its absolutely necessary. The way you involve and communicate
with champions is different to how youll communicate with other people so you should
add champions to your audience segmentation.
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Offering to be a champion is a responsibility and you may be reticent to do so if your

peers dont seem supportive of the change. You also need to be genuine about your
reasons for being a champion. If you offer because you think it may safeguard your
own position, thats a bad reason. If you feel youd like to be involved because itll give
you a learning opportunity, you have or can make the time to devote to it, and you are
genuinely interested in the project; offer. Your peers will forgive you, especially if youre
in a position to demonstrate the benefits youve highlighted and how it could make their
jobs easier.
6.3.8 RESPONSIBILITY
Whose responsibility is it to make change work? The boss, the business owner, the
project manager? While it might be any of those, the answer is everybody. No matter
what your role in the business, its your responsibility to make it work in whatever way
you can.
6.3.9 MANAGERS RESPONSIBILITY
Its your job to fully understand the reason for change and the options available and
clearly explain them to your team. Have conversations with whoever you need to
so that you do. Support the change that responsibility comes with your position.
Communicate regularly, tell staff how often you are going to provide an update. And
when the time for the update comes around, if theres nothing new to report, tell people
that. If you dont, youll leave that communication vacuum and people will assume youre
hiding something.
You are also responsible for listening to your staffs concerns and taking these seriously.
Understand specifically the nature of their concerns so that you can support them
through the process. Many managers dismiss peoples concerns too readily, creating
hostility. Encourage staff to have their say and input into the possible solution and
understand the benefits the change will bring about. And acknowledge they will go
through an element of pain during the process and they can trust that you will be there
for them.
6.3.10 TEAM MEMBERS RESPONSIBILITY
Its your responsibility to understand the reasons for change and ask any questions you
have to allow you to do so. Its not often that someone suggests a major change for the
sake of it. Get involved, even if you have not formally been invited to. Comment on the
proposed changes, and if you have suggestions that you believe would improve what is
being proposed, tell the people managing the change.
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Hold your managers to account, making sure they give you regular updates. If rumours
start, challenge your peers. Find out what evidence they have for the comments they are
making. And support each other. Some people are more comfortable with change than
others and if you want your employer to be successful in bringing about change, its your
responsibility, as well as your managers to help those that are anxious, understand the
benefits and get through it.
6.3.11 MAKING CHANGE STICK
Youve implemented the change. That doesnt necessarily mean it will embed in the long
term. Following a change, things may take longer to do because staff are doing things
differently and creating new habits. Youll need to recognise this and give staff time to
adjust. At this point youll need patience. Understand your staffs frustrations. Empathise
with them and encourage them to work through it.
If youre a manager, youll want to regularly check in with staff to see how they are
finding the new way of working. Find out what they see the benefits to be and the
drawbacks. Focus more on the benefits. Do this for several weeks to avoid people
slipping into the way they used to do things. Ask questions like:
Whats become easier this week.

What do you like about the new (process/technology/structure)?
What do you need help with?
And thank them for their efforts, regularly and genuinely.
As a team member, allow yourself longer to do things while youre adjusting to the
new way of doing things. Tell your manager that things will take longer while you are
working in a new way. Everything is difficult before it becomes easy but in time it will
become easy. Help your colleagues if they are struggling with things you have picked up
more easily. Ask for help if youre struggling, either from a peer or a manager.
63
6.3.12SUMMARY
Youll make change work if you follow the basic principles of communicating change.
Give people sufficient warning

Consider the timing of introducing any major change and the length of time it
will take to complete, to avoid unnecessary pressures on the business
Involve staff from an early stage before you are wedded to the change method
Communicate appropriate messages regularly to the appropriate audiences that
you have thoughtfully identified
Be prepared to answer questions honestly and listen to staff ideas they may be
better than yours
Make the change stick by continuing to reinforce the benefits after
implementation. Continue to provide support and training, allow staff more
time to complete tasks and continue to thank staff for their efforts
64
BUSINESS CONVERSATIONS Delegating to get great results
7 DELEGATING TO GET
GREAT RESULTS
The inability to delegate is one of the biggest
problems I see with managers at all levels
7.1 DELEGATING VERSUS DUMPING/ABDICATING

Here are a couple of definitions of delegation:
To entrust (a task or responsibility) to another person, typically one who is less

senior than oneself
Sharing or transferring authority and the associated responsibility, from an
employer or supervisor to an employee or subordinate
While on the face of it, these definitions seem similar, subtly they are very different.
The second is more like dumping than delegating and its the main reason I have seen
delegation fail at work.
What I like about the first definition is the use of the word entrust. This is an active
word and implies both parties are in it together.
How many times have you thought you delegated something to someone else only to
find they didnt do what you thought youd asked them to do? And how many times
have you been delegated a task that you believed you have done well, only to be told
to redo it because it wasnt what the delegator asked for? How many times have you
delegated something then ended up redoing the work you thought youd delegated
yourself? These are all common scenarios at work.
How do those experiences make you feelabout the person doing the delegating, about
yourself and about the task? If only we could learn the art of delegating how much
simpler would it make our lives?
Delegating seems simple in concept, but in reality it is difficult to do consistently well.

And failure to master delegation results in businesses wasting time, resources and money,
and providing a poorer service to customers than they would like. Worse still, it leads to
relationship breakdowns and employees becoming disengaged, which negatively impacts
the business in many ways.
65
So delegating is a big deal, and worth putting in the effort to get right. And delegating
effectively means that you dont dump on other people or abdicate responsibility.
Consider the following scenario. The MD delegated a series of tasks to his most
senior manager, along with deadlines for completion. The senior manager then divided
the tasks amongst some of the staff, re-delegating the tasks. When the deadlines for
completion were missed, the senior manager responded with the excuse that so and so
was doing that task, and they didnt know why the deadline was missed. The MD was
understandably irritated as this demonstrated habitual behaviour in the business.
If I were to ask you whose main fault was it that the deadlines were missed, who
would you say? The majority of people I ask this question of say the senior manager.
I can understand why but its actually mainly the MDs fault. As the delegator, you are
ultimately responsible for the result. So lets explore my reasoning here. What did the
MD do wrong?
1. He delegated a series of tasks not the objective. People didnt know why they
were doing what they were asked to do because there was no context.
2. He didnt make the reason for the deadline compelling enough.
3. He didnt check how well the senior manager understood the importance
of what he was delegating and the consequences and impact of missing
the deadlines.
4. He didnt make it clear enough to the senior manager that they knew it was
their responsibility to ensure the tasks were completed.
5. He didnt check progress periodically, and find out if people were struggling with
the tasks before the deadline.
6. As this was habitual behaviour in the business, he didnt learn from previous
failures and change his approach.
The senior manager and the other staff also share some responsibility but it was
ultimately down to the MD.
7.2 UNDERSTANDING PREFERRED MANAGEMENT STYLE

Before we explore the key principles of delegating, it is useful to recognise that we all
have a preferred style (we discussed this in chapter 2). If youre a manager, your preferred
style might be big picture which may not suit the person youre delegating to. If youre
being delegated to, do you just want the bare minimum or great detail?
66
I preferred to be a hands-off manager, trusting my teams to do their jobs until they

showed me they needed help. So when I delegated, I often had to change my style to
give more information to staff, and test their understanding. Knowing my preferred style,
I asked my staff to point out if I didnt explain things well enough so I could go into
more detail. I also knew that I didnt like having to check up on them, so I asked them
to report progress at regular intervals and to come to me if they got stuck at any point.
Its about establishing the ground rules.
The worst questions that a manager can ask someone theyve delegated something to are:
Is that clear? or Do you understand? As a team member, if you are asked the question
what are you going to say? Yes. You may believe you understand, but when you start
to do the work, realise its not clear at all, or you may say yes because you dont want
to look stupid. Not understanding something is not your fault its the fault of the
delegator for failing to explain what they wanted clearly. And if you dont understand, its
your responsibility to ask whatever questions you have, to make sure you do.
If youre a manager, this might irritate you, so get over yourself and recognise that if you
want the job done well, first time, its worth spending the extra time having the initial
conversation. Itll be quicker than having to have the work redone or do it yourself
afterwards. Go back to the open questions in the Test Understanding part of chapter 3,
to prevent communication breakdowns when youre delegating.
7.3 BASIC PRINCIPLES OF DELEGATING

Delegation is situational so youll delegate the same thing differently depending on the
individual and circumstance. Youll also delegate different things to the same individual
differently, depending on their knowledge or experience. So your delegation style has to
be flexible.
If youre the person being delegated to, youll know how confident you are that you
can achieve the objective, so point that out. Also make it clear when you need more
direction or input from the person delegating.
7.1.3 DELEGATE OBJECTIVES AND OUTCOMES, NOT TASKS
When you delegate work to the member of the team, your job
is to clearly frame success and describe the objectives
67
You will be delegating something to achieve a desired result in a certain timeframe.

Make the objective clear but not the method. People work differently and will achieve a
similar objective in different ways, so allow the person youve delegated to, to pick their
own method. As a manager, be aware that your way is not the only way, nor may it be
the best way. Always put the objective into context so staff understand why the job and
timeframe is important. What are the positive consequences of achieving the objective,
and the negative consequences of not achieving it for the business and the person
doing the task?
The only thing you must tell them are things that they cannot do to achieve the task
because they may be illegal, may compromise the business or have bad consequences for
their colleagues.
For example, you might ask the financial team to devise processes to improve cash flow.
The things they could not do might include, delaying payments to suppliers (immoral
although plenty of businesses do this), and not paying the staff (illegal).
Stephen Covey explained situational delegation in his book The 7 Habits of Highly
Effective People. He described five levels of delegation, each corresponding to levels of
initiative those being delegated to, would have to display.
Trust
Level 5 Delegation
Stewardship
Delegation and
reporting
Recommend
If you don't know how or see

something that isn't working - ask
about it
Level 1
Go-for delegation...do this , then do that, then do
the other. You may as well do it yourself!
Figure 8: The delegation triangle
68
It starts with level one and rises to level five. He calls level one go-for delegation. Its
effectively micro managing and is so labour intensive, you may as well do the tasks
yourself. If youve ever been delegated a series of sequential tasks rather than an objective,
youll recognise this method.
The disadvantages of level one delegation:
It is time intensive for the manager

Staff waste time waiting for the next instruction
Staff rarely learn anything from it
Staff feel they are not trusted
Staff do not own the outcome and probably dont care
Staff do not use their initiative
You wont improve processes because staff are not required to critically think
about what theyre doing
You should never have to use level one. At this level the tasks are routine and businesses
should have a manual containing relevant processes.
You may need to delegate at level two for a short period of time with a new member of
staff, while they are learning the job and how your business operates, or member of staff
taking on a different role. For all other staff it is inappropriate.
The disadvantages of level two delegation are:
It is time consuming for the manager

Staff waste time waiting for the answer to their question
Staff dont learn for themselves while you tell them what to do
Staff feel they are not trusted
Staff do not own the outcome and probably dont care
Staff do not use their initiative
You wont improve processes because staff are not required to critically think
about what theyre doing
69
Level three is the lowest level that you should delegate at. This is where you delegate an
objective and ask the member of staff to bring a recommendation about how they will
achieve it. You would delegate in this way if the staff member is inexperienced, may
not have all the knowledge they need, or are unconfident in their ability. Alternatively,
it may be a critical piece of work that you cant afford any mistakes on so you want to
check their thinking and rationale before giving them the go ahead. Remember, their
recommendation may not be the way you would have proceeded, but that doesnt make
it wrong. Resist being wedded to the method and give them the opportunity to explain
their recommendation. Explore their ideas fully so that they own the solution.
You can then move to level four delegation for the same objective so they can start
doing the work and report progress to you at every stage. This allows people to think for
themselves and take some control and with it, ownership of achieving the desired result.
Level four delegation is the equivalent so asking someone to do something and report
back immediately. You dont need to understand their rationale because you are confident
that the person being assigned the objective has the knowledge and experience to get on
with it. The main reason youll want them to report immediately is because the outcome
is too important to take the risk of making a mistake. For some things, it may not be
appropriate to delegate any higher than level four.
Level five is where you trust the person delegated to, to achieve the desired result. Youll
want progress updates from time to time, usually high level information. As a manager,
the advantage of this level is that it requires almost none of your time or effort because
you trust the job is in safe hands.
As a rule, youll always delegate between levels three and five, depending on the
work and the skills, knowledge and experience of the person youre delegating to (the
situation). The advantages of delegating at these levels are:
Staff feel empowered and trusted

Staff take pride and are more committed to the outcome because theyve created
the method
Staff use their initiative and learn
Managers spend less time monitoring and getting involved
70
Some useful questions to ask when you think youve delegated:
How do you understand what Ive just asked you to do?

What concerns do you have about doing the work?
(This will raise any objections and allow you address them and coach your colleague to
find the solutions).
How do you think you might approach that? (This is good for less confident
staff or those doing the task for the first time).
Who else can help you?
What resources might you need? (resources include time).
7.1.4 COMMUNICATING THROUGHOUT THE PROCESS
Contracting
When you delegate a piece of work you will want to have a contracting conversation.
Contracting conversations set the ground rules and test you both understand them. This
will save you time and energy later on. This will cover things like how often you will
have progress reports, and in what form, what the key milestones are, what authority the
person has to make decisions, what resources theyll need etc.
At the point youve been delegated to, youll want to make sure that what is expected
of you is realistic and that you can accomplish the task. That means planning your
workload and making others who may be contributing, aware of what you will need
from them and by when. We all like to think we can cope with additional workload but
we often underestimate the time and effort we will have to put in.
If your plan reveals the deadline is tight or unachievable, you should have that
conversation with your manager as soon as possible. Have some suggestions about how
to make it more achievable. Could someone cover some of your work to give you more
time, could your other jobs wait? If youre not sure about what has priority, ask your
manager so they can make that call.
Have you ever missed a deadline? Probably. Sometimes unforeseen and unplanned events
disrupt the best plans. If, at some point during the project, you know that the work is
falling behind and you believe you may miss the next milestone or deadline agreed, its
your responsibility to communicate this as soon as you realise.
71
One of the most useful things a manager said to me early in my career was I dont like
surprises. If youre a manager, youll empathise with this comment. Its much better to
know the deadline is in danger of being missed when you can do something about it,
rather than find out at the point it was missed. Thats just the kind of surprise you dont
want. The sooner you know things are falling behind, the more you can do to either put
additional resources into achieving it or delay starting anything that was dependent on
the task being delivered.
As a manager you need to be aware of progress without nagging. Schedule conversations

to track progress, or in the instance of level 5 delegations the dates you had agreed
youd get a progress report. Again, this is situational. Ultimately, its your responsibility
so make it your business to know how things are progressing. Many managers think
that simply asking someone to complete a job and leaving them to get on with it is
delegating. It isnt. That is dumping or abdicating responsibility. You have to know that
key milestones have been met and that you have the evidence that proves they have.
7.1.5 ACKNOWLEDGE RESULTS
When someone has done a piece of work, the least they can expect is to be
acknowledged for their effort. As a manager you should know if the work was a stretch
for them, if they had to make any particular effort, if it was something theyd never
done before, or if they did it better than the last time they were give a similar task. If
you were in their shoes wouldnt you want to be acknowledged, and perhaps be asked
for your opinion about how things went? Not having this conversation is a wasted
opportunity. It may be part of a formal debrief (usually for a larger project), looking for
learning opportunities, or it may be an informal 121.
Feeding back to each other allows managers to learn more about their team members
and help team members to feel that their effort was worthwhile. If there were problems,
these can be turned into learning opportunities for how to do things better next time.
Managers and team members should take responsibility for this happening. People
usually come to work to do their best, and acknowledging this encourages staff to be
motivated at work.
72
SECTION 3
CONCLUSION
Communication is a simple concept but it isnt easy. We have misunderstandings
all the time. I hope that the contents of this book help you understand what makes
communication effective and how you can achieve positive and productive results in
some of the most common workplace conversations.
If you take nothing else from this book, remember these things:
Communication happens in the mind of the receiver. You have to communicate

with the other persons perspective in mind.
Be genuinely curious about the other persons position and feelings. Open
your mind and resist the temptation to be wedded to a particular response
or outcome.
Ask open questions and listen to understand. Test your assumptions and your
understanding of all your important conversations.
Tailor your communication to the person youre communicating with is their
preference for the big picture or micro detail?
Prepare for important conversations, know what the best outcome is for you
and the other person.
Make adequate time for communicating and dont let seemingly more important
things get in the way. Theres nothing better for improving relationships and
business results than effective communication.
Communication is not an event. Its an ongoing process. Make it your business every
day to ask questions that will give you insights into a particular situation or person,
answer people appropriately, and communicate openly and honestly with colleagues (no
matter how junior or senior they are). When people see that you are making the effort,
they are likely to do the same. When you move away from playing lip service and move
towards taking positive action to communicating effectively, you will drive better business
results and make workplaces, healthier, happier and more productive places to work.
73

Maximise Your Important Business Conversations

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Maximise Your Important Business Conversations

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FIONA COHN

1 Its more complicated than you think common myths 12

2 The key components and basic principles of communication 17

Section 2 Putting Communication Theory into Practice 36

4 Conducting productive appraisals 37

5 Giving and receiving Feedback 45

6 Making Change Work 55

7 Delegating to get great results 65

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Fionas background is in media, marketing communications and management and she

After a 15-year career in the competitive world of sports broadcasting, marketing, PR

Passionate about effective communication and employee engagement, often overlooked

Fiona enjoys working with businesses on the following activities:

Customer Focus and Marketing Internal engagement building the business

email her at: excelarate.uk@gmail.com

George Bernard Shaw summed it up perfectly:

Communication is how we do business we get it wrong at our peril.

1 ITS MORE COMPLICATED THAN

Id like to start by busting the most common communication myths.

1.1 GIVING INFORMATION IS COMMUNICATING

1.2 COMMUNICATION IS TWO WAY

1.3 WHAT YOU SAY IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ELEMENT

Figure 1: Elements of Communication

Verbal communication the words, or raw data you use and

1.4 ITS OBVIOUS WHAT YOU MEAN WHEN YOU COMMUNICATE

Deloitte & Touche LLP and affiliated entities.

Deloitte & Touche LLP and affiliated entities.

Discover the truth at www.deloitte.ca/careers

1.5 COMMUNICATING EFFECTIVELY TAKES TOO LONG

1.6 YOU DONT NEED TO PLAN YOUR COMMUNICATION

1.7 STORIES ARE FOR CHILDREN

What the situation was

It is impossible not to communicate. As soon as you walk into a room youve

1.8 BIG WORDS MAKE YOU LOOK CLEVER

Communication is about achieving an outcome not for its own sake.

2 THE KEY COMPONENTS

2.1 VERBAL AND NON VERBAL COMMUNICATION

One kind word can change someones entire day

2.1.2 DIFFERENT PERSONALITY TYPES

2.1.3 NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION

2.1.4 TONE OF VOICE

2.1.8 PAUSE AND USING SILENCE

2.1.9 BODY LANGUAGE

2.1.10 BUILDING EMPATHY AND RAPPORT

Figure 2: Elements you need to create empathy and rapport

Communication is how we do business and building empathy and rapport is a large

Learning style Traits How to train/explain

Visual Seeing, Reading Use graphs, charts,

Auditory Hearing, Speaking Have colleagues ask

Kinaesthetic Touching, Doing, Demonstrate skills or tasks,

Figure 3: Using VAK to train/explain more effectively

Figure 4: Mirroring body language

Management Time Management

Project Management Goal setting Motivation Coaching

2.2 CHOOSE YOUR CHANNELS WISELY

Figure 5: Examples of communication channels

Communicating is difficult enough without being made even more complicated

What do you consider when choosing your communication channel? It may be a

2.3 SPEAKING AND LISTENING

As well as the reasons Ive already highlighted:

Speaking the same language (understanding preferences in language)

there are a number of other reasons why communication breaks down.

3.1 TEST UNDERSTANDING

Watch the sketch here:

1 Its more complicated than you think common myths 12

2 The key components and basic principles of communication 17

4 Conducting productive appraisals 37

5 Giving and receiving Feedback 45

7 Delegating to get great results 65

1 ITS MORE COMPLICATED THAN

1.3 WHAT YOU SAY IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ELEMENT

2 THE KEY COMPONENTS

5 GIVING AND RECEIVING