21. Five Ways to Communicate to Get Buy In

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome to this episode of Ways to Change Your Workplace. This one is gonna be a really good one to help you uplift your leadership game. How good was that episode with Deb Zan titled Develop Your Consulting Skills to Deepen Your Influence? Now, if you haven't listened to that episode, you really must go check it out. Deb shares so much value with you, especially if you're looking to enhance your influencing skills so you can consult better with your internal or external stakeholders. So, with that in mind, today I want to talk to you about another really important skill that we need to have when we are either consulting our stakeholders or essentially working with our team, and that is communication skills. I have supported many a client with the good, the bad, and the ugly of all things workplace organizational culture, and one of the things that I have truly come across is that a lot of workplace issues result as a consequence of poor communication. So let's talk about communication and how you can be better at communicating in the workplace. There's five modes of communication that I want to explain to you. So if you check out this week's show notes, I've got a cheat sheet on there for you with everything that I'm sharing with you today. So the five modes of communication that I'm going to cover for you today are tell, sell, test, consult, and co-create in order to gain buy-in and to influence the people that you're working with. Now, when we are telling, the manager decides or informs the team or the stakeholders. Now, this is appropriate if the information is sensitive or your team lacked the skills or accountability or the information cannot be shared. And the effect of telling as a mode of communication is that you are asserting your top-down control onto your team or your stakeholders. So that's telling, and it's completely valid when you have to say as it is. So using the pandemic recently as our example, many a manager has to had to just say, We are now working from home or we are now decreeing whatever for the benefit of the organization and for your wellness. As a duty of care, as a manager, you often have to tell it how it is, and that's when you use that mode of communication. The next mode of communication I want to talk to you about is selling. A manager attempts to gain participants in decision making. So you're trying to sell your idea to your team or your stakeholders, and this is truly appropriate if the information is sensitive and you have the accountability that you need your team to commit. And the effect of this when you sell to your team, using that as a mode of communication, is that you get the buy-in from your team. So that's selling. And we can use persuasive language of all sorts. So consider for yourself, which is true to you, what kind of language in the selling sphere you would use to suit your organizational culture and to suit the ears of the people that you are selling to. The next mode of communication is to test. Testing. So in this example, a manager presents tentative decisions which are subject to change based on the decision, so the testing decision. Now, this is very appropriate if you have the accountability overall and you need your team to give their input and their ideas. Now, hello, we're starting to get gain more buy-in now. And the effect of using testing as a mode of communication is that you benefit from your team's ideas and you empower them to own the decision. So you see how we're really truly gaining more and more buy-in now. The next mode of communication I want to run past you is to consult. Yes, it is covered in Deb's podcast, consulting skills 101. So many tips that Deb shares. So if you haven't tuned in to that episode, go back and listen to that after you've heard this uh episode. So consulting, and I'm talking from a managerial perspective now. A manager presents the problem, gains the decisions and suggestions of the collective team or stakeholder group, whatever that is. And that is appropriate if your team's ideas, experience, and expertise, as well as their involvement, are required. Consulting is such an important factor in an organization, and I still don't feel that we truly do it well enough. So the effect of the mode of communication of when you consult with your team or your stakeholders is that your team's expertise is utilized, and you could delegate to those with the skills to see whatever project through. So that as a mode of communication, consulting is such an important skill. And then the final one to gain buy-in is to co-create. So co-creation as a mode of communication. So the manager defines the outline and facilitates the conversation for the team to come up with a decision. When we're working in a co-creative mode in this state, it's often good either to have the manager as a facilitator or if the manager needs to be a participant of that decision making, then get a facilitator, get someone external or someone external to your team to facilitate the conversation for you. So this is about co-creating as a mode of communication. Now, this is appropriate if your team has the required skills and can be held accountable for the outcome, co-creation. So the effect of co-creation as a mode of communication is that your team's ideas are then implemented by them and they are super empowered to do so. So those are the five modes of communication to gain buy-in, telling, selling, testing, consulting, and co-creating. And you can see in the um download in the show notes how these modes of communication gain more and more and more buy-in. So here's to you in improving your communication so that you can get the most buy-in to all of the wonderful ideas that you have for your workplace because I'm with you. It's all about finding ways to change your workplace and doing it to the best ability that we can possible. That's all for me this time. Ciao for now. Are you ready to take a stand against crappy workplace cultures, lousy leaders, and toxic teams? If that's you, if you're ready, then you need to join the Ways to Change Your Workplace Facebook group, which is linked in today's show notes. I'll see you there, and I'm looking forward to you tuning in to the next episode. Ciao for now.