The Leader's Voice

The Economist and Symbolic Communication

Among the reasons I enjoy reviewing The Economist is the way it combines symbolic verve with contemporary critical thinking concerning current economic, political, and financial news. It uses well worn symbolic phrases like "In the court of public opinion," and "Financial markets are buoyant, business confidence is rising, and global growth seems increasingly robust."

It also uses slightly more selective metaphorical phrases. In a recent article concerning the Goldman Sachs difficulties with Congress it reiterated the bank's 1999 mission as outlined in its prospectus. The statement used the typical verbiage concerning client interests being first, serving clients ensures success, and that if the bank's people, capital, or reputation were diminished the most difficult to restore would be reputation. To this statement The Economist wrote, "Only the most naive investor read that as a commitment to do-goodery rather than calculated self-interest. And only the most priggish today would argue that financial institutions are obliged to be fluffy."

Later in the same article it suggested, "No firm has combined such red-blooded dedication to profit and high pay with so little appreciation of the state's generosity..."

But in every issue the writer's go one step further in their symbolic sleight-of-hand and combine fact with rare imagery that sets this venerable periodical apart. Such as these lines from the April 24th, 2010 issue concerning a volcano (subscription required).

"The Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokul produced a thrilling show - and may continue to do so - but did most of its damage simply by shutting down air traffic in and out large parts of Europe for nearly a week. Rather than bereavement, it brought the eeriness, and sometimes the joy, of displacement. Colleagues were absent from their desks, and teachers and pupils from their classrooms; the clear blue skies were bereft of the silver needles that sew the world together. Birdsong made loud the silence of the jets, florists' vases missed the bright blooms of far-off fields, and far-off farmers missed the cash those blooms would have brought. But, this time, almost all that went missing will be returned."

I'm not saying becoming a poet is necessary to enhance your leadership communication ability.

But it couldn't hurt.

Emotional Channel and Movement

Have you ever heard or used expressions such as these?

"She lifted my spirits with her positive outlook."

"During the downturn my hopes were dashed on the rocks."

"My heart sunk when the earnings report came out."

"I felt high as a kite when I landed that job."

These metaphorical expressions, and others like them, use movement in association with positive and negative feelings. This is not accidental. For a long time studies and language analysis has shown that mood, feelings, and emotional categories are associated with body movement, especially in the up and down directions.

"Positive emotions are implicitly associated with upward movements and and negative emotions with downward movements," according to researchers Daniel Casasanto and Katinka Dikstra in a paper posted in a recent edition of Cognition. These researchers simply asked people to remember episodes from their lives as they moved marbles either from the top of a box to the bottom or vice versa. The simple act of movement colored the resulting amount of positive or negative feelings associated with the memory, whether the participants were asked to remember a good time or a bad time in their lives.

In my workshops I demonstrate how spontaneous body movements are and how important certain types of body language and gesturing are in conveying information on the emotional channel. In my view a great deal of emotionally relevant information is suppressed in environments where people feel compelled to over-control their body language. And a great deal of emotional channel confusion can result from poorly controlled body language expressions.  

I'm not suggesting Wall Street trading floor levels of gesticulation are appropriate for most meetings, but a lot of emotional information is appropriately conveyed in our hand movements and facial expressions. What is important is that leaders learn to use their natural repertoire of movements to convey what they mean. 

As the two researchers conclude, "Motor actions can influence how efficiently people recollect emotional memories, and can also partly determine whether people choose to remember episodes with positive or negative valence."

The Future and Delayed Rewards

"Taken together, our results reveal that vividly imagining the future reduced impulsive choice," concludes Dr. Peters. Jan Peters and Christian Büchel report in the April 15, 2010 issue of Neuron about their study concerning imagining the future before making a delayed gratification choice.

The results seem intuitive, but its good to know intuition can be backed by investigation. Individuals who were asked to vividly imagine what their plans were over the very short term, 30 to 45 days. Then they were asked to decide if they wanted €20 now or €35 forty-five days from now. Thinking about the future first significantly increased the amount of delayed gratification, with more folks deciding to wait than the control group that was not asked to consider the future.

The implications for leadership are clear. Constantly inviting folks to think about the meaning of what's ahead, in vivid, compelling terms, is essential in helping all of us look for labor rewards later than in an immediate sense. The idea that you can communicate about the future in mere programmatic or project update terms likely will not produce the results of more vivid imagery.

Better Communication - A Gift of Time

Peter Bregman writes a blog for Harvard Business Review. In a recent post he shares the top three things that a survey of 400 senior managers counted as the most time wasting:

1. Unnecessary Meetings
2. Unimportant Emails
3. Protracted PowerPoints

All three can be resolved with better communication. If the meeting is unnecessary (or of dubious quality) - create a short video of what you think is important and send it to folks. See if the meeting is important before holding it. I recommend a short video (30 seconds or so) simply to distinguish it from #2.

For the longest time I have recommended that the way to lower your inbox count of unimportant emails is to stop originating so many in the first place. Imagine the consequences if everyone reduced their email output by just 10%. That seems manageable to most, but my advice is to reduce it by 75% or more. That often feels impossible, but consider how much time you can save by writing better emails, reducing unwarranted emails, and eliminating your CYA blizzard of protection. Add to these factors the idea that one short voice or video call could not only enhance communication (as well as relationships) but reduce email traffic (and that may be more important than reducing your commute).

Lastly, while I could go on for hours about poorly constructed, visually assisted presentations, I won't because we all already know how to make better presentations. The best advice I can give for those who are irretrievably tethered to slide shows is to turn the projector off. Make your comments from memory or hand written notes and provide the slides as a backup (or gift for those who like to think positively). Use more Q&A and less Show & Tell and you might be surprised that at the end your audience feels invigorated rather than fatigued.