THE VOICE, PART TWO

Not every leader and corporation can afford voice coaches like Adam Levin and Blake Shelton, Gwen Stefani and Pharrell Williams.

On the other hand, they have us – communicators and marketers and branding gurus.

We’re serious.  Because guiding our executives through the process of defining words and actions of value for themselves and for the business – a/k/a the voice – is a commitment based on experience, intuition, and no small amount of tears and sweat.

It goes beyond the tried and true message platform, to the heart of what’s believed and what’s been accomplished.  The voice integrates values, vision, and purpose.  And the process never stops.

Where to start?  With an examination of self (and of company).  Begin by asking some standards:

• What gets you up in the morning?
• What do you and the business stand for?
• What motivates others to do their best – for you and for the company?
• Who are you/the company when both are at your best?
• What attitudes and beliefs move you forward … or hold you back?
• How would you define success now, and in the future?

Balance those responses and the initial voice with the leader’s style and personality, a combination of presence, attentiveness, bedside manner, decisiveness, and, oddly, the traits of humility and confidence.  Most of all, the final voice must be a comfortable one, one that connects well with the leader/company.

There’s no audition.  No contest.  And probably no recording contract.  But it’s one of the most rewarding contributions we make.

THE VOICE, PART ONE

It’s far different than the NBC-TV contest of coaches and wannabe singers.

Yet it’s similar in its appeal to the heart.

Helping craft “the voice” is one of the most fundamental and most critical jobs we as communicators, designers, and marketers can undertake for our leaders, our corporations, and, yes, ourselves.  It’s also one of the most challenging.

For leaders, the voice must reflect how they support and help, coach and deliver feedback, articulate the vision, and give context and meaning to events inside and outside the business.  It mirrors their style, their personality – and is consistent, clear, and certain.   Of course, given the state of the world, it will also flex to demands and to situations that might be beyond anyone’s control.

A big task? 

For sure. 

Combine it with the goal of defining the corporate voice – and then sometimes, things go awry.  Voices of leaders and companies are often intertwined.  Among the most familiar:  Steve Jobs and Apple, Jack Welch and General Electric, Ray Kroc and McDonald’s. 

It’s when there’s a disconnect, a note of inauthenticity that the voice wobbles. Sometimes, it takes a while for a new leader to pave the way for a re-set of the voice, time to figure out how the two gestalts merge.  And often, employees are the first to identify the variations; usually, front liners will speak up (especially if they’re encouraged to do so).

Starting right is, in our eyes, the best fix.  Stay tuned …

AN OPEN OR SHUT CASE ...

No file cabinets.  No assigned desks or phones.  A backpack to carry materials from meeting to meeting.  And a large swirl of desks and chairs.

There’s much complaining among our cohorts about open space offices.  Conceived by German engineer-architects in the 1950s, and now boasting a 70 percent footprint in U.S. workplaces, office openness has long spurred a contentious discussion, with retorts right and left:

              “It’s a great concept:  Our organization is flatter and executives are more approachable.”

              “Help!  I can’t hear myself think – and am constantly interrupted.”

              “Just think about the other benefits – in terms of real estate savings and increased collaboration.”

              “Where’s our focus – and concentration?  I go home at night with migraines.”

The two factors missing?  One, self-determination – that is, the ability to decide what, where, and how to work – is absent.  Millennials, for instance, pride themselves on selecting environments that help them contribute in a big way; the mere presence of open offices indicates that there is no choice and, probably, few options to make a difference.  [Quite a few years ago, European workers passed laws to allow forms of co-determination.]

Two, communication.  The havoc generated by having to figure out where to work each day, to find colleagues, even to identify the ‘what I need to-dos’ is considerable.  Plus, instead of fostering collaboration, open offices often cause us to retreat, requesting every private cubbyhole and avoiding conversations. 

What’s your take? 

THE MEDIA ... AND THE MAN-NERS

It started in New York.

[Of course.  But betcha San Francisco ain’t far behind.]

The media, yes, from coast to coast, has glommed onto a phenomenon known as “manspreading,” where men take up more than their fair share of seats with legs opened in a V-shape.  Public campaigns are now being waged in Manhattan via subway posters and publicity.  The tag?  “Dude, really” with a Courtesy Counts banner.

News reports and editorials make light of the practice, even though many females are outraged – and snapping pix to share on social media.  A Philadelphia spokesperson for a similar campaign denies it’s an endemic practice (though we in the Polar Vortex city claim otherwise). 

What will be fascinating, if metrics are included, is to see the behavior change and the numbers.  Visuals and media coverage notwithstanding, we guarantee that it’ll take more than an ad/PR war to confine the offending males to one seat. 

Ask change experts: 

• Train a gaggle of key spokespeople to hop on and off trains and (nicely) confront the manspreaders. 
• Give subway conductors a few public announcements to voice at every stop (until all 8-something million New Yorkers get the message). 
• Con native celebrities to film a few PSAs … for social media, in taxis, on the Web.
• Tag it to the cause of sustainability – and making sure everyone has a fair ride.

Is rider etiquette all that important?  Change starts small …

INFO-WHAT?

Software that turns data into charts and graphs is, similarly, transforming the art of presentation, exponentially, day after day.

Classified as business analytics, these tools are now produced by every major and minor e-player, from Microsoft and SAP to Tableau and Tibco, in a market that’s growing faster than the business of design experts.

Which is the issue, as we see it. 

Sure, we have zip argument with the need to pump up nonverbal communication.  After all, stats alone bear out the way we process data:  50 percent of the brain’s real estate either directly or indirectly touches vision.  Eighty percent of us remember what we see and do, versus 10 percent, what we hear, and 20 percent, what we read.

And we’ve been preceded by some pretty smart vis-info practitioners.  USA Today popularized information visuals in its front-page snapshots.  So did modern map-makers.  Edward Tufte, called the daVinci of data by The New York Times, gave us a series of tomes that define exactly how we should use design to communicate information.

We don’t do that. 

Instead, every possible number or word, when grouped, is subject to picture-ification.  Not much time is spent on considering content, comprehension, and communication, in our minds the three critical Cs of what we do.  [Not to mention the changing of behaviors!]

Florence Nightingale, more than a century and a half ago, persuaded Queen Victoria to improve the conditions of military hospitals through a graphic.  What would we say and do today?