Hey, this is Chris with Ackning your leadership. On today's discussion on employee engagement. I want to talk about some of the things that are important to leaders when leading in times of uncertainty, and how that can really impact the way that your employees not just engage in the work they're supposed to be doing, but in how they process and adapt to whatever the changing environment is, or whatever the change of processes or the uncertainty that they're experiencing.
There's a thing that happened to me recently when I was in a meeting and I had been with a person who was a leader of a team a few different times over the course of a couple of weeks, and there was something that they said in this meeting that seemed like it was word for word what they had said in a previous meeting. And my kind of kneejerk reaction to that was to think, like, why are
you're repeating the exact same thing again? Like these are the same people, the same team that you were with before you're with now, and you're saying the exact same thing again, and it sounds almost like you're repeating a script. Now, there are right and wrong ways to do this, and if it sounds like a script, then it can come
off as insincere. But the idea of repeating something that is important, if it's a priority to the organization or to your team, the idea of repeating it often to people, even if they have already heard it several times, that is an actual tactic that leaders can use in order to make people feel more comfortable and more accepting over
time of that change, of that uncertainty. And I don't want to discount the importance of it because I think a lot of times leaders think, oh, I've said this already, I don't need to say it again, and likely that's not the case.
Yeah, no, it's so true. It's kind of like a major part of leadership many times is realizing that you do have to say the same things over and over and over again. Because it's not that it's not that it's out of laziness. I think that there's an element of being super clear and helping people to have an understanding of what the strategy is or what the vision is, or what you want to share, what you want them
to think about. And there's been many times in my career where I felt the same way it's like, man like, I feel like I keep saying the same thing, and then it happens, and then and then somebody pulls you aside or somebody says something. They go, you know, you know, you say this thing all the time, and it's always a reminder to kind of be focused, and they're like, okay,
Like there's a payoff to this to a degree. When people remember it, they understand it, it's clear to them they've got it down and now they have kind of built upon it in like their own way and their own words. But I think it's you know, it is it can be if you're in the audience and you've been to your point in those meetings or done those things and heard that person feel like, man like, I've heard this before. I've heard this many times before. I
can understand that aspect of it. But I also believe that when you've heard it that many times or more than a few times, where it sticks out to you, it does mean that you're really paying attention. It does mean that you've heard this it's locked somewhere in your brain that you're able to reference the exact you know, words that are happening with what you're hearing now, and I think that speaks a little bit to why it's done and why it's necessary in a lot of cases.
I also think when you're when you're leading leaders and we talk about it all the time as well, like you you have to have a really clear platform of your leadership. You've got to be very predictable and what you're going to do and how you're going to react
to things and what's going to happen. And I think a part of that is that people are like, well, I know what he's going to say because he says that all the time, or like I, you know, I know how he's going to react because there's just a way in which he will take that information and asks,
if it, questions about it. Kind of like you're building this, uh, you know, feeling of confidence in how you're going to lead your people by them actually kind of knowing what you'd say because they've heard it enough times or they've experienced the process enough times. In its while repetitive, it's consistent, and I think that is something that's really important piece of leadership.
Yeah, I agree with you completely. I think that there's there's something that our brains do when we are about to process information, and a little switch is flipped depending on if we're processing brand new information or information that we've heard before. And so like you know, the first time you hear something, maybe you don't remember it fully, but it gets filed away somewhere because because you may
not ever be able to repeat it again. But the next time somebody says it the exact same thing you've heard before, there is a part of you that says, I've heard this before. Like you, it's just it's an instant recollection and that you've heard this before. And there's something that I think that our brains do in those moments when we switch from I need to be ready for new information coming in two I can devote resources to processing the information that I've already received, because it's
hard to process information while you're receiving new information. Right, So it's like you have a leader. You're throwing things at the team, like you have this to remember, and this to remember. This is the priority. That's the priority.
All all these things are being thrown at the team, and as long as new things are coming, they've filed away the things you've already sent them, and they're in the back of their head, but there's no way for them to take the time to actually process what that means, or to put things into action, or or sometimes even recall them if they're in the the kind of the mode of I'm processing new information here, I need I need, I need to be able to receive more information because
they need to be a catch all at first. But once you start to hear the same things over and over again, once your brain starts to hear in a meeting with your leader that you've been in, you know, every week for the last you know, the entire quarter, and you're hearing the exact same priorities again, there's something that happens where we say, okay, nothing new is coming. Now I can devote these resources to actually doing the
things that I've been told. It's it's time to time to put these these materials that I've been thrown It's time to build a house out of them, you know, is opposed to just making sure they're not gonna hit me in the head as they're being thrown at me.
And and there's a there's a there's a big difference in how that leads to a higher level of engagement of employees versus if you just you know, assume that you know something stuck because you said at one time, and you send them an email and then you you know, want to move on because you don't want to sound repetitive, because some leaders feel like if they sound repetitive, that it sounds cooked or or like it's you know, like it's a script, uh, and like a lack of authenticity.
But but that's not necessarily the case. So I want to go over some of the things you can do is a leader to make sure that this is happening the right way and that you don't sound inauthentic, but that you also kind of harness the power of what repetition does for you. But first, let's give it up
toward point of our sponsors. All Right, if you're a leader of people and you're trying to make sure that you can harness the power of what repetition does without losing the authenticity that you have and not sounding like a robot just repeating the same things over and over again.
The goal is to have the high level clear priorities and repeat them often to people so that those sound exactly the same all the time, so there's no difference in how they come out of your mouth, and your people don't hear different things or interpret things differently depending on what meeting they happen to be in with you. It's the literally the exact same thing that is at
the high level kind of bullet point. What needs to change is how you have conversations about those things with the people in the room, and so you start with the bullet pointed priorities, and then you can dig into what that means to each person and get their perspective on it, because having people engage with you in the conversation around what those priorities are is more likely to get them to have it stick with them individually, and they might hear something in the room from somebody else
they haven't heard before as a new way of processing it, and that might be the thing that causes them to think, oh, you know, this is how I can engage with this, or this is how I can contribute or participate, Whereas if it's just coming from you at the top, it can just sound like a robot kind of regurgitating the
same script over and over again. So your words as a leader really shouldn't change much when it comes to repeating the priorities, because any change at all will cause your people to think, Okay, there's subtle differences here from what I heard before. You don't want there to be that case. You want there to be no differences. But then how you ask your people to engage with you,
that's where the change can happen. That allows them to kind of hear it in a different way without you compromising the steadfastness of the repetition you're trying to kind of harness.
Yeah, I would say too, Like it's funny because we tend to want to think about these things like this, like in like large, big corporate world where it's just like, oh, the you know, the leaders or the priorities or the whatever, the objectives are being repeated over and over again, and
that's just how corporate world works. Well, I can tell you right now, I've got some friends that are entrepreneurs that own small businesses, that have scaled small businesses, and you know what, they do exactly the same thing, because they're trying to build an element of culture. They're trying to build an element of clear alignment on how you think as an entrepreneur, so that you can have people that think in a very different way. But in a
way that you need them to. They build sopsy you know, they have things that they do when they talk to their teams and they expand their businesses where it's like this is this way for this reason, and this is why we use this language, and this is why we do these things this way. So again, like there is
a magic in repetition. And if you really think about any of your favorite books that you've read from a your ship standpoint, any of your favorite Ted talks that you've watched, quotes that you've seen, I guarantee you you haven't just watched them once or listened to them once or read them once. You've gone back to them over
and over and over and over again. Because there's an element of refreshing yourself with the words on a page or the words that were spoken or whatever that it helps to lock in and have you think about what's being said and kind of dissect it that way. So again, like there is a major element of this that is that we do for ourselves. That it happens, you know,
in all sizes of business. And while you could sit there and I've been guilty as charged with this and be like I've heard this four million times now right, I could probably repeat it and then you go, oh, wait a minute, that's actually what they want me to do, is like that makes sense, that's the point, right, Like you're like oh okay, Like yeah, like it is something that you and I love that you kind of highlighted this, Like you have to do this if you're trying to
create real clear alignment with your team, and you're to make sure that the message is clear and it doesn't vary from the words that are really supposed to be there for the message, allow the dialogue to vary and the conversation what does it mean to you? How do you connect with this? But the things really have to be very very consistent.
Right for sure, Like this is this is often positioned to leaders as what is necessary in times of uncertainty. But if you think about it, if you know the example you gave, you said, you you know entrepreneurs who have scaled small businesses, there's nothing more uncertain than that, right, Like,
uncertainty doesn't have to be new uncertainty. It doesn't have to be like, oh, everything was great, everything was stable, everything was certain, and then something happened and now things are uncertain, and now we have to react to it and make sure people are aligned. Like that's the kind of uncertainty that I think when when you when you talk about leading in times of uncertainty, but uncertainty comes from just leading in a place where you've never done before.
So if you're scaling a small business, or if you're growing a business, or if you're you know, beating a team that is brand new to you or have new people on it, that's a lot of uncertainty too, because you're uncertainty is literally just leading with a in an environment where you cannot predict what people will do and what the outcomes are. And that doesn't have to be something that is like kind of like newly thrust in your in your lap to deal with it. Could just
be the nature of the of the business. When you're developing an sop, the whole point of doing it is because repetition gets you better at doing it. And if you if you wake up every day and go, well, I have thirty things to do today, let's just like you know, randomly pick one out of a bag and do that. You know, no like getting into a routine where the thirty things you have to do that day
get done. Every day in the exact same order where you where you leave space to be able to change up the order a little bit if you find ways of tweaking it, or if external factors kind of force you to do things in a different way. But in general, doing things in a routine or the exact same way over and over and over again is the only way, or at least the best way to get good at
doing them well. And if you want your people to maintain the information that you're giving them and be able to react to that information in a way that is productive and to where they're not just kind of hoping they get it right, the way to do that is to create a sense of confidence and stability in what they are hearing from you on that message. And the only way that's possible is for that repetition to keep saying the same things over and over and over again,
even if you're cringing saying it. There are ways to do it right, and there are ways to do it wrong, but trying to change it up to have a different message, because you don't want to say the same thing over and over again, you're actually hurting your abilities as a leader when you're doing that. Embrace that repetition and what the payoff is from your team when it comes to that repetition, and I think that you'll kind of see the value in doing it rather than just kind of
thinking that you sound like a robot. Thank you for joining us on this SEP episode on employe Engagement. We'll see you next Thursday for the next month. You have a great day.