poseycorp helps innovators become great communicators. (Sometimes by sending out helpful stuff in a newsletter.)
ISSUE 150
Recognize where you are
“Context is everything.”
-- A.D. Garrett
“Four days after disastrous testimony on Capitol Hill, University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill resigns,” said NPR on December 10 of last year.
There is so much upheaval in our political and social culture today that this particular December congressional hearing, during which three university presidents were asked whether students calling for genocide of Jews violated school policies, may seem like ancient history.
But that hearing contained a profound communication lesson. When you speak, you need to understand who is listening.
Both Liz Magill and Claudine Gay were prepared for their testimony by the same distinguished law firm, WilmerHale. Lawyers are amazing at parsing meaning, navigating clients through complex shoals of precedents, and protecting them from making overbroad and potentially dangerous statements. And yet, ordinary humans hate hearing that kind of sh*t.
This is not, thank heaven, a newsletter about politics or mass communication. It’s a newsletter about business communication. How can context sink or save you as a communicator at work?
Announcing layoffs? “We must reduce our current investment in our most significant fixed cost in order to meet our guidance for the upcoming quarters” might be fine to say in an earnings call, but it’s a DISASTER at an all hands meeting.
“The service outage last week was actually caused by rats chewing wires at the data center. The fault lies with the facilities management company and we can’t guarantee it won’t happen again” might be what you put in an internal post mortem of a system failure, but you’d better amend that message for external audiences unless you want to tank your business.
Context requires an awareness of how people feel. It requires wrapping challenging messages with truthful compassion.
For example: “We deeply regret that we hired more people than the
business could sustain. Every person here has played a part in our success. We will do everything we can to support the team members that we must let go as they find new roles. We know that we will all miss them.”
Or: “We deeply regret the inconvenience that our outage caused to everyone who relies on our platform. We are hardening our data center’s physical infrastructure so that no hungry rat can take down our service again. ”
Truth. Wrapped in humanity. That’s what context should truly mean.
“I’m serious. This was very helpful,” said a seasoned leader, surprised that his time with me was actually useful!
If you’d like great results, schedule a conversation with me! It’s easy! Reach me at inquiries@poseycorp.com.
Not sure how to crush your next presentation? Persuade that difficult customer or team member? Navigate tough questions from regulators, press, your boss? How about some pragmatic, actionable communications advice?
If you are a startup founder, an intrapreneur at a company, or a leader looking to grow, consider Office Hours with Lisa, a great way to get bite-sized, personalized communications coaching. Because your business must scale and
you must scale with it. Because it’s the great communicators who create change!
