Leadership Caffeine for the New Week: Your Message and the Chicken Salad Sandwich Test
Filed under: "To Do" List, Career, Leadership, Leadership Caffeine, Performance, Professional Growth
Much of what passes for leadership conversation in the workplace is filled with unnecessary and meaningless jargon that gets in the way of the true message. It’s time to de-clutter our conversations and choose words that are meaningful and actionable to our team members.
Dan and Chip Heath in the book, Made to Stick-Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, do a wonderful job of providing a framework for clearing up our core messages and they offer some great examples along the way.
Consider the oft-mentioned phrase, “We must strive to maximize shareholder value.” The Heaths compare this phrase to the mantra uttered constantly by Southwest founder and Chairman Herb Kelleher during his tenure, “We will be the low cost carrier.”
Both statements are positive in intent, but one is infinitely more actionable than the other.
The CEO and other top executives seeking to maximize shareholder value might very well understand that this goal will be accomplished through diligent pursuit of core strategies, selective, accretive acquisitions and managing core projects like a portfolio of investments.
However, if you are a front-line employee, it’s darned hard to know what maximizes shareholder value on a decision-by-decision basis or whether your action will be accretive, much less whether it is good to be accretive or whether that means that you need to see a doctor!
Alternatively, it’s relatively simple to process an issue through the framework of “Will this action support our goal of being the low-cost carrier?”
Do Chicken Salad Sandwiches Support the Strategy?
The example cited in Made to Stick of Kelleher’s “We will be the low cost carrier” message in action is a well-intended Southwest employee suggesting that based on customer feedback, the addition of Chicken Salad sandwiches on one of the longer routes would improve the customer experience.
Kelleher reportedly asked: “Will serving chicken salad sandwiches on that route contribute to our goal to be the low cost carrier? If the answer is no, “We don’t need no damn chicken salad sandwiches.”
The Bottom-line for Now:
The next time you are required to provide direction or are involved in setting or communicating strategy, ask yourself whether your messaging and your word choices will help people determine whether Chicken Salad Sandwiches are appropriate or not? If the answer is: “It’s not clear,” keep working to improve your message.
Managing Your Boss and Death to Slogans: Weekend Reading
Filed under: Career, Marketing, Surviving Lousy Leaders
Two quick-reads to help wash down a cup of something hot:
Lencioni Offers Help For Managing Your Boss
Author and business consultant, Patrick Lencioni offers some practical guidance for a vexing problem in How to Manage Your Boss in the Management column at the Wall Street Journal.
Almost everyone at one time or another has wondered how to “improve” their boss, and as Lencioni points out, the two most common approaches: launching an attack because you are fed up and going to help the boss see the error of his ways, or ingratiating yourself by sucking up, are both ineffective and risky. Instead, Lencioni suggests that you win the day with empathy and honesty.
Art’s perspective: dealing with difficult leaders is one of the most common challenges highlighted by mid-level leaders in my workshops and programs. Lencioni offers cogent guidance. I’ve used it myself in prior lives, and the empathy and honesty approach can work. Of course, as the old psychologist/light-bulb joke goes, “first the light bulb has to want to change.”
On the Lighter Side: Authors Encourage Cutting the Budgets of the Slogan Writers
In a lighthearted piece entitled, Kill the Slogans Dead, in the Made to Stick column in the December/January Fast Company, authors Dan and Chip Heath make a strong case for the inanity of most slogans…and by association, most slogan writers. Their bottom line: “When you have a big idea, make it come alive with a story. Make it real, color in some details, let it be something people can care about,” is advice worth heeding.
Art’s perspective: I chuckled through this entire article. We are bombarded by ridiculous attempts to create something that sticks in our minds, and I’ve caught myself muttering something under my breath like, “What $%$%$% idiot or team of idiots thought that up?”
The Heaths appropriately skewer the executive authors of a slogan to support an attempt at a major cultural change with: “360-Degree Leadership: Because we all matter.” Yep, there’s a good way to make certain that your employees realize what a half-baked joke your latest initiative is. Good grief.
Didn’t Deming have an opinion on exhoratations?
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