Communication as Leadership for CIOs

Communication as Leadership for CIO's:
Persuasion, Partnership, Progress

Leaders create opportunities to
✓ Find common ground
✓ Build alliances
✓ Influence action

Communication as Leadership, CIO Executive Council
Copyright © 2009 by Becker Consulting Services, NY NY. 1

Speaker and agenda for call
Susan K. Becker is a B2B marketing communication consultant and presentation coach. She has
extensive experience helping finance and technology professionals to enhance
their communication with internal and external audiences. Susan founded Becker Consulting
Services in 1985, after several years in banking, and honed her consulting and coaching
methods as adjunct Associate Professor of Management Communication in the MBA program
at NYU, 1990-2004. Susan has an MBA in Finance from Wharton and a PhD in English from
Penn.

What will you take away from this call?
✓ Process for audience analysis ➨ appropriate persuasive strategy.
✓ Active listening techniques and negotiation principles to manage conflict and
promote interaction and rapport during meetings and Q & A.

✓ Method for structuring your communication and revising it "on your feet," in response to
unexpected changes of audience, presentation length, or audience expectations.
Presentation flow: Communication principles (audience analysis, persuasion, etc.) ➨ How to apply them in
speaking and in presentation ➨ Why communication channels matter and how to use them to your
advantage.


Communication for leaders matches Future-State CIO role
Future-State CIO =increasingly sophisticated communication competencies

Business Strategy ⋕ Influence Action
Contribute to business strategy

Allocation Partner in business ⋕ Build
CIO's
transformation Alliances:
Time
Contribute to
organizational change

Functional Expertise ⋕ Common Ground:
Contribute to organization's success

A Typical CIO Future-State CIO


Communication styles: Which is the Future-State CIO's, and why?

Disclosure: low

Bounded
Controls focus, but…
Motivates trust but doesn't
drive action

Seeks Feedback: low Seeks Feedback: high

Future-State CIO

Direct ive Interactive
Drives action but inhibits Two-way exchange promoting clarity and
partnership partnership
Understand expectations and needs
Negotiate contracts
Set objectives and priorities
Determine performance metrics

Disclosure: high
Adapted from Cheryl Hamilton with Cordell Parker, Communicating for Results, 4th Edition, Wadsworth Publishing, 1993.


What's different in "communication as leadership"?

➥ Key principle Communication = Relationship + Information

Relationship

Persuasive Strategy Audience analysis

➥ Key principle Message Solution: the vision, not the detail
The message is a statement reflecting values shared with your audience. You make
the audience receptive to it by including a hook (WIIFM) tied to the audience's agenda.


What's the analytical process, and how do I know if the result
is persuasive and motivating?

Relationship: Audience Analysis
Expectations of occasion
Attitude toward content
Length of association with you
Relative power or decision-making responsibility
Professional background: functional expertise, industry

Relationship: Persuasive Strategy
Motivation: positive, negative, move neutral audience toward a position
Hook (WIIFM): up front
Message: overall theme or framing statement
accommodates details but does not bog down in them
"speaks their language"
establishes uniting value or vision
"Big Picture" perspective ➥ Message Details of Solution


Interactive communicators use Active Listening Principles to
reinforce persuasion through dialogue and audience-focused Q & A

✓Do 1. Take every opportunity to emphasize that you and your questioner share some views:
Say "You read my mind," instead of "I'm coming to that."
Active listening principles, with examples
2. Assume responsibility for clarity and understanding, and respect your audience:
Say "Have I made that clear?" not "Do you understand?"
3. Say why a question is productive, not "That's a good question," which can sound insincere
when repeated ritually. If you don't make that comment to every questioner, you can seem
insulting to the ones you didn't compliment. Try encouraging comments that enable you
to repeat your point: "I'm glad you asked that, because you've given me an opportunity
to discuss this important trend from a different perspective."
4. Be explicit about your answers' connection to your audience's agenda: "Yes, we've
extended the contract negotiation; the extra time up front defining the project goals and
performance metrics will more than pay for itself in efficiencies later."
5. Make your answers clear and memorable by using concrete examples in the form of
mini-stories. If your answers use only generic language (“teamwork,” “partnership
with business units") you're likely to lose the audience or, worse, sound like everyone else.
Audiences remember concrete detail, because they can “see” it.


Active listening techniques promote rapport during dialogue and Q & A

Active Listening Technique Example
1. Paraphrase, to show you've heard "If I understand your concerns, they're
primarily about data security."

2. Instead of beginning an answer with "No," "I can appreciate your concern about X but
validate the questioner before asserting your suggest we emphasize Y, because…."
view.

3. Question/confirm to uncover unrecognized "Let's just go over the deliverables one more
misunderstandings without conflict. time."

4. Summarize key decisions, for example next "Phase One will conclude with testing of…."
steps, to be sure everyone heard the same
things.

5. Reframe, to reduce the risk of locking into "Let's focus on what functionality the users
conflicting positions. need from this module and come back to
exactly how it's going to work."


Active listening: focus on audience's view promotes common ground

What is negotiation?
"Negotiations proceed through…prudently cooperative communication…[and] commonly follow
a recognizable four-step-path: preparation, information exchange, explicit bargaining, and
commitment."
G. Richard Shell, Bargaining for Advantage: Negotiation Strategies for Reasonable People, revised. Penguin Books, 2006.

Negotiation Method
✓ Separate the people from the problem.
✓ Focus on interests, not positions.
✓ Invent options for mutual gain.
✓ Insist on using objective [third-party] criteria to settle differences.
Roger Fisher and William Ury, Bruce Patton ed., Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In, 2nd edition. Penguin
Books, 1991.


What's an audience-focused presentation as a whole?

Presentation Components
Persuasive
Discussion
Overview
Flow of story Sequence of main points Relationship of the main points:
In saying how they fit together,
What's the hook & message? What sequence best suits you explain your thinking, a very
your story? important step, if you're in the
What's the story? process of earning the audience's
Chronology trust.
What are the main points (plus
Cause ➨ Effect
or minus five)? Main & supporting points, in
Distinguish main points from Comparison by case: A v B
Comparison by criterion sequence
supporting points before you
Criterion 1: A v B
speak, for easy editing "on Conclusion
your feet," if audience or Criterion 2: A v B
Recommendation or direction. Not
allotted time change simply restating your message:
unexpectedly. If you've led the audience through
definition of your terms, you can
use them in conclusion. You've
demonstrated leadership!


We've covered interactive style & assertive but adaptable structure

Some rules of thumb before discussing communication channel,
your third strategic strength:

✓ People like to be asked what they think, what their concerns may be.
✓ People see what they're going to lose far more easily than what you say
they'll gain.

✓ Reason is highly over-rated as a factor in human behavior.
✓ Information and expertise are necessary but easily ignored, if unaccompanied
by repeated attention to others' needs, which breeds cooperation and, ultimately,
trust.

✓ Positive motivation is preferable in persuading, because people tend to move
toward what they love and want; when that's unavailable, don't hesitate to unsettle
their resistance by raising their fears.


Why are communication channels important?
Each has different pro's and con's; if the channel you're assigned
doesn't meet your communication objectives, add others that do.

Language Degree of detail Transitions, Emphasis
Degree of detail Verbal language Body language
For the EYE, can be skimmed Accommodates more Longer, more analytical
and re-read and finer detail sentences (e.g., a series of
Text benefits separated by
Can be abstract ("protocol") semi-colons)
Complex syntax ("however,")
Paragraphing, white space,
bullets, italics, underlining

"Real-time," for the EAR Organize detail into categories Gestures, pauses, vocal variety
Speech Short words, simple sentences
Sequence: most important first, Repetition of key words
Visual and concrete ("handshake") because people hear the first in Repetition leading to next point
Conversational rhythms: easy to a sequence Verbal pointers/markers (repeat
hear and to speak key words and phrases, rhetorical
questions, start key words with
same letter)
Conversational titles clarify
flow of story Web-based visuals accommodate
Visuals (and require) greater detail than
Callouts can be a "second voice"
Projected slides, Interpretive titles, not labels (e.g., slide #4, above)
slides
webcast ("downtime declined
dramatically in xxxx" v.
"downtime x%")


Communication as leadership: all the pieces

Message: "The Big Idea"
Communicated within first few seconds, simple and succinct
Indicates your perspective persuasively by providing common ground even a hostile audience can agree to
Introduces theme words or key images
Not the same as solution: accommodates details of presentation but doesn't bog down in them

Structure
Suited to occasion, audience, and communication channel
Covers plus/minus five key points
Sequence of points or "flow" suited to your material, audience, and purpose
Append back-up detail; don't clutter your presentation with it visually or verbally

Successful Delivery: Creates an unspoken dialogue
Connect with audience: strong start, eye contact, firm stance
Demonstrate leadership: cue the audience to key points, instead of moving randomly; "take" the space
with gestures scaled to the size of the audience
Establish executive presence: results from strategic interplay of voice, gesture, response to audience
verbally or with body language, and use of silence for emphasis and to give audience time to "process"

Successful Q & A: Creates an actual dialogue
Assert leadership by linking back to your message
Reinforce rapport using active listening techniques--which buy you time to think on your feet while keeping
the focus on your discussion


What characterizes communication as leadership?

✓ Audience-driven strategy and content
✓ Interaction, either actual (Q&A) or implied, through body language
✓ Channel-driven design and delivery

For further information…

☛ List of resources on communication and presentation, including brief notes on what each is
about and why it's worth a look: www.delicious.com/SusanKBecker.

Susan K. Becker, Principal
Becker Consulting Services
212 689 1659
skbecker@beckerconsultingsvcs.com
www.linkedin.com/in/susankbecker


Communication as Leadership for CIOs

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