The final piece in a series of five reflections from 20 years in the comms trenches
I’ve come to the conclusion – after years of trying to effect a change in what people say; followed by a lot of effort into how people hear, and remember – that what is important for communicators is that they trigger an emotional response. My final piece in this short (and oft-interrupted) series is a reflection on the idea of ‘feel’ in communications.
Yes, I know – Maya Angelou*.
But I’m not talking about better NPS, or intuitive customer journeys, or the wonderful everyday of flat-pack furniture. And God knows there are some misguided attempts at engaging the emotion out there – French car ads anyone? Or, every fragrance commercial ever made?
I’m talking about the walk-away. When you’re done talking to colleagues. Updating your company’s owners. Speaking to peers (and, let’s face it, competitors) at a conference. Or grabbing five minutes on broadcast news.
It is not (as I seem to have written on a dozen occasions) about the ‘key message’. Unless you’re telling people to evacuate a sinking ship or something. Then the key message is important. It’s just not the kind of comms advice in which I normally specialise.
But while we’re on sea-bound instruction, let me tell you about a feeling which drove home a central idea. A few years back, my wife researched a fantastic small-ship cruise for our family. On the first night we sat, gathered with the dozen or so other families for the safety briefing, and the duty officer calmly said ‘gentlemen, if there is an evacuation and you have to jump into the sea from the higher deck, make sure you cross your legs before you hit the water’. The ‘gentlemen’ all imagined the jump for a second, before there was a general realisation of why – and a resultant, collective, reflexive covering of groins and bringing together of knees.
How I felt – or would feel – was the memory anchor that would certainly ensure I kept my legs crossed should I ever jump from height into water. And yes, I know I'm conflating physical sensation with emotion, but you'll remember the story.
When I work with leaders, and the comms execs who support them, we always start with ‘outcome’: what they want to get done, with the audience they have in front of them. And because it’s not an instruction manual, a safety card, or a menu they’re trying to communicate, we explore the nub of what that audience will walk away with – the outcome. And very often, with only a little guidance, the leader will say something like ‘I want them to feel like…’ or ‘I want them to sense that…’.
At this point, it’s important for me not to wreck the progress by saying, ‘Aha! So you want to trigger an emotional state!’. Because we’re not there. Yet.
So, another question I ask people is how they want to be perceived. It’s not a trick question, but often you’d think I just asked them to drop a pin on Google maps locating the Holy Grail. What I explain to them is that all of us make judgements (or rather, assessments) all the time. You’re walking along the street and you go: ‘nice umbrella… big puddle… new restaurant, won’t last… traffic light’s changing… cute dog…’
And it’s the same with people, especially when they interact with us. ‘She’s smart… he dealt with that well… I like her delivery… he’s disappointing… I loved their energy.
But I want to add in a third thing. When I ask people that question – ‘how do you want to be perceived by others’ – 90% of the answers are competence-based. ‘I want to be seen as knowing what I’m talking about’ is the most often cited value. If I have time, and they look like they may be interested, I talk about a piece of sociopsychology research called the Stereotype Content Model[1]. In basic terms, it suggests that all interpersonal assessments take shape across two values: competence, and warmth. For leaders, it’s important to always be in the quadrant where competence, and warmth, are present. Clearly, you can never stray into incompetence and/or coldness – the other three quadrants.
The ’warmth’ bit means social fabric. It means genuine interaction, empathy perhaps, it means generating the verbal and non-verbal elements that make people feel a degree of warmth towards you, in your role. Now, not every interaction needs a high warmth AND competence level. As I tell people, if you’re displeased with performance of a team, then it may be very high competence (lots of proof and validated insight), but low warmth (you are disappointed/surprised/sure we can all do better) – but you never flip across the axis into ‘cold’. Equally, if you’re taking the team out to celebrate, you need a pretty big quotient of warmth BUT you don’t need a whole lot of competence. Just find the venue and pay the bill.
Furthermore, it’s tactical – or maybe even operational in deployment. You might have times in a speech where you need to deliver information, and the ratio of competence rises while warmth diminishes a bit. Then you may be telling an illustrative story – where you only need enough competence to deliver the ideas in roughly the right order, but where you might crank up the warmth with a smile or a laugh or some more energetic delivery.
But what is the value of warmth? How do you trigger better feelings or improve how people assess you? What will they think about, when they bring you to mind? I’d suggest it’s how they feel about you; and even if it’s based in competence there is a seriously large percentage based in their sense of you and your performance. Here are some comments on two CEOs about whom I’ve gathered feedback. At the start of their tenure, neither was very comfortable with comms, but after a couple of years in post, both are seeing a difference across stakeholder comms. People (stakeholders) said:
‘He’s really opened up’
‘He actually smiles now’
‘She seems to be enjoying (staff interaction on webcast)’
‘She’s a really enjoyable interviewee’
‘Analysts feel like the top team is pulling in the same direction’
*So, yes, Maya Angelou. Because they do remember how you make them feel.
Matt Guarente is a leadership communications coach. GuarenteCo.com, matt@guarenteco.com.
August, 2023
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