Leading Off: Say what? A leader’s guide to communicating clearly

We need to talk ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

ESSENTIALS FOR LEADERS AND THOSE THEY LEAD

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Leaders are often overwhelmed by information, whether it comes through torrents of emails or during seemingly endless meetings. “In our efforts to connect across our organizations, we’re drowning in real-time virtual interaction technology,” observe McKinsey senior partner Aaron De Smet and coauthors in a report on their research. “Interacting is easier than ever, but true, productive, value-creating collaboration is not.” Lack of effective communication can contribute to the problem—leaders rarely take the time to craft brief, authentic messages that cut through information overload and advance organizational objectives. A back-to-basics approach can help.

AN IDEA

Take a tip from crisis communications

In the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, many organizations were tasked with conveying complex and sometimes conflicting information to diverse audiences. We noted back then that “the fundamental tools of effective communication still work”: offering clear, simple, and frequent messages; choosing candor over charisma; and helping people build resilience to get through the crisis. Postpandemic, the same techniques can help leaders manage through uncertain times and gain the trust of employees and external stakeholders. Organizational changes can benefit from a well-planned communications strategy—for example, honest messaging can go a long way toward making business transformations successful . In challenging situations such as mergers , “communications should be genuine and transparent,” suggest McKinsey senior partner Oliver Engert and colleagues. “Employees value having difficult messages communicated in a direct way.”

A BIG NUMBER

That’s roughly how many more times management teams blame rather than credit external events—such as inflation, political upheavals, or regulatory changes—for company performance. “In good times and terrible ones, companies across industries tend to talk a lot more about headwinds than tailwinds,” observe McKinsey senior partner Ryan Davies and colleagues in their study of 14 consecutive quarters of public-company reporting. Yet they find little to no correlation between headwind or tailwind investor communications and company performance, noting that “consistent, clear, and transparent messaging is essential for companies to maintain and enhance credibility with shareholders.”

A QUOTE

“What the leader cares about does not tap into roughly 80 percent of the workforce’s primary motivators.”

Many leaders are taught to create compelling stories that can help effect the organizational transformations they desire. But all too often, such stories fall short because they ignore five major types of impact—including impact on society and individuals—that motivate employees, according to McKinsey senior partners Carolyn Dewar and Scott Keller in their classic article on the irrational aspect of change management. At one company, switching from communicating a conventional change story to one that included all five kinds of impact lifted employee motivation measures from 35.4 percent to 57.1 percent in a month and enabled a 10 percent improvement in cost efficiency in the first year.

A SPOTLIGHT INTERVIEW

An image linking to the web page “Author Talks: Am I making myself clear?” on McKinsey.com.

When BBC journalist Ros Atkins flunked an important job interview early in his career, he started thinking about how to communicate more systematically. “I hadn’t worked out a plan for that moment in the room,” he says in a discussion with McKinsey. “I hadn’t worked out the information I wanted to share or the questions I wanted to ask.” Years later, in his role at the BBC, he honed the art of conveying information with precision and confidence. Clear communication depends on expressing the details of a subject in “phrases and sentences and explanations that really feel contained, clear, and devoid of distraction,” says Atkins. It’s also essential to focus only on vital information in the workplace, he adds. “There are certain pieces of information that matter the most. These are things that we really want to get across. There is additional information we don’t really need to include, or very long sentences full of words we don’t really need to say.”

I CAN EXPLAIN

Corporate buzzwords and jargon are often the target of jokes. But poor communication can have consequences that are far from amusing—bad writing may cost businesses nearly $400 billion a year, according to one survey. In a well-known case, a single typo in a government agency’s report forced a company to go out of business. Workplace communications that are too long, poorly organized, or unclear may confuse recipients and drain productivity. “The difference between good and bad communication can’t be overstated,” says McKinsey partner Julie Goran. “Think about having a clear and compelling narrative that’s shared in a coherent and consistent way. It encourages dialogue and engagement, and it’s a source of motivation.”

Lead by communicating well.

— Edited by Rama Ramaswami, senior editor, New York

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Take a tip from crisis communications

“What the leader cares about does not tap into roughly 80 percent of the workforce’s primary motivators.”

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Introducing Insights to Impact