News laws and regulations are changing by the day. We get it. And at ADP, we're here to help guide you with up-to-the-minute compliance expertise. So you can pay your people accurately and on time, regardless of what each new day may bring. Learn more at adp.com.
Okay, so welcome to episode two of the Leadership Zoom cast with Albert and Neil. And first off, I want to say a big thank you to everybody who watched last week, gave us feedback last week, downloaded the podcast. It was great to see that we added some value to some of you guys last week. So thank you very much for that feedback. And Albert, welcome today. How are you doing?
Yeah, I'm not bad. Yeah, thanks. Thanks for the invitation. Good to be back here again. Um, yeah, guys, look, thank you for the feedback last week. Um, the good thing was I think you guys commented on what you thought of it. The thing that would be useful for Neil and myself is tell us if you've got any other topics. We've got some things we might want to do in the coming weeks, but if you've got any other topics, if we can add some value, fine. If not, we can blag it anyway, so it's no problem.
Brilliant. No, thanks, mate. And and and you know, by the way, guys, just sharing this with everybody out there, we will get it right and we'll get the colours matching by the time we get to episode 10 or something, we'll get our shirts matching and the colour background matching.
It's a bit like the um the movie Heartbreak Ridge, you know, when Clint Eastwood turns up in a different shirt every day and they've got to try and work out what shirt he's wearing because they have to wear the same shirt as him. So we're gonna have to sync somehow or get in the background sorted out.
You're pretty well coordinated with your background, Neil.
I don't know if that was planned for today, but that's actually I just changed my shirt literally because I thought I'd better put a shirt on rather than a t-shirt. Um, anyway, so today's podcast, a podcast, Zoom cast, is all about communication and the effectiveness of being a great leader, need the need for great communication.
I found a great quote actually, just to kind of kick the the session off, which was from Winston Churchill, obviously one of the great leaders of our history, not of our time of history. The difference between mere management and leadership is communication, but it's such a big topic, isn't it? It's such a big topic and comes up so many times as as and there's so many different elements to it. So we're going to try and cover a few of those uh as we go through today.
Um, any opening thoughts, Albert?
I think the danger is not going back too much on what we talked about last week, right? But what we did talk about last week was leadership versus management, and I think that again comes back up here because I think the difference for me about leadership communication versus management communication is I think what as a leader, what you communicate is you. People read that as being you, right?
I think management is about communicating how someone's doing their job, how the business is performing, how can we make it better? It's a lot more operational. I think the things you communicate as a leader lets people know who you are, how you feel, how you behave, what you're passionate about, and then helpfully try and transfer some of that to them as well. I think it's at a whole different level, in my view.
I think leadership communication, very I would say more passionate, but I think more authentic personal view.
You know, it's really really interesting. And I'm I never know where these conversations are going to go, but actually just sparked up a couple of really interesting thoughts in my mind because um, so what you're saying is communicating kind of it it exposes who you are, authentically exposes who you are.
Yeah, yeah.
And I think that's really interesting because I've I've worked for various different leaders over the years, and there's so many different styles of communication, and and there isn't all right or wrong, it's just your style. Yeah, um, I worked for a guy uh a few years ago who I who I actually I didn't think was a great leader, but he was, he just wasn't um an extrovert, flamboyant, loud type of guy.
So when he was speak doing speeches or anything where he needed to talk to big groups, he had to prepare a script word for word to communicate, which I guess you and I probably never ever done because you know for us it comes kind of naturally and comes from from the heart as well as as well as the head, obviously.
Um, but for him, but his skill was he was still a great leader, but he it but he was great one-to-one, and he was great in uh pulling the team together in different ways than just through that kind of inspiring communication. So you're you're absolutely right, everyone has a different style of communicating, and their personality comes through it.
That's an interesting point, actually, isn't it? Do you do you don't need to be extrovert, you don't need to be outgoing, you need to be flamboyant. I think you need to be clear, you need to be focused, and you have to demonstrate commitment, right? You can't blag it. I don't think you can blag it when it comes to leadership communication, right? Um, and I think that's a big this authenticity and this being you know genuine, if you want to be a good leader, hey, listen, you don't have to be.
You can be a leader and communicate, but will you be effective? And will people believe you?
Will they believe that's an interesting point? There is one thing you can't escape from, though, in this, is is if you're gonna lead, you have to communicate. Yeah, you can't lead without communication because how the hell does anybody know what to do? How the hell do you have does anybody know what you're thinking or what's important?
Yeah, that's a good point, actually. You and I have worked for people near we worked with people who we knew were brilliant, but they never told anyone what they were thinking, they never told anyone what they expected of them, right? Did that affect their leadership? 100%, yeah, hundred percent. No point being brilliant in a dark room on your own, is there?
But it's also no good as a leader knowing what's important, knowing what uh direction you want to go in, and not sharing that with your team and not helping your team understand what's important, and also what's important about how they fit in to the big picture of where you know where the senior leadership is trying to go as well.
Yeah, yeah, no, it's a good point, Ash, because I was just gonna say that as well. They need to know not only what our wonderful master plan is, what direction we want to go, what does the future look like? They're all things you have to communicate, but if you don't tell your team where they fit in that picture, so what? So what? It's a story that you're telling them that they can't be bought into.
Right.
And I was talking to a guy I I uh coach uh this week, and he was telling me about a weekly call he has with his team to help them understand what's going on in the business, how the business is performing, what's happening in the month, and what's needed from them to help the business achieve that. And I thought, brilliant, that is great leadership.
He just saw it as just what he normally does, but that is actually really good leadership because too many people will go to a board meeting or a senior management meeting and they will come out and go and get on with their work, they won't think about what do I need to communicate down to my team to help them understand what's important, yeah, yeah.
I think I think that and I think a leader has got to be clear about what they believe the future holds. Because I think people are looking for a leader to say not only which direction are we going, but where are we trying to get to and why? What what is I would I think they expect the leader to have the bigger picture in their mind, and let's face it, right? All the leaders don't know.
You and I didn't know when we were leading all the time where we were gonna, we didn't know where we were gonna end up. We knew where we wanted to go, we knew what we were trying to achieve. Did we know how it was going to finish? No, you just had to come, you just had to get the commitment that people are gonna come with you. That's what it meant. Like this zoom cast, really. You don't know where it's gonna go.
I don't know if these guys realize how much prep do you and I do for this stuff, right? But that's that makes me think. But I think it's you know, again, again, Neil, that's that's about is this genuinely our thinking rather than us regurgitating anything? This is genuinely what we think, right?
Yeah, and I think that um leaders and this communication leadership and painting that vision doesn't have to be some grand vision about you know getting to Mars or getting a spaceship to dock with the space station, it could just be about this admin team or this accounting team and a vision for how they can be better in the future or how they can contribute more to the business in the future. Yeah, it doesn't have to be big and grand, it can just be about that specific area.
So, one of my best examples I think back to in my early days in leadership was when we were we had a sales team, we knew what we wanted to achieve, but the sales team don't do it on their own. The sales team have to have the administration team behind them. I think we I can't remember what we called them back then. Um it was, it was it was admin, it was C, it was called customer engineering admin, right?
I mean, how you know how how little can people feel about how the what they contribute to the business? And I remember there was them and then there was our digital sales team at the time we called them inside sales, yeah, and we never saw everybody working together, and what we started doing was having joint communications with them, telling them about where we're going, but then bringing each person into that about what's your role in this plan, where do you fit?
And as the leader, I then also took along the leader from CE admin and I took along the leader from digital sales, and we formed this leadership group where we told everybody their part in the scheme of things. We changed things overnight. Overnight, people felt like they were part of the same team with the same challenge. What was that? Nothing but communication. That's all we did, just communication.
So it's that analogy of being a uh mushroom, and you get fed all the shit because and kept kept in the dark, don't you? And fed all the shit, that's right, kept in the dark. And it is it if you're not shown what's important to the business and not show you know, I used to use the analogy with um talking about admin teams again, and it's the same now with my uh admin team, is they are bricks that form the foundations of the business.
And if they are if they're taken for granted, if they're not understood how their piece is so important, then that foundation starts to crumble a bit, it starts to get weaker, yeah, yeah, or it starts going in a different direction, or it's you know starts thinking in a different way, so it then isn't supporting the whole structure of the business, yeah. Yeah, so you're absolutely right, communicating. So then there's there's a question in my head then. So so how much do you communicate?
And this is a challenge for the leader. How much do you communicate to each team, and how do you judge what how much they need to know and how much would overwhelm them or would upset them or disappoint them if it was bad news?
So can you communicate can you communicate too much? Is it possible to communicate too much?
I uh good question. I I think you can. Um I so really interesting question. I actually wrote this one down as a question for us to ponder because but who should decide what is too much and what is too little? And I think that's the difficult judgment, right? So, for instance, if as a leader you're making decisions on a redundancy program, yeah, so you have to make decisions about a team and you know, every business goes through restructure.
Um, how much of that do you share with the team, and how much of that do you keep to yourself? And that's the bad news side, but then obviously good news approach as well. But so there is a balance there, isn't it? I know what have you found works.
You know, I don't remember ever prescribing this when I was doing my job. When I think about it now, I would say the time I knew it was time to communicate was when there was something worth communicating. Because there's no point in doing the communication because it's Tuesday afternoon and we always communicate on the Tuesday. If there's nothing meaningful, people don't start paying attention because it's Albert communication type. No one's listening.
I think to say, I'm communicating because I've got things to tell you, or these things I'd like to hear from you, and to me, the communication frequency and need to communicate is because there is something worth communicating, and it's either because you're trying to engage them in something, you're trying to update them on something, or you're trying to learn from them. Communication is two-way, that's another great thing when it comes to leadership communication.
I was just I just wrote down listen, funny enough, as you were saying that, because it it is two-way and it's forgotten sometimes. You know, a leader thinks, oh, I need to have a monthly um town hall with everyone, I need to drop a weekly email out with my thoughts on it. But actually, how do you effectively make sure that you are listening to what the team needs to hear from you? And and there's a I there's a great example uh I heard of a few years ago.
So, very senior executive in JP Morgan, uh lady based in New York, one of the top executives in JP Morgan, and she had this uh box outside her room where people could put into it ideas, thoughts, things, any comments about the business. Anyone from the business, from the uh the janitor, the secretary to the brokers to the bank, you know, everyone in JP Morgan could put something in this box.
And she would block out Friday afternoons, and she would read through them and she would invite people in to come and talk about their ideas, and it created this open communication and it helped her shape understanding of what the business needed. Yeah, yeah. It was a great example.
A payroll in HR company needs to be prepared for whatever is going to happen. You can say that over seven years of experience helping businesses all over the world run smoothly is good preparation, but for ADP, that's not enough. To make sure millions of people are getting paid on time and in compliance, we're staying on top of each new piece of legislation. So when it comes down to it, ADP isn't just a payroll in HR company. We're the company that helps you navigate the complexity.
ADP, HR talent, time benefits, and payroll, informed by data and designed for people.
But I think I think what that also says, Neil, is there's a difference between hearing, pretending to listen, and listening. Right? Because if you're gonna if you're gonna invite people to speak, take time to understand what they're saying. They might not be right, but listen anyway, but do something with it, right?
Because the danger is if you if you try and build this reputation where I'm listening, but you don't actually take ever take any notice of it or ever act on it, you you'll lose that very quickly.
Yeah, and it's interesting. It just made me think, you know, when you you get a group of people together and it's like a round table or something, yeah, and they're just because they're what they're saying appears to be wrong or appears to be something that you've you don't agree with, doesn't mean they're wrong. Yeah, actually, you kind of have to look at yourself as a leader and go, why do they think that about the business?
What have I not communicated well enough for them to understand so that they could come to the same conclusion as me? Not they're they're they don't understand because they're junior than me. Actually, they should understand because you should have done a good job as a leader, communicating what's important.
Yeah, they might actually have some good ideas. There is that danger that somebody might know better than you about particular topics. I know that probably gets more into management if you start looking at operational stuff. Do you remember when you and I worked well together, we worked together years ago, and the communication that we had gone out with the guys was about cost containment. We our costs were too high, and one of them was about travel.
And we said, you guys are not spending well on travel, you're spending too much on flights. And we sat and listened, we just said to the managers, first line managers, tell us what's going on, why? How do we get the cost down? What can we do? And what they brought out was the fact that the approval process for getting travel through was taking too long. From a professional to first line manager, second line manager, third line manager, it was taking too long.
And by the time it got through the approval process, the cheap flight was no longer cheap anymore. So our approval process was causing us to get so I can say it now because I don't work there anymore, right? We said ignore the process, don't do it. What I'm going to tell you to do, guys, if you are committed to this flight being the right flight, you as a first line manager, sign it off. But put the process in the way you're meant to, and we'll track it through. And we did that.
The short version of this story is we cut our travel bill by 40% within two months. How does that happen? Because people know what's going on, right?
Yeah, that's true. And they've all they've got, you're right, because they're in touch with it all the time, so they've got better ideas.
Yeah.
Um, I was just going to come back to that point around um what to communicate. Yeah. I guess in my experience, person my personal approach I've always taken is you know, I'll communicate everything I think people need to know. So, how do I make that decision? Actually, just ask, you know, this and and just it's I've seen it. In fact, I saw it this week.
One of the businesses I work with, the the MD is on a call once a week, and he shares the knowledge about where the business is, where the PL is, how the sales are doing, um, how the delivery's doing, how our customer sat is doing. And every week he shares that information. Oh, interestingly enough, only since we've been in lockdown. So it's been better communicating since we've been lockdown.
And you can see everybody on the call going, okay, yeah, now now I get where I fit into that, or what I need to do to help us get to where we need to be. Yeah. And the more personal view, the more open you are with communication, the more information you share with people, the better decisions and better job they can do on the ground.
Yeah. What damage can it do? What damage can it do? It I think it also comes to this point about is information power? And if I, as a leader, don't share that information, then I'm more powerful? No, I'm not. I'm not. Hanging on to that information, keeping it look, there's right also, when our kids were growing up, would we tell them everything? No. Did they need to know everything? No. If it's going to worry them when they go to bed at night, why would you tell them certain things?
It's the same with your employees. Why would you tell them things they don't need to know that could worry them until it matters to them? So you do need to think very carefully about what you communicate if they can add value to it. If they can't add any value to it and all it can do is worry people, why would you communicate that?
Yeah, and I think that you know, parenting is an interesting example, actually, because parenting and being a leader, there are similarities, there's also differences because uh people who work for you are adults and and should be treated like adults that can make decisions, and and I've seen it so many times, I've seen some great when you share information with people, um, and and you might not be asking them to make a decision, you might be sharing information and saying this is the decision
we've made, but once you communicate it, everybody understands what you understand and how you came to that decision, yeah. Rather than that dictatorial, this is what we're doing. Well, why? Why did you make that decision? That's totally uh yeah, I think that's a it's a really it's this is why communication is so important. There's the communicating the vision, there's the community how you communicate information about how the business is is doing, um, and that downward communication.
If you get some information as a leader, whether that's from your board of directors, from your investors, from your middle management, whoever it comes from, you have a duty to make sure your team understand that as well.
Yeah, yeah. But it's a good point you make about parents are communicating with children, and these are adults we're dealing with, right? So you've got to treat them like adults. What I would say is though, are they at the same maturity as you are at this stage in your career? Because at one point in time, you and I were professionals and first-line managers, and our business maturity and business understanding would have been a lot different. So you've got to communicate at their level as well.
That's not demeaning anyone, it's saying if they haven't had the exposure and the experience we've had, how could they have accepted that communication as clearly and as valuably as we used it, right? Because we understood. I never forget the amount of times we used to present our numbers to people and we'd talk about profit and PTI.
And it was only when I met some people in the street one day, or you know, on the on a walk around, that I asked them about this, and it was only one person had the guts to put their hand up and say, What is PTI? So I said to this round table, does anyone at the table know what PTI is? Right? And of the 15 people around the round table, only two people did. So they've been listening to our communications and they never knew what PTI was.
I was sales, I never knew what it was either. I just knew it's I just had to work how to reduce it as low as I could.
Well, I think it's fair. It's fair that you're, you know, you're understanding what level they're at. And yeah. I try and other thing that strikes me with this is maybe not so much in leadership, but definitely leaders. Not so much in management, but more in leadership. I think you need to be a pretty good storyteller as well. I don't I don't think that's um, I don't think it's a qualification that's put forward for a role, but I think you need to be a pretty good storyteller.
And then good good leaders that can tell good stories, they can leave lasting impressions and they can get messages across a lot better. And you know, because you don't struggle for a story, right?
So well, good salesmen always have a good story to tell because it's case studies, it's okay. So but you're 100% right. I did that uh work a few years ago into looking at inspirational leadership, and the sort of things I suspected back were about vision, about great communicators, about decision making, and all that kind of stuff.
The one thing I didn't expect back was they are great storytellers, yeah, and there are two types of story that people used as examples in when they were explaining inspirational leaders. There's stories about the past and about using the past stories to help build an understanding of why we're at where we're at and the decisions we're making. And the second story is the story of the future.
What it'll be like when this happens in the future, when the business gets here in the future, um, or what it'll mean for our customers. Those are the two types of stories I've seen.
No, actually, really good point. And I and I think look, both of those are really valuable, right? What's going to happen in the future is them having the confidence in the fact that we've thought it out, we're planning it, we know where we're going, and what we're doing to make that work. And what happened in the past is do we do we take history as part of making those decisions or do we not see it as valuable?
What's happened in the past is a great opportunity for learning and for deciding what you might do differently. No, no, really good, really good point of view.
Stories is a stories are a topic I think we probably cover in another Zoom cast actually, because it is such a big topic to talk about. There are two other things I thought would be really interesting to cover while we're talking about communication. One of them is what are the best method of communication? So you've got emails, you've got phones, you've got Zoom, you've got face-to-face meetings, you've got um I don't know, conference calls, you've got so many different types.
What's the most effective, do you think? Is there one that's the most effective?
Years ago, we didn't have as much online and digital communication like we've got now, right? So I would have said then face to face. I would have said getting around to the offices, meeting people at round tables, town halls, all of those good things. The fact that you could do it this way, um, I'd say this is probably the one that I if I if I could only have one, I think it would be this. But I think not having written form would lose something as well.
Because people the good thing about written form is you can take it when you want to take it, and you can sit down and think about it. I mean, I guess these you could say, you know, you can play this wherever you want to play it. So I think this would face-to-face or something that replaces it, like Zoom or or or uh WebEx or whatever, that's fine. But I think written you shouldn't walk away from written as being not valuable because I think it's going to hold some value.
And my view is actually a mixture of everything is probably what you need. You know, it could be a weekly email, it could be a monthly Zoom conference with your leader with your team, it could be um, you know, if you can get face to face, which obviously you can't at the moment, but if you can get face to face, then doing that.
Uh, but it's a mixture because I I think that keeps people engaged, and you've got obviously you've got WhatsApp and you've got all that as well, so you can have quick regular communication, just you know, how you doing, yeah, or um, you know, what's the current situation on this or whatever. So you've got so many different ways of communicating.
I guess the key message is choose the right one for the right the right moment, the right type of thing you're talking about, and uh yeah, and and lots of different different mediums as well.
Yeah. Thinking about what you're saying, you know, how should you communicate? Because what that brings out in my head is it's letting people know who you are and what you're like and what your personality is like. It just brings a different thing in my head about leadership. I think one of the things about leadership is you're helping an organization know how you want it to be. What kind of atmosphere do you expect in? So, for instance, we've always used used humour quite well, right?
We don't have a problem with that. I mean, gosh, for those of us that know as well, we've made some good videos and some crazy spoof things that we've done, but it got messages across, but it also told people we like having fun. It also told people, you know, there is a lighter side to us, it isn't all about business, business, business. And I think that's important.
You know, in a smaller company, if you're the head of a 50-person company, you're setting the whole scene for how you want people to operate in that company. You know, do you want them to be lighthearted? Do you want to be serious with each other? Do you want them to trust each other? You know, so I think that's quite important. As the leader, you're setting the scene for what this place is like and what it's like to work here.
Yeah, I agree with you. I mean, because you're putting your personality on it through your communication, yeah. Um, and and and you're kind of creating that environment, and and actually, but but it doing it once doesn't do it. And I guess that's kind of a key point here is you've got to regularly communicate. What are your standards, what are your values, how do you want this business to shape up? How do you want to keep the energy levels up? And energy comes from communication.
And you know, I I noticed when I watched the video last week, I I use my hands a lot, and I use I am I I I communicate with my body a huge amount, um, and and everyone communicates in a different way, so that communication it's it does set the scene for how you want that energy, that passion, that vision to flow through the business. Yeah, yeah, 100%, yeah.
So the other thought I would have today was we talked about communicating downwards, but I wondered, and I do a lot of coaching around this, is as a leader, how do you effectively communicate upwards?
Because if if you even if you own your own business, you know, you might own your own business, you've got no debt, you've got no investors, you've got no, then you probably haven't got anyone else to communicate with other than maybe your more significant other explaining what the business is doing. But you you're communicating upwards to most leaders, it could be to a board, uh non-exec directors, investors, it could be to your um your next country level.
It could be, you know, if you're UK, it could be to Europe, it could be Europe, it could be to global. So effectively communicating upwards is another really interesting topic that I think is, and maybe we haven't got time for that on this one, and maybe that's something we do on another one. But I don't know, what are your thoughts on that?
Yeah, yeah, I think you're right. I think we're we're we're we're probably gonna time out on what we've done here, but I think you're right. Do you know what it brought in my mind straight away? Um, was we talked earlier about communicating with people in roles below you and only telling them what you need to tell them, don't tell them more. I think it's exactly the same message in this game up. Don't tell them more than they need to know. Because why do they need to know?
It's our job as leaders to worry about the things we've got to worry about to make this organization work. Why tell them where you might have issues or challenges until they're gonna affect them? So, but but you're right, I think that's a whole new topic.
Yeah, it is actually right. It's it's the same, the same principles apply. Participating what people need to know and when, and what they need to know and when. So, yeah, let's let's leave that because I guess we're probably into nearly 30 minutes now. I can't say that. I think we're about there, yeah. So um uh you know, we've talked this is such a big topic around communication.
I know we'll come back to it, and as we invite people onto this, I'm sure we'll come back to communication because all good leaders have a great way of communicating, and everyone does it differently. But the key message for me and in this discussion is is is that authenticity and uh the need for communicating, the need for your team to understand, but your personality comes through in the way you communicate as well.
Yeah, and I'd endorse that, and I and I'd say that to the people that are listening here whether you're in a management role, whether you're in a leadership role, whether you aspire to those roles, think about that. Think about how you're communicating with your teams, think about the messages you're leaving every time you stop communicating with. It could be passing them in a corridor, that's a management communication, leadership communication, it could be a town hall address.
Think about how you communicate because that's your autograph you're leaving on there every time you do that. So think about it and think about what effect you're trying to have.
And I guess the the final thing I'd say is you can never communicate too much, too too often, not too much, too often. And the reason I say that is I run so many team building workshops, team events, even leadership workshops, and the number one action that comes out is we need to communicate more, and we need to know more what's going on. And so it might feel like you're communicating too much, but check with your team because I bet you're not.
So as a leader, I don't think you can communicate too much.
Okay. So as we close off on communication, what I would say is guys, communicate back to us what you think of this, communicate back to us where you think we could have done something different or better, and communicate back to us other topics we can bring to you.
Brilliant, great summary. Uh, and I'm gonna do a little YouTube thing now, which I've seen on other YouTubes, is um if you like this, there's a subscribe button down there somewhere. So subscribe to it, and please leave us a comment or give us a thumbs up, I think it is on there. Give us a thumbs up and let us know whether it was useful to you. And we'll put this in a podcast as well so you can listen to it when you're driving or running or whatever. Anyway, thanks, Albert.
Great to see you again.
And Neil, thanks for the time, mate. Good to talk to you. Speak to you soon.
Now more than ever, it's critical that customers find accurate information about your business. Local works by Yahoo! Small business makes it easy to add, edit, and publish business information across 70 plus local directories from a single dashboard. Ensure your business is found with local works and save 10% today by using code LWPODCAST. Visit yahoo smallbusiness.com slash local to find out more.
The payroll and HR company needs to be prepared for whatever is going to happen. You could say that over 70 years of experience helping businesses all over the world run smoothly, is good preparation. But for ADP, that's not enough. To make sure millions of people are getting paid on time and in compliance, we're staying on top of each new piece of legislation. So when it comes down to it, ADP isn't just a payroll and HR company. We're the company that helps you navigate the complexities.
ADP, HR talent, time, benefits, and payroll, informed by data and designed for people.