How to Cut Through the Noise

Interview by: Scott D'Amico

EPISODE NOTES

With a constant barrage of information coming at people, how do you cut through the noise? That is exactly what my guest, Eric Henry, and I discussed in this episode. Eric is the President at Carousel Digital Signage, which is the industry leader in enterprise digital signage content management.

TRANSCRIPT

 Welcome to episode 66 of Unicast a Communication Skills podcast. I'm Scott Dko, president of Communis Bond, a global communication skills training organization with a constant barrage of information coming at people. How do you cut through the noise? That is exactly what my guest Eric Henry and I discuss in this episode.

Eric is the president at Carousel Digital Signage, which is the industry leader in enterprise digital signage content management. I hope you enjoy, Eric. Thank you so much for joining me today. Absolutely, my pleasure. Looking forward to the conversation. Looking forward to it as well. You know, before we jump too far into it, why don't you maybe tell the listeners just a little bit about you, your career journey, and what it is that you're working on today.

Absolutely. So yeah, going way back out of college, I actually started, I was a finance and accounting major, so I started at American Express. Uh, interesting to work in that corporate environment for, you know, sort of a six year journey and really was itching to, to take sort of the entrepreneurial track.

So I did what most people do. You have a kid and then you decide to, to go out and, and, uh, give up all your income because it seems like it'd be a fun thing to do. Yes. Yeah. So, um, somehow my wife supported me in that journey and, and so I started out running a little company and then eventually making my way to, uh, tightrope Media Systems, which is the, the company that I work at now.

So I'm the president of the company and had various different biz dev roles along the way and, and ultimately landed at Tightrope and, and. As a company, we focus a lot on really communication, so it's kind of a fun, fun topic for us in, in really in the digital world. So through through video for city council meetings and those types of things with our cable cast product.

And then I lead the carousel team, which is digital signage that we find in K twelves, higher ed corporate environments and that type of stuff. So that, it's kind of been my journey over the years a little bit of. Finance, a little bit of tech, a lot of, uh, team leadership that I've really enjoyed over the years.

And so that's kind of the real brief story for, for my career. Outstanding. No, it's an interesting journey and you know, I think that the thread connecting all that really is communication, whether you're working through the corporate environment. Going off on your own into entrepreneurship and then you being a, a leader of organizations specifically that work around different types of communications, it's gonna be important to have those strong skills and yeah, it really should be an interesting conversation today because if I think of.

A lot of the, the past conversations focus a lot more on, you know, just traditional forms of communication, how people get their message out there. So I think with, with what you're doing today is an interesting twist and perspective on it, about how people receive communication, how do you get your message across, keep people engaged, things like that.

So you, as we think about this term of, of communication and effective communication. What comes to mind when you hear that somebody is a really strong communicator? What's that image that that comes into your brain? Yeah, I think a, a couple of things, naturally being articulate I think is certainly part of it, and I think maybe why articulate is so important is people really need clarity.

And, and so I think in, in my journey in particular is really understanding the importance of clarity and. It's great if I can string a bunch of words together, but if people don't understand what I'm actually saying or why, why the thing is important that is being communicated and, and, and it's not clear to people or I, I'm communicating something that, that I think makes a ton of sense to me.

But, but as I'm encoding that message and they're decoding it, they're decoding it completely differently. When I think of great communicators, it is people that are articulate. They're certainly passionate about what they do, but. Ultimately they understand how to package a message to a listener for them to receive it well.

And so, yeah, so as I'm thinking about a really great communicators, I, I think of those individuals that can really deliver a clear message, but also inspire people with that message towards some sort of action. Whether it's for themselves personally or corporately rallying people together. You know, we think of the the great communicators that even as our former presidents or those types of people that we would think of as inspirational over time, it's because you could rally people to a cause and and get people to remember it and lean into it a little bit.

So that's kind of what I think about as I think about great communicators. As you talk about that, what it means to be a great communicator. A few things jumped out to me in addition to this idea of, of providing clarity, because clarity is kindness is one of my past guests that had shared mm-hmm. A few things.

One, you have to think about intent versus what's received typically, and I'd say more often than not, what's received is gonna be at least somewhat different from your intent when you put it out there right as it goes from your brain to your vocal cords out into the world and someone else's ear to their brain.

Things have a way of getting changed or distorted a little bit. So really understanding that, focusing on your audience, starting to think about, you know, really what is important to this group that I'm speaking to. Then as you mentioned, how do I take that and just put it in a very concise way and deliver it to them in a way that they're going to be able to understand at which a lot easier said than done.

Uh, but when you can do that, it absolutely sets you apart as a communicator. Yeah. And one thing just to follow up on that, you know, it's. I can intend a thing, but now that you and I are on a video call seeing each other, I can see that maybe if I, if I communicated something in a particular way, it may not have landed on you because I can read your body language or your facial expressions and maybe follow up with, with a clarifying statement or maybe a question to you that the difficulty is when we, we change the medium to text messaging or video on screens or those types of things, because now we're not in real time.

Interaction. So even as we change to remote work environments and those types of things, you don't have that immediate feedback, which is, which is a difficult. Removing mm-hmm. In communication is boy, and, and we see that right now, especially, especially with our young people who are primarily texting. Boy, I had this really difficult conversation with this person.

They didn't seem to take it well. Well, it's hard to, to read intent or, or understand how somebody may have received a message depending on, on even the mechanism we use and, and obviously as a company that's delivering one way communication, we have to be really mindful of that as well. So. Y you bring up a great point where the, the medium or the vehicle that we use to deliver the message can sometimes make or break it.

You have to determine what is the right way to deliver this message. Is it in person a video call? Video call? Can it just be done by phone, text message, email, things like that. But yeah, you hit on with what you're doing with the digital signage. I mean, how do you think through that as you're putting messaging out there to make sure that.

Gosh, we really hope the intent of this is what lands with the audience. What are some things that you go through as you're, you're working through that for your clients. Yeah, so one of the things I, I think ultimately what's interesting is, is. Digital signage or, or video broadcast of meetings or those types of things.

They aren't really the, the, the end goal. So, so if you think about it and you back up from a little bit, what we're actually trying to do with that communication is keep people connected in person in some way in, so, for example, on a higher ed campus, the communication on the signage shouldn't replace people meeting and interacting in person.

We actually wanna use that. That communication should, should be resulting in people getting together. Because ultimately what we're trying to do is foster community. So the, the irony of us as a company is we're a tech company and a lot of times with technology, we think about that's actually leading to separating people or distancing and relationship.

And so how, how do we encourage a higher ed institution to think about their tools as a way of fostering community, not replacing interaction. So I think that's how we would encourage people, Hey, use the communication to highlight the fact that this event is happening or this gathering on campus or this group of people that might be a, a smaller group for people to connect with, with the history majors or whatever.

Whatever the gathering might be. We wanna incent. Community and human connection more than just reading a thing on a screen and getting my information and moving on with my day. So it's a little bit different in just even thinking about why we have these tools in the first place. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think it's, if you go back to it's, what's the goal?

You, you nailed it. What's the goal of doing this? The goal isn't. A lot of the times probably for your communications or your, your signage, get all the information out. I can look at the sign I see, and then I move on. But your goal is maybe to take the next step to get them to attend this, this meeting, this gathering, whatever it is.

So when you think through communication, whether it is a sign, an email, a presentation you're giving, what's the goal? What do I want my audience to do? And really start with that. What do I want them to think? Do believe at the end of this. And then kind of work backwards to get to what that message should be, so to speak.

Certainly, yeah. And, and the reality is the, when you step back and you go, okay. How many different mechanisms do we have for communicating today? We have an awful lot. Mm-hmm. So, so why do we need another one? You know, so we have to ask real questions of even ourselves in, in, in our organization. And, and so, you know, just thinking about myself and how I lead, lead the Carousel team is we really have to a wrestle with the tough questions of.

What is the thing that we're doing or providing that is actually helpful to this big problem of we already get too many emails, we already have too much social media. We already have screens everywhere. Mm-hmm. Why do we need other ones? And I think ultimately what we conclude is there's a lot of noise.

I'm not really sure what I need to know and so can we, can we give a set of tools or us in conjunction with other tools that an organization has to highlight the things that everybody really has to know. Like what are the three things I need to know that annual enrollment's coming up and I gotta get it done by the end of December?

Okay. How do we make sure that everybody sees that when I can look at Slack or Teams or Carousel or. My email and all of these other tools and make sure that people are aware that yes, I do actually have to do annual enrollment, or I need to take the cybersecurity training or this thing on campus is happening and I really wanna be part of that.

That's kind of, I think for us it's like how do we, how do we help an organization cut through the noise and, and keep people like being able to see the things that they really need to see? Mm-hmm. It's interesting to argue that we should add another tool to do that, but, but I, but it's, but I would say that, that it, we've shown that it is actually pretty effective.

So on the surface, it, it, it seems counterintuitive to add something else, to cut through the noise. But what we see time and time again with communication is. A one and done's not gonna do it. Sometimes a two and done's not gonna do it. Whether it's a, a town hall meeting followed up with an email, then maybe it's a Slack message and then it's some sort of text message that's pushed out as you start to think through communication, thinking through it in a campaign type of format where absolutely we need to build upon it so that it isn't.

I saw the email, but you know what? I was going through airport security when I saw it and then I completely forgot about it 'cause it got buried in the hundred other emails. So now as I'm going through the next day, maybe I see the signage. I absolutely thinking through communications as how is this a campaign?

'cause ultimately it's something important. We wanna make sure that it gets done. I love that you said that. 'cause we, we, we've been using that same language as an organization, is we wanna be part of an organization's visual communications campaign strategy. Because when you look at marketing campaigns, you know, they think.

They think holistically, what are all the marketing channels? We're gonna communicate this thing? What's the buyer behavior? We wanna have all of those. We think about all that. What's the call to action? Mm-hmm. And so if you apply that same thinking to a communication strategy, we and I in a higher ed institution, I wanna think about what are all the places this message needs to go?

What are we asking people to do? What do we want the call to action to be? And what outcome do we want? And I, so I love that, that more holistic thinking around it because. Historically, you know, even in, in our own industry, it's, well, why do you wanna do this project? Well, we wanna do it 'cause everybody else is doing it.

Or because it looks cool because we can do these flat panel screens and put cool content on it. It's like, well that just becomes part of the noise if we're not thinking about it really being part of the effectiveness of an overall strategy. And even for us, it's led to things like, well, where do, where do most students actually get their information?

Well, they get it from their mobile device. So what does it look like for us to be helpful in. Providing communication to mobile devices and give higher eds the, the tools to do that, or a K 12 or a branch office of, of a retailer. Like how do we get those employees to know what's going on in their branch today?

Mm-hmm. So that's, that's kind of the, the types of things that we try to think about. So yeah, when you're, when you're thoughtful about your communications and you plan them out, it has a much larger impact. So, for example, if I'm walking across campus and I see a sign for something, okay, I might recognize it, but if I see that same sign.

The day after, I had also received an email from my school about that topic. I'm like, oh, you know, I just saw an email about that. Maybe this is important. I really should tune into it. So being thoughtful with communications, building them into a campaign when it's something critical. Big, big game changer for getting the results that you want.

Yeah, for sure. And you know, and just thinking back to your question earlier about what makes a great communicator. I think one of the things that I've had to learn over the years and, and especially since I've had the opportunity to be in leadership positions, oftentimes I'm exposed to whatever that piece of information is way before everybody else is, and so.

A learning that I've had to have over the years is understanding that I've been able to sit with an idea or wrestle through a new concept for two or three months before a team's even heard about it one time. Mm-hmm. And so as leaders, I think sometimes we shortcut the, that whole idea of how many times somebody has to see a message or how long it takes for them to really, to get buy-in of an idea because we've already had the time to process through and wrestle with it.

And so I think I admire leaders who do a great job of. Of knowing how much to give people and how to walk them along in a, Hey, here's, here's where we're going and here's how much information you need to know. Now, sometimes you know, too much information is overwhelming, but not enough information.

Sometimes it's hard to build trust or those types of things, and so it's really interesting to think about that as well is just. Okay, here's an idea that we as administration have had for a while, or leadership at a, at a company. How do I get my team bought into this thing and understanding this new product or service and why, you know, and how to sell it and what the opportunity is for their customers to enjoy it.

Like just really. Thinking about, and that's why I love your, you know, campaign ideas. It forces you to think more holistically about that this campaign is over the next three months or six months versus two weeks. 'cause I'm a, I'm a, yeah, I've been thinking about it for a while. Ship it out next week and we're done.

That's not really, that definitely has not worked well for me in my career. So, so it's, it's a delicate dance when you think about how much communication, as you mentioned, too little, you miss the mark too much, you overwhelm, perhaps you turn people off. From a leadership perspective, you really nailed it, and I find myself sometimes will struggle with this, where I've been knee deep in a project for six months and I know it inside and out.

Then sometimes when we roll it out, I'm like, well, come on. This is right. This is how we do it. It's like, no, I've been living this for six months. They're just now hearing about it. Which you know, brings me what I wanted to chat about next a little bit is. From your role in a leadership position within the organization, whether it is from the leaders on your team or just in general, the employees, you know, what are some of the skills that you're really looking for or that you're seeing as being mission critical in the workforce today when it comes to communication?

It's interesting. I, I think. It's probably not specifically a skill, but maybe, but maybe a piece of their character. The number one core value we have as an organization is compassion and, and so I would actually start with that one because. I think in an organization, especially if you have people at different levels in terms of their career, whether they've are individual contributors or they've led teams, whether they've worked in collaboration before.

And so I think I would say for myself, oftentimes I'm most looking for people that are compassionate because not everybody can articulate their ideas well. And, and so as much as I can have people on the team that are, that are. Helping their peers express themselves or get clarity. This idea, I think back to like books like Crucial Conversations where it talks about this idea of, of creating safety.

Mm-hmm. I think that that's what lends to like a lot of communication breakdown is people that aren't comfortable or don't feel safe or they, they don't know that they're in a trusting environment. Or they're afraid to fail, or people thinking their ideas maybe not a great idea. So I think as a, as an organization, we've always wanted to inspire innovation.

We wanted to inspire people to, to kind of like lead the charge and try something new. And it's okay if it doesn't work. And, and the only way that you can do that is in a collaborative environment where people feel really safe. And I think that that starts with knowing that there are compassionate.

Peers and so mm-hmm. I think that's, that's kind of where I actually start with it. And then, and then I look for, hey, can, can you really articulate these ideas? 'cause there are a lot of people that are very intelligent Right. And have, and have great ideas, but don't necessarily know how to articulate them.

Mm-hmm. And so. Okay. But I can work with that. Like I would, I love, I love for people that the second core value we have is continual improvement. And so we would say, how can you, Hey, we struggled with really getting where you were coming from. How might you be able to communicate this idea better in the future?

And. As an organization, we try to give people opportunity to do that. So every month at our, at our all hands meeting, we invite people on a team who may have done a project to, to share their update to the whole company just because I think that's a really healthy way of practicing it. So if, if, if you're not client facing all the time, you don't have a whole lot of opportunity to practice your communication and receive feedback.

And again, compassionate feedback, not really like harsh feedback. 'cause I think that that's right. That just brings people, you know, that kind of helps people recoil if you're, if you don't want them to continue to grow, you can be harsh. But that's, that's kind of, I think more when I think about it, you know, depending on where people come from, they're not, they, they haven't had a history of, of experience and presenting and stuff.

And so I, I just look for opportunities to, to give people so that they can practice that and mm-hmm. And kind of grow into it in their career and know that they're safe doing it. So I think that's kind of, it's almost like a. A community thing where we're, we're all trying to help each other get better and And grow.

Absolutely. And I'll say we see that a lot with the work that we do with companies that have a lot of folks that are very technical or they're just outstanding at their role and their job. But when it comes to the communication aspect of it, whether it is. Taking their findings and sharing with senior leadership, okay, here's what we have, here's why we need to do this, or here's why we need to change course.

Or if they put them in front of a client and they're not used to it, maybe the wheels come off. So I think giving people opportunities to grow and to develop, and as you mentioned, creating a, a safe, friendly environment for people to do that, to showcase some of their accomplishments is a, is a great way to do that.

And the other thing that you mentioned there is around. Innovation, right? You want to continue to evolve and to grow as an organization, and I would say it's gotta be nearly impossible to do that and to innovate if you have not fostered a culture of safety and of responsible risk taking where people feel comfortable asking questions, doing things differently, perhaps even failing.

And they know that as long as they're doing it trying to move something forward, they're not gonna be embarrassed. They're not gonna, you know, lose their job or be shunned. But this is this idea of, you know, we need to challenge the status quo. We need to feel comfortable to raise our hand if we're seeing something that's not right, whether it is something we can do better or something that just legitimately isn't right.

We need to not do this, uh, or change it. So yeah, creating that culture is really important and it's really important for leaders to model those behaviors. For sure. And, and just understanding that it goes against a lot of our human nature. Like none of us want to fail. Mm-hmm. This idea, but, but continually reminding ourselves that it's okay if we're gonna fail.

We wanna fail fast, we mm-hmm. We talk about that a lot and we wanna learn from it, and we wanna do it as a team. And it's not, Hey, Joe failed over here. It's like, Hey, we tried a thing, we, here's what we were thinking about and here's what we were trying to do and here's what we learned from it. Okay, awesome.

What are we gonna do next? And, and so like around that continual improvement thing and mm-hmm. Compassion, you, you put those two things together and it's, it's, it's awesome. And the other thing that, that, um, that our third core value actually is clarity. Uh, and so we, we found that, and a lot of times for clarity for me.

Uh, I found, and, and maybe even helping the team grow in their ability to communicate is for me to be really good asking questions. So the person that can't articulate necessarily the, their idea or the why they wanna do the thing. If the better I can be at asking them questions so that they can help formulate their thoughts or get out.

'cause there's probably some genius hidden back there that we don't necessarily understand yet. And so the better questions that I can ask to help unlock that person, there's probably something I'm gonna learn in that situation. Mm-hmm. And so I think that's another thing that I'm really trying to progress in is not talking as much.

'cause that's my part of. One of my Achilles heels is I love to tell stories and I get super excited, and then I unintentionally talk over or I dominate a conversation. And so I'm, I'm really trying to be mindful of asking better questions and opening people up to express themselves and process through their ideas, because there's these gems that are hidden.

That you uncover on your team when you're not talking as much. So that's, that's kind of where that's a great for me personally, that's where I'm out on my journey. So, to think about, right, if, if you're somebody that's listening to this and you are aware that you talk a lot, you tend to dominate conversations or perhaps you go on too much, asking questions is a great way to help with that.

Because when you're asking a question that other person's talking, what happens? You have to shut your mouth for a little bit. And as you mentioned, you learned. You right now. My, my son is in high school and he is really big into wrestling, and so after his matches, we always talk about, you know, how it went and specifically if he loses a match, rather than saying, oh my gosh, that guy was so much bigger or stronger than me, or taller, and it was, okay, well great.

What can we learn from this so that the next time you go up with, uh, somebody like this, somebody maybe that's six inches taller than you or whatever, what did you learn from this about how you can adapt it to there? Same place, same thing goes for the workplace, right? If you had some sort of project and it failed, it didn't go well, okay, what can we learn from this and apply it to the next time we're doing a project or the next deal that we're working on that's similar in this space?

How can we adapt? How can we change and ultimately grow to make sure that this wasn't just ultimately a waste? Because if you've learned something from it, that experience in no way was a waste. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, and I think sometimes even. Even in that whole encoding, decoding thing, like having conversations and asking somebody to elaborate on how they received a prior conversation like it, mm-hmm.

I, I tend to. I'm in, I'm out of Minnesota, so that's where we live. And so we have this Minnesota nice thing. Sometimes people say that's passive aggressive. Sometimes we don't really wanna be very direct. Um mm-hmm. A little bit different than the coasts. I remember the first time when I was at American Express and I called the guy from New York.

It was a very different interaction than it would've been in Minnesota, where they're just, yeah. Very direct and, but sometimes it's really helpful to just ask the tough question. The uncomfortable question. Mm-hmm. About why somebody received a thing, or, boy, I'm feeling like there's this thing going on here.

Just, again, understanding where somebody's coming from or maybe that I, I packaged that thing in a way. It, it wasn't that the words I said were wrong, but maybe even my body language and how I packaged it or the anxiety that I was communicating in this moment, or mm-hmm. Not being clear about my expectations, because I'll tell you one thing that I, I continually have to remind myself of is, is I don't think of myself as the boss.

Like we're, as an organization, we're not very hierarchical. But that doesn't mean my team doesn't think that way. Right. And so for me, I'm just, I'm Eric, and so you're Tom and we're having a conversation and, and I'm asking you to do a thing because I think it's a good idea, not because I'm the boss.

Mm-hmm. And, and I forget so often that people are looking because of my role, they would say, well, Eric said the thing, therefore we should do it. And that's not how, that's not how I'm thinking about it in my brain. So I have to be very careful about, about. A lot of times when I dominate a conversation, it's because I'm definitely a talk to think person.

Mm-hmm. And so I'll be thinking out loud and I'll be, I'll be I ideating something, but my team is hearing Eric said, go do a thing. Yep. Oh wait, hold on. No, I'm just sharing an idea. I'd love to hear yours. And so I have to be really mindful about even just because of my role or because of how I'm communicating, that people aren't always receiving that.

The same way that I'm thinking about it in my brain. Mm-hmm. And that's really helpful for me to always be mindful of as I'm, I'm trying to be more clear and more intentional as a leader in my communication. So that's definitely something as a leader to be aware of. You know, regardless of how strong your culture is and how open your culture is, the, the status in organizations, the levels are always gonna carry some sort of weight to it, whether you want it to or not.

Especially if you're a leader, as you said, you ideate, right? You talk out loud to get things out, and if you're in a meeting and you're talking about something and you put your idea out there, it might be very difficult for somebody else to disagree. So if you're saying, Hey, you know, we have this, this initiative coming up, you know, I think we should do X, Y, and Z.

What do you all think? The likelihood that you're gonna get new or different ideas is a lot lower than if you were to say, here's this initiative. What do you all think about it before you put your thoughts out there? So simply being aware as a leader, trying to get into the habit, right, of perhaps sharing your ideas last, getting the input from the team so that it's not, the responses aren't colored by what you've already put out there and like, oh, I guess we, maybe we should agree, or, I don't feel comfortable disagreeing with that.

Yeah. Yeah. And the other thing I would say, I absolutely agree with all of that. The other thing that has really been helpful to me, so we read through Working Genius by Lencioni. I think that's a, that's a really. It gives you a lot of great context for your teams. Mm-hmm. At the end of the book, I think there's, there's the gem of when he talks about these different elevations and understanding what meeting you're in, because some of my team is very, they're, they're all about execution and they're very tactical.

Right. And most of my meetings, I tend to be at this 30,000 foot view and. The disruption that it comes from me bringing an idea to a team that's landing the plane, right. Or the disruption to a person coming to a, a strategy meeting with all the clarifying questions and all the details when we're still at 30,000 feet.

Yeah. I think as an organization for us, like just that understanding and when we're, when we're in a meeting and we're. We have an understanding the expectation of what, where we're at in that meeting, I think also brings a lot of clarity to the conversation because it, it tells me that it's not time for ideas when the team is landing and executing the plan.

Mm-hmm. Unless they're stuck. If they're stuck and they say. We need, we, we need to get unstuck. Eric, do you have ideas? Okay. Cue Eric in the ideas. But otherwise I need to pretty much have my, like I'm pretty good at going last now, but sometimes I shouldn't say anything at all. Mm-hmm. And so, and I think it's when I, I'm, I'm understanding that sometimes those ideas are disruptive to my team, but I have to be way more aware of that when the meeting starts.

And so I think that's been really helpful to us too. Is, is going okay, this is a. This is a brainstorm being cool. Eric can brainstorm all he wants and it won't be disruptive, and the whole team understands. That means nobody is to do anything. Mm-hmm. We're only just coming up with ideas and there's other meetings where Eric's to say nothing because the team's just executing and they don't act.

They're just giving you an update. They don't actually need any input from you, and if you do, you're just gonna disrupt them. Oh, okay. That's good. Eric. Eric should sit here and, and just listen. So, you know, it really ties back to what we talked about at the beginning of our conversation of, you know, the audience, making sure you understand your audience and providing clarity.

So when you have these meetings, whether it's the idea, me meeting at 30,000 feet, or it's a very, you know, tactical flight plan, landing the plane type of meeting, going into it, whether you're the senior leader, an individual contributor, making sure, okay, understanding the audience, who am I talking to? And then.

Getting clarity around what's the purpose or the goal of this meeting. And I think a lot of organizations miss the mark on that with providing, here's the purpose of this meeting. So everyone knows coming in, they can prepare for it just from the logistics and the legwork they have to prepare and then mentally prepare, alright, this is the idea meeting, or this is the tactical, practical meeting.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I think continually going back to clarity. So I, as a leader, when you look back in, in this, I think, I think this part is what I would say. If you're a leader in an organization and you're listening to this particular podcast, this is perhaps the thing for you because it was the thing for me, which is, as leaders, we can sit around and we can be frustrated.

If we don't see our team taking the ownership level that we thought that they should take or drive the project, as well as, Hey, I gave the direction, I laid out the strategy. Why did we not execute? I found in my own reflection that most of the time if the team did not execute it was because I lacked the ability to provide clarity to them around expectations or why in the world we were doing the thing we were doing and how it fits in with the bigger picture.

Whatever it was, it was around my inability to lead with clarity. Mm-hmm. That's really, and so I, it's easy for us. To have an understanding in our head and then just expect that our teams will execute this plan. But it always comes down to me. It's not because my team didn't wanna do the best job they could, or they didn't wanna hustle or they didn't, they lacked the ability to execute.

It was almost always that I did not articulate the why behind it. The Simon Cynic type, why in the world are we doing this thing? How does it fit in? What am I expecting of you in the midst of this? So that's why I, when I keep coming back to Clarity, it's because that's been my own journey, which is I, I think I've be, I've grown in my leadership.

It's not that I get it right all the time. Mm-hmm. But I think I'm just much more aware of how important it is for me to be clear in my leadership in order for my team to be successful. Spot on. And especially going back to what we've chatted about is as a leader, oftentimes you've had these thoughts and ideas for quite a long time, and you've been working on it for quite a long time.

So it's second nature to you. But it's not to the people coming in maybe at the 11th hour, coming in halfway through to try now to operationalize what's been in your bouncing around in your brain for six months or even years. So providing the clarity and then giving them the why that why is so, so powerful.

Absolutely. Eric, we, we've hit on a number of things today around, you know, communication skills and, you know. Focusing in on questions, providing clarity, thinking about the audience and you know, your leadership and your leadership style. So as you think through your communication style, I'm sure it's evolved over the years, but you know, who has been somebody that has really influenced your style?

Maybe what, what have you taken from somebody tweaked, made it your own, put it into your toolkit, and now it's kind of part of, of who you are as a communicator? Yeah, that's a great question. Um. I think, I actually think back to the American Express days and uh, there was a senior leader there and she, she did a remarkable job.

The, the number one thing I remember her saying to her whole organization was, was assume good intent. And I think that, that as a, as a young 20 something year old. Young man was really impactful to me because then it really influenced how I received messages from others in, in assuming good intent first.

And the other thing that she did remarkably well, she led an organization of 500 people. I was, you know, at the bottom, bottom rung. But when she would notice good work, she would recognize people. And so I think. When I look at that, I think that sort of set the tone in my career for wanting to be eventually a leader, that that fostered a really healthy environment of people that genuinely cared about one another and understood that we're all on the same team.

I think that's what I kind of heard from her. And, and the other thing was she was really good at making sure people felt seen and heard. And so. With all of this communication, I mean, leading a team, what I, what I hope my team comes away with is whether we agree or we disagree or we're able to take their idea or not take their idea.

I want them to know that they're valued, member of the team wherever, wherever they land, in terms of org charts and all that type of stuff. Uh. That's, I think for me at the end of the day, that's, I look back to, to Becky was her name, her, her leadership as a senior leader in the organization, and I think she very much influenced my career in the way of, I saw her as a person who modeled what I wanted to be someday.

So that's what I would leave you with. It's always fun when you get to work with leaders like that and where you can take from them and you really, this is what I aspire to be, and I've been fortunate enough to have leaders like that throughout my career. And what you mentioned around assume good intent.

I think our world would be a much better place. I think you, yeah, the level of toxicity and a lot of workplaces will be a lot lower if people just went through there. And I would say it would likely avoid a lot of workplace conflict and people's careers likely could have been saved if they had simply just operated with that principle of assume good intent.

You get an email that rubbed you the wrong way, you assume good intent, intent. Take a breather, pause, don't respond right away. Yeah. And then come back to it. The communication that goes back, it's gonna be much more clear, and ultimately you're gonna get to, to the root or a solution a heck of a lot quicker.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's why we keep highlighting compassion within our organization. I'll, I'll tell you in all honesty, um, incompetence may not get you fired from our organization. Lack of compassion repeatedly is probably gonna get you, uh. Dismissed from our organization because a lot of times when, when things come out sideways out of a person, it's not usually to towards you, it's just what's going on in their life.

And so that was another thing for me early on, was understanding. I didn't even know what this person's story was, or we, you know, I would, I would pass judgment on a person or a situation and, and I didn't even take the time to understand what might be going on with them. And. There's a lot of stuff going on with a lot of people these days and, and we don't know what's going on in their personal life or those types of things mm-hmm.

That may impact what's going on in their workplace. And, and there's been situations in our organization where we've had the opportunity to, to walk alongside somebody and, and encourage them as they got healthy and. Their personal life. Mm-hmm. Not that we dive into their personal life, but Right. But we wanna make sure that they understand that they matter.

And when that happens, that that builds incredible loyalty within your organization. And it changes, it gives people perspective and leads them to say, Hey, they're actually an important member of, of the community. And that's, that's way better than driving towards metrics and doing all the things, and it produces really good results.

So. I think oftentimes if you fall to the other side of that, you might get results, but oftentimes they're gonna be short-lived and you're gonna pay a price for them at some point. Yeah. It's similar to the concept of like the brilliant jerk. We've, a lot of us have heard about this, where you may have somebody at your organization, they're brilliant, or they're a top sales performer, but if they're just a jerk and they are, you know, miserable to people and are hurting other people.

If the results are, the short term results are not worth it. I've, I've worked with people like that, and it never fails right after a certain period of time, something dramatic happens, and it's more than offsets the good that they did from a results or numbers perspective. So I think leading with compassion, focusing on your people, super, super powerful ways to lead an organization.

And Eric, as we're wrapping up here. What piece of closing advice would you have for those out there listening to this, just really around the importance of developing the skills that we talked about today and impact that it can have on their lives. Yeah, I think the advice that I would probably give, I, I joined a peer advisory group, so I would say that the number one advice that I have is, is probably accountability.

So when it comes down to leaders, it's. There's a lot of good intent. It's, you know, I, over the years I've wanted to become a better leader. I wanted to become a better communicator and, and all of these types of things, and there are just things we're so close to it ourselves that we just can't see that when somebody else is walking alongside you, it may be fairly obvious to them, the adjustment that you need to make.

Things as simple as, boy, I'm not sleeping at all. Well, I noticed you were carrying two vats of coffee. Interesting. Maybe you should lay off the coffee a little bit. That might help you. Getting a little bit more rest and therefore help you in your judgment tomorrow at work and controlling your tongue or those types of things.

And so I have found, however, accountability looks, um, the, the four of us that are on leadership in our organization are, we've created. Fortunately, in an environment where we can, we can hold each other accountable and have mm-hmm. Tough conversations with one another that makes us better. And so at the end of the day, I want to be a better leader and a better communicator where the only way I can do that is with other people's help.

I, I can't do it in a vacuum as much as I'd want to. And, and so joining for me, it had, it looks like a really strong leadership team where we have said we're gonna give each other permission each quarter as we go. We, we do traction. So we, we go through the people analyzer and we, we, we talk about one another.

Hey, what did we see that you did really well this quarter? What things do you say you were gonna work on? What did you shore those up or not? What things you gotta still work on? Eric, that came out a little sideways. That's super helpful to me. And then a peer advisory group that I meet with once a month.

Um, there are, you know, different groups that are available around the country and so jj our owner and myself, are both part of groups and it's really helpful to be in a group of people that know you and your business well. They know you personally. You've stated what you want to to do, and. B, and they ask you tough questions on whether you're doing it or not, so, so I think that for me has been super helpful and I can process through things with them and say, boy, I have this tough thing to communicate with this person.

Help me prepare for that. That's been really helpful to me because you get outside perspective that's outside of your business where sometimes you're so close to it and even your own leadership team is so close to it that. You may not see it. So having that perspective and it combined with accountability, I think has really been been magical in terms of helping, yeah.

Helping me progress in my leadership over the years. And I have to be open to it, right? Like, I can't be super defensive all the time. Mm-hmm. And again, assume good intent that they're trying to help me be better. Right. So that's, I think the, the closing advice that I would give is, is be open to accountability.

It sounds scary at first. Mm-hmm. Um, in my group. They, when I do my annual presentation, they actually interview people on my team, kind of like a 360, but they also interview my wife and that's tremendously valuable because it's amazing what little tweaks that people will hear a little bit different that will help you right in, in your marriage, help you lead a company well, you know, those types of things, so, so that's what I would say.

And I'll say that's the one. One of the biggest things that I love so much about my job is that these skills really do have a tremendous impact on all aspects of your life. With your family, with your friends, with your job, your livelihood, everything. Small tweaks along the way, and being open to it. And being open to being held accountable.

Make a massive difference and I would say kudos to you. 'cause a lot of people talk about accountability and want to be accountable, but they really don't do things to set it up. So being on advisory committees and having that relationship with your senior leadership team where you review and talk and have open candid conversations on a regular basis, I will tell you, put your head and shoulders above what, what most people do.

And it is, you have to be open to it. You have to let your guard down a little bit. Assume that positive intent, uh, so that you really can take it, internalize it, and grow. Yeah, absolutely. Eric, thank you so much for joining me today. Really enjoyed the conversation. I hope you have a great rest of your day.

Yeah, you as well. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. A special thanks again to my guest, Eric Henry. Eric's point about assuming good intent is very powerful, assuming good intent will help you to avoid unnecessary conflicts and mistakes. As we wrap up this episode, remember that the journey of improving communication skills is ongoing.

Make sure to stay connected with Communicast by subscribing so you can benefit from conversations with future guests. If you found value in today's episode, I'd be grateful for your support. Leaving a rating or review is a fantastic way to let us know the impact this show has had on you. Thanks and have a great day.

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