TL; DR 'Too long; didn’t read'

We’re drowning in it! Information overload from packs, keynotes, talks, sessions, webinars, meetings, presentations, conversations aarrrggh NOT TO MENTION OUR OWN THOUGHTS and Netflix binges, podcasts, audio books, Spotify playlists oh and pretty journals.

How do we take in more ...or just make better, quicker sense of things?

If you move from a mess to a list, to a pack, to a pic... all of these have pros and cons but the one that wins the race, the journey, the transformation is… the MAP.

We already enjoy a daily use of maps:

• Where is my food delivery?
• Why did the driver go down that street?
• Which is the quickest route to the cafe?

Maps have gone full circle (full globe?) from being crusty old, folded-the-wrong-way paper, to books of maps, to apps of maps. We know what maps look like and use them all the time. They guide and show us the unknown, unseen.

So it's too bad (and so silly) that more leaders don’t use maps instead of weighty wastes of slide decks that sucked weeks of time and tinkering from us. It could have all be done in 1/10th of the time, with 10x the impact ... with a map.

Do you map? Here’s one I prepared earlier :-)

Changing conditions

Woah! Watch out, take care!

'Variable water depth and drop off’ says the sign at my local beach here in Melbourne, Australia. If this is the first time you’ve come to this beach, then this information is vitally important. It could save your life! Waters are clear but not so clear that we can always see the bottom.

The signs I’ve been sharing in posts this week may well be about water, beach and swimming safety, but they’re a brilliant reminder for us in many other situations.

Be ready; that solid ground you’re standing on could shift, move, change. And while we think conditions are set or predictable, they can and do change rapidly.

This is a common environment for us now in a world that’s labelled ‘VUCA’, in workplaces undergoing change or transformation, and in people who may be fed up hearing about all of those things!

We can become complacent, comfortable, habitual. And so an unexpected change or shift, is just that … unexpected. These times are about our ability to adapt, change and to be ready.

It is having a capability of adaptability.

Making sense of the strategy

It is one thing to get the leadership team, board and executive together to plan and identify and prepare a strategy.

Then comes the work of trying to embed the strategy - or in other words... make people follow it.

Getting people to buy in to new directions, new ideas and changes in strategy requires sense making. We can’t just pump out some ‘comms and marketing’ in an effort to ‘sell’ the message, create the urgency and ‘cascade it’ down throughout the organisation. These too often vanilla flavored communications have motherhood statements, cliches and corny ‘Ra Ra’ slogans. (I know; I used to write them in my previous roles in leadership communications!)

But they're tired and dated in our world of clever internet memes that burst forth every day!

As you plan for next year and decide when and how your senior leaders are getting together to do the all-important strategic work, be sure to include in that planning how you’ll make sense of it for people.

Sensemaking Your Strategy is a thing. Don’t leave it to cliched comms and marketing.

Put a sensemaking filter over the strategy so it makes sense to the people you expect to bring it to life.

Don't assume knowledge nor ignorance

When we work with others, collaborate, co-design, we don't know what other people's knowledge is, what they've experienced, what they know.

We make a great assumption if we 'start at the beginning' of a topic, or waffle on with giving people 'some context', telling 'our story' or flat out don't stop talking for 15-25-45 minutes.

What if they already know what you're talking about?

Oh but we can also jump ahead, speaking of things in ways people don't know; they aren't 'in the loop', don't know about this and can feel left out or left behind. This isn't pandering to snowflakes or patronising precious peeps. It's the reality of a world where we have incredible diversity, difference, and uniqueness - in a single group, gathering or team!

The answer is to... have a DIALOGUE, a conversation with people, rather than delivering a MONOLOGUE or preachy-presentation of information you decide to dump.

In that way you'll find out where they're at and therefore... where to begin. You can then adjust throughout the CONVERSATION, this talk between 2 or more people.

Enjoy your conversations today...

It’s not just a meeting

It’s an opportunity for consultation, collaboration, co-design. For information sharing, attitude adjusting and belief shifting. It’s an opportunity to make the workplace safer to speak up.

It’s an opportunity to have a conversation not a presentation. To turn the data show off, to pass on the PowerPoint deck and instead engage, ask questions.

It’s an opportunity to hear what would improve their experience as an employee, contractor or team member, colleague, customer, user or client. How you could support them more, better, differently.

It’s an opportunity to bring people together, not p*ss people off.

A meeting is a place and space where you can do work together, collectively. But when most meetings are poorly run, boring and unproductive, it’s up to you the leader, to get the development you need to make better work of every one of the meetings you lead.

Learn the subtle, nuanced, yet complex skills of facilitation. They’ll be so glad you did.