Do you have music playing while reading this? How is your choice of music affecting how you feel right now? Are you feeling relaxed and want to read something light? Are you moved to dance to the music? Do you read/work faster when you listen to music with a faster tempo? Are you someone who sings along to the music (and know every lyric)? Are songs with lyrics distracting when you need to do work (and you play only instrumentals during those times) or is your concentration the same with any type of music?
Think of an organization’s culture as a virtual soundtrack of the work environment. It’s always playing in the background in a continuous loop (whether you’re actively listening to it or not, whether you’re unconsciously mouthing the words or not, whether you’re stirred to action). It sends subliminal and direct messages to all those within hearing range (remember that hearing and listening are not the same). That’s why the culture you choose and nurture is so important to the ultimate success of your business.
All the questions I asked at the beginning have a counterpart in the work environment. Do your company’s oral communications as well as leadership behaviors set the tone that will yield the results you want? Are your employees energized and itching to get out of their seats and take action? Does your company’s performance go up when you introduce technology that is meant to ‘speed up’ productivity? Are you creating distractions that prevent people from doing their best for your company?
As with all business decisions, you have to start with the end in mind. What is the most important thing your business needs to accomplish? What needs to happen to make it so? What beliefs, actions, values, and traditions (culture) will help your company to achieve your goals? Is your culture working for you? If not, what needs to change?
Your company’s culture holds a lot of power. Listen to what it’s saying. If it’s getting your organization to dance, that's great. Otherwise, it may be time to switch to a different soundtrack so you can use your unique organizational culture to gain a competitive advantage.
Stephanie Leibowitz, MA, Anthropologist At Work
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
The Power of Storytelling
We all love stories. From the time we come into the world, people tell us stories. As we grow older, we read stories and we tell our own stories. Some stories are personal, others professional (bios), and sometimes we tell stories for others – business or volunteer for nonprofit).
Why are stories so powerful? Stories have power because they:
· Give voice to our dreams and hopes.
· Tap into our emotions.
· Express creative thought.
· Pass on knowledge that comes from experience.
· Create and nurture collective memory.
· Tell where we’ve been (legacy) and where we are going (envisioned future).
Why do we tell stories (purpose)? We tell stories to:
· Educate (transfer knowledge and traditions).
· Communicate/uphold social and cultural customs, social structure, expectations of behavior.
· Create and reinforce social and cultural bonds (among social, economic, other groups).
· Explain the world (belief systems).
· Entertain.
Sometimes a story has multiple purposes. These stories can have the greatest power because there are many, layered meanings that reinforce each other and give deeper value to the messages.
For societies that did not (and some surviving ones that still do not) have a written language, storytelling – what anthropologists refer to as oral tradition – was the only way to communicate information critical to basic survival and explain the world. There’s even specialization in the storytelling. Some stories were known and could be told by all the society’s elders. Then there were stories that were meant to convey special knowledge and were told by particular individuals in whom this special knowledge resided by virtue of their roles, such as a ritual/spiritual leader or healer.
Even though our society has written language and sophisticated technology to communicate with more people, more quickly and in different geographical places simultaneously, the purposes behind the stories remain the same. The stories are there to help us make sense of the world and our place in it, and to share it with those who, by necessity or invitation, are in our circle.
What are the more important things you need your stories to say about your company / organization?
Stephanie Leibowitz, MA, Anthropologist At Work
Why are stories so powerful? Stories have power because they:
· Give voice to our dreams and hopes.
· Tap into our emotions.
· Express creative thought.
· Pass on knowledge that comes from experience.
· Create and nurture collective memory.
· Tell where we’ve been (legacy) and where we are going (envisioned future).
Why do we tell stories (purpose)? We tell stories to:
· Educate (transfer knowledge and traditions).
· Communicate/uphold social and cultural customs, social structure, expectations of behavior.
· Create and reinforce social and cultural bonds (among social, economic, other groups).
· Explain the world (belief systems).
· Entertain.
Sometimes a story has multiple purposes. These stories can have the greatest power because there are many, layered meanings that reinforce each other and give deeper value to the messages.
For societies that did not (and some surviving ones that still do not) have a written language, storytelling – what anthropologists refer to as oral tradition – was the only way to communicate information critical to basic survival and explain the world. There’s even specialization in the storytelling. Some stories were known and could be told by all the society’s elders. Then there were stories that were meant to convey special knowledge and were told by particular individuals in whom this special knowledge resided by virtue of their roles, such as a ritual/spiritual leader or healer.
Even though our society has written language and sophisticated technology to communicate with more people, more quickly and in different geographical places simultaneously, the purposes behind the stories remain the same. The stories are there to help us make sense of the world and our place in it, and to share it with those who, by necessity or invitation, are in our circle.
What are the more important things you need your stories to say about your company / organization?
Stephanie Leibowitz, MA, Anthropologist At Work
Lost in Translation: Tips for Ensuring Your Audience Understands Your Message
When we travel to another country and do not know the local language or have only rudimentary foreign language skills, we expect that some of what we say may not be understood by the other party (the native speaker). We are prepared for potential misunderstandings and may even see these exchanges as a source of humorous anecdotes with which to amuse our friends, families, and colleagues upon our return to familiar ground (literally and figuratively).
However, it’s no laughing matter if your prospects/clients, colleagues and employees, strategic partners, or other important stakeholders and constituencies don’t fully understand or misunderstand what you want and need them to know. This is particularly critical in today’s multicultural work environments and global marketplace. A dictionary will give a word’s definition (and a Thesaurus will give you synonyms), but your ability to communicate successfully also depends on the nuances to word usage that can mean the difference between getting your point understood and creating a communication blunder with tangible negative consequences. We sometimes mistakenly assume that two parties who ‘speak the same language’ – that is both parties are native speakers of the same language, such as English – receive the same message when they hear/read the same word(s). Experience shows that if you ask your management team, staff, and clients to define familiar terms such as leadership, value, planning, strategic, communication, and performance, you will get responses that vary greatly, not in the literal sense, but in the interpretive sense. Context and perspective act as translation filters and these filters determine whether our intention has been communicated in addition to any facts.
Here are a few tips to ensure that your intended messages are received:
· Understand your audience’s perspective on the topic. This helps you identify what part of what you want to communicate will be perceived as most important / of interest, the level of detail you will be expected to provide, and what you want the recipient to do with the information (read and file for future reference vs. take specific action).
· Understand the cultures of your external audience’s organizations. This gives you clues about preferred communication styles as well as how they speak about their organizations. You want to mirror that.
· Know your audience’s preferred vehicle for receiving communication as well as what you have determined to be the most effective one (defined as more people understand your message, less or no need for repeat communication and clarifications).
· Clearly communicate what you mean when you use a specific term or phrase. For example, when you tell others that the goal is “effective communication” or “sound financial performance”, it is up to you to define what behaviors demonstrate this, quantitative and/or qualitative examples of what these look and sound like.
· Speak/write using simple words. Avoid jargon, abbreviations, and acronyms. The same acronyms/abbreviations can mean very different things to different groups. I’m sure you’ve conducted an internet search on an acronym only to find many results that are not the one you expected.
Remember to start by asking “Why is it important that I communicate this particular content to this specific audience?” When you communicate with purpose and clarity, your audience won’t need a translator.
Stephanie Leibowitz, MA, Anthropologist At Work
However, it’s no laughing matter if your prospects/clients, colleagues and employees, strategic partners, or other important stakeholders and constituencies don’t fully understand or misunderstand what you want and need them to know. This is particularly critical in today’s multicultural work environments and global marketplace. A dictionary will give a word’s definition (and a Thesaurus will give you synonyms), but your ability to communicate successfully also depends on the nuances to word usage that can mean the difference between getting your point understood and creating a communication blunder with tangible negative consequences. We sometimes mistakenly assume that two parties who ‘speak the same language’ – that is both parties are native speakers of the same language, such as English – receive the same message when they hear/read the same word(s). Experience shows that if you ask your management team, staff, and clients to define familiar terms such as leadership, value, planning, strategic, communication, and performance, you will get responses that vary greatly, not in the literal sense, but in the interpretive sense. Context and perspective act as translation filters and these filters determine whether our intention has been communicated in addition to any facts.
Here are a few tips to ensure that your intended messages are received:
· Understand your audience’s perspective on the topic. This helps you identify what part of what you want to communicate will be perceived as most important / of interest, the level of detail you will be expected to provide, and what you want the recipient to do with the information (read and file for future reference vs. take specific action).
· Understand the cultures of your external audience’s organizations. This gives you clues about preferred communication styles as well as how they speak about their organizations. You want to mirror that.
· Know your audience’s preferred vehicle for receiving communication as well as what you have determined to be the most effective one (defined as more people understand your message, less or no need for repeat communication and clarifications).
· Clearly communicate what you mean when you use a specific term or phrase. For example, when you tell others that the goal is “effective communication” or “sound financial performance”, it is up to you to define what behaviors demonstrate this, quantitative and/or qualitative examples of what these look and sound like.
· Speak/write using simple words. Avoid jargon, abbreviations, and acronyms. The same acronyms/abbreviations can mean very different things to different groups. I’m sure you’ve conducted an internet search on an acronym only to find many results that are not the one you expected.
Remember to start by asking “Why is it important that I communicate this particular content to this specific audience?” When you communicate with purpose and clarity, your audience won’t need a translator.
Stephanie Leibowitz, MA, Anthropologist At Work
Friday, June 5, 2009
The Speed of Communication: Is Faster Always Better?
The article, “Road Warrior” by Joshua Hammer in the June 2009 Smithsonian, describes the efforts of a French amateur archaeologist who is working to preserve a neglected 2,000-year old Roman highway in southern France. What does this have to do with communication and culture (in other words, why am I talking about it on my blog)?
Beyond the engineering expertise of their construction, the carefully planned and maintained Roman highways played a vital role in governance, the economy, socio-cultural exchange, and the spread of ideas. While the roads were developed to improve overland travel for troops and public couriers, the Roman highway system also helped speed the movement of goods, ideas, customs and languages among culturally diverse populations, fostering the incorporation of these new elements into the way of life. In those times, communication with the citizenry was challenging, to say the least. When a message had to be relayed across thousands of miles through a process that took months (or years depending on the distance) and depended on multiple communicators, the original party was, naturally, concerned about whether the message would be received, and how much of the message would be received as intended. When water cooler conversations (the real kind, not virtual) served as an important yet informal communication vehicle within companies, gossip and rumor spread more quickly (and probably with more enthusiasm) than accurate information. Fast forward to today’s high-speed communication world in which there is a tendency to equate speed with accuracy and to equate frequency of citation (via online or other outlets) of specific content with validity/authority. Some now place a greater value on being first to communicate something, rather than the accuracy of the content. They count on the ability to ‘correct’ miscommunication later, but as we all know, that’s a dangerous assumption that can have serious, negative consequences on a business’ reputation and ultimate performance.
Bottom line: Even though technology enables you to simultaneously send the same written (or spoken) words to multiple individuals, you still need to ask the essential question: Did you understand what I meant to tell you? It’s only through dialogue that you can measure your communication’s success.
What does your business do to ensure its messages are understood across the miles (down the hall, down the road, across the globe, or in virtual space)?
Stephanie Leibowitz, MA, Anthropologist At Work
Beyond the engineering expertise of their construction, the carefully planned and maintained Roman highways played a vital role in governance, the economy, socio-cultural exchange, and the spread of ideas. While the roads were developed to improve overland travel for troops and public couriers, the Roman highway system also helped speed the movement of goods, ideas, customs and languages among culturally diverse populations, fostering the incorporation of these new elements into the way of life. In those times, communication with the citizenry was challenging, to say the least. When a message had to be relayed across thousands of miles through a process that took months (or years depending on the distance) and depended on multiple communicators, the original party was, naturally, concerned about whether the message would be received, and how much of the message would be received as intended. When water cooler conversations (the real kind, not virtual) served as an important yet informal communication vehicle within companies, gossip and rumor spread more quickly (and probably with more enthusiasm) than accurate information. Fast forward to today’s high-speed communication world in which there is a tendency to equate speed with accuracy and to equate frequency of citation (via online or other outlets) of specific content with validity/authority. Some now place a greater value on being first to communicate something, rather than the accuracy of the content. They count on the ability to ‘correct’ miscommunication later, but as we all know, that’s a dangerous assumption that can have serious, negative consequences on a business’ reputation and ultimate performance.
Bottom line: Even though technology enables you to simultaneously send the same written (or spoken) words to multiple individuals, you still need to ask the essential question: Did you understand what I meant to tell you? It’s only through dialogue that you can measure your communication’s success.
What does your business do to ensure its messages are understood across the miles (down the hall, down the road, across the globe, or in virtual space)?
Stephanie Leibowitz, MA, Anthropologist At Work
Tapping the Power of Marketing Word Association
We’re all familiar with word association exercises. One person says a word and then the other party replies with the first word that enters her/his mind. The immediacy of the response is essential to what the exercise is meant to uncover ……an unconscious or unvoiced reaction, memory, or emotion. In marketing, you want customers and prospects to have an immediate, positive reaction (and emotion) when experiencing your brand (through any or all of the five senses) so that it creates a lasting positive experiential memory.
As part of a university course that I teach on Marketing and Communications, I conduct a variation of a word association exercise in the first session as a way to elicit communication styles of the students, learn about their perspectives on the subject, and set a reference point for class discussions. Each time I facilitate the exercise, I am struck by the observation that the students’ associated word responses not only reflect the underpinnings of the subject matter but also share the first letter of the word pair. The most common ‘word association’ responses have been as follows:
Marketing: memorable, message, momentum, mission, media, meaningful, mirror (or match), muscle (as in having substance), method (an approach), multicultural, measurement.
Communications: customized, culture, comprehension, context, conviction, consistency, completeness, channel, creative, clarity, compelling, content.
What words and/or images come to the minds of your customers and prospects when they see your company’s name or otherwise experience your brand? How do these responses match your intended word association/message? Send me your word associations.
Stephanie Leibowitz, MA, Anthropologist At Work
As part of a university course that I teach on Marketing and Communications, I conduct a variation of a word association exercise in the first session as a way to elicit communication styles of the students, learn about their perspectives on the subject, and set a reference point for class discussions. Each time I facilitate the exercise, I am struck by the observation that the students’ associated word responses not only reflect the underpinnings of the subject matter but also share the first letter of the word pair. The most common ‘word association’ responses have been as follows:
Marketing: memorable, message, momentum, mission, media, meaningful, mirror (or match), muscle (as in having substance), method (an approach), multicultural, measurement.
Communications: customized, culture, comprehension, context, conviction, consistency, completeness, channel, creative, clarity, compelling, content.
What words and/or images come to the minds of your customers and prospects when they see your company’s name or otherwise experience your brand? How do these responses match your intended word association/message? Send me your word associations.
Stephanie Leibowitz, MA, Anthropologist At Work
A Case of Mistaken Identity?
Have you ever seen a competitor’s print ad, brochure, or heard its salesperson pitch and wondered, “How can they say that, that’s my company’s line (image/positioning)”? When conversing with a prospect or someone in your social network, have you been asked “Aren’t you the people who [insert product or tag line]”? You respond “No, that’s our competitor. We……,” only to be the recipient of the follow-up slap “Oh, it’s hard to tell the difference, you seem so much alike.” After you recover your cool, do you just shrug it off and go back to business as usual? If you do, you’re missing a great opportunity to use this nugget to better differentiate your company.
While there have been a few cases of companies purposely using their branding to cause consumer confusion (or at least create uncertainty), cases of branding ‘mistaken identity’ are more often the result of companies operating in a default mode. With the shrinking global marketplace (and shrinking revenue pie), it’s up to you to build a powerful brand that is clear in its messages, intent and recognition by customers and prospects. It’s critical that your company’s brand, which includes its visual representation, messages, actions, needs to simultaneously accomplish two goals: convey what’s different about what your company can do for the customer, and communicate it consistently and clearly.
To protect its share of the market and grow, a company must be diligent about its brand and marketing strategies. It means that companies must actively engage in the systematic collection and analysis of data about its customers and prospects, competitors, and the socio-economic, political, and cultural environments in which it operates so that the brand remains relevant and valued.
What is your vote for companies with the best branding and why?
Stephanie Leibowitz, MA, Anthropologist At Work
While there have been a few cases of companies purposely using their branding to cause consumer confusion (or at least create uncertainty), cases of branding ‘mistaken identity’ are more often the result of companies operating in a default mode. With the shrinking global marketplace (and shrinking revenue pie), it’s up to you to build a powerful brand that is clear in its messages, intent and recognition by customers and prospects. It’s critical that your company’s brand, which includes its visual representation, messages, actions, needs to simultaneously accomplish two goals: convey what’s different about what your company can do for the customer, and communicate it consistently and clearly.
To protect its share of the market and grow, a company must be diligent about its brand and marketing strategies. It means that companies must actively engage in the systematic collection and analysis of data about its customers and prospects, competitors, and the socio-economic, political, and cultural environments in which it operates so that the brand remains relevant and valued.
What is your vote for companies with the best branding and why?
Stephanie Leibowitz, MA, Anthropologist At Work
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