Mel: Hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of Less Chatter, More Matter, the communications podcast. My name is Mel Loy, I'm recording this episode on the lands of the Yuggera and Turrbal people who are the traditional custodians of Meanjin, Brisbane, and today is the final part of a five part episode series that I've been recording with my friend Prina Shah.

And Prina has also been Broadcasting this on her own podcast, which is ways to change the workplace. So if you haven't tuned into any of the last few episodes, I really recommend you go back and listen to a few of those so you get the vibe for what we're talking about. We've covered a lot of ground so far.

We've talked about adapting your communication style for your team. Giving and receiving feedback as a leader, having tough conversations as a leader, leading change. And today I really do think we've saved the very best till last. It's our grand finale. So we thought, why not? What are our pet peeves when it comes to leadership communication?

And because it's not just a [00:01:00] wing fest, what can you do about them? So you might notice... Some of these things that we talk about in your own work or maybe in the work of other leaders that you work with. It's not meant to be a hammer you over the head. It's really just about, Hey, be self-aware that these are things that we've all done, or probably all done at some point, and how do you fix them?

Why does it happen? Why it's a problem, and how do you fix it most importantly? So we talk about a bunch of stuff in this episode, including this. Uh, topic that Prina brings up around professional ghosting. Uh, we talk about communication versus broadcasting and a whole lot of other things.

Honestly, our lists are pretty long. We could have talked for a really, really long time, but we did cut it. So without further ado, let's get into it. Here's Prina Shah.

Prina: Hello and welcome to this episode. Of a podcast with myself, Prina Shah, and I'm a leadership and culture expert and human behaviour expert as well. Human behaviour change expert.

And I'm bringing that lens to this conversation, and I'm [00:02:00] speaking to my brilliant friend Mel Loy, who is an expert in so many things. Mel, what are you an expert in?

Mel: Well, uh, you'd think words, but also today that could be, that could be challenging. Uh, change. Comms is my area of expertise, and, uh, some of you are joining us on Prina's Podcast. Ways to Change Workplace, or My podcast, Less Chatter, More Matter. And so I bring a lens of, uh. Communication, obviously, but also a background in behavioural science and change management. So we're bringing that lens to these conversations. And this is number five of our five part series on all things leadership and what we see, what we don't see that we wanna see more of.

And this is the finale. So we are delving deep today. Oh, and it's gonna be a fun one.

Prina: It is now. Mel sent me this topic a while ago and I was like, yes, Mel, I've got a lot to say on this. Do you want to just, do you wanna describe what the topic is?

Mel: It is our pet peeves when it [00:03:00] comes to leadership. Yeah, and there's a lot of them. We've had to, we've had to narrow it down.

Prina: I've been, I've been preparing for this one, 'cause I've got like four or five pages of notes I'm thinking can go into it. But even that, you are a comms expert. I really wanna ask you about this one. I'm gonna chuck you in into the deep end.

Mel: Let's go

Prina: Yeah. Dear Mel, have an issue with a couple of clients where I really need your advice. They have decided - this is all of last year, they took off the phone numbers of everyone's, um, signatures.

So from now on. You cannot phone anyone. Right? Wow. I find that really challenging as an external person, purely because I'm all about the conversation. 'cause an email ain't gonna land internally. I had a conversation with, um, the beautiful person, you know, at the front of the desk who I meet each time. So she's the face of the organisation in my opinion.

So she's the receptionist and I asked her, what's this about, blah blah. I [00:04:00] won't name her name. And she said, it's really giving her. A lot of annoyances as well, because these people don't have their phone numbers on the bottom. So when she goes to search on the online directory, uh, staff directory, people have taken off their phone numbers there as well. Mel, what's happening and why is this happening? Talk to me.

Mel: Oh, honestly, I think it's a misguided attempt at efficiency. That's, that's where I think this is coming from. Uh, you know, people and privacy probably as well. Yeah. Uh, particularly if an organisation, has ev ever had any issues with that before?

Like, I, I remember back in my corporate days, my phone number was, I mean, it was on my emails and those sorts of things, but it was put out on a Facebook group. Uh, and because I was actually, my number and, uh, email address were on the website of the company as a media contact, so they've taken that as. Media meaning advertising. So their whole thing was we [00:05:00] need to pressure companies to stop advertising in these papers. Now, I had nothing to do with advertising.

That was the brand and marketing department. I was corporate affairs. Uh, but they had pulled together this spreadsheet, put it on their Facebook group. Uh, with 60,000 people on there or something, and myself and a colleague just started getting bombarded with text messages and emails and phone calls, and I was trying to figure out what the hell's going on here.

It took me like a day or so to unravel this, but I mean, for that reason alone. Sure. Take your number off if that's gonna be the way it's used. And I, so I can understand people being a bit gun shy about it. Yeah. But by the same token, unless you have a viable alternative, like, you know, like a book a call link on your signature hello, where you can actually book in time to have a phone call, then I agree.

It's... It's not a great look from a customer service point of view that I can't reach my stakeholder in this business. Yeah. Uh, but also, yeah, it's gonna annoy the crap outta the receptionist who [00:06:00] now just becomes a switchboard every day. And it doesn't say much about the transparency and openness of your business either.

And I think we mentioned, this is in another episode, anything that sends a message is a form of communication. So taking phone numbers off your email, what kind of message does that send to people internally and externally?

Prina: Yeah.

Mel: About who you are as a company and your brand. Uh, and that's, that's what I would be really thinking hard about. So either provide a viable alternative or. Put those numbers back on there.

Prina: Genius. Genius. Okay. Uh, the receptionist. I'm gonna throw another one at you.

Mel: Mm-hmm.

Prina: It's still in the, still in the same vein of the topic that we're talking about. Phone numbers have gone and the receptionist said to me, I hadn't even considered the privacy thing. And your experience is horrible, but a good, horrible case study. Yeah. Yeah. Why this happens.

Mel: Lessons were learned.

Prina: Lessons learned a lot. The receptionist opinion is that they've taken people's phone numbers off there [00:07:00] because so many people are uncomfortable with having a freaking phone call now.

Mel: Oh, that doesn't surprise me. Look, I'm a little bit like that too, only because I'm so busy. So I'd rather somebody just text me and go, are you available? 'cause I will, if I am, absolutely, I'll call them. You know? If not, I'll just say, not right now. You know, that sort of thing. Um, so for me it's just a politeness thing, but I do see that a lot and I'm sure it's been spoken about at length, about younger generations in particular, avoiding phone calls.

Prina: Yeah.

Mel: As much as they can preferring text messages. Yeah. Again, you've gotta balance that with, well, what's actually good for the business though. And yeah, in, in this case, I don't know whether it would be good for the business. So I would really be interested to, to unravel what are the outcomes they're trying to achieve by doing this.

Prina: Brilliant question. So what are the outcomes you're trying achieve, you're trying to achieve by doing this? I feel, and this is just my judgmental opinion because it's really frustrating me from both of these [00:08:00] organisations.

Mel: Mm-hmm.

Prina: Is that someone's just had this knee jerk reaction and they've gone to like, this, let's placate everyone and let's just remove phone numbers as a result... situation, but interesting. So organisations, if you're listening and if you've done this, really consider why you've done this.

Mel: Yeah. But also tell us why. We'd love to know. Yeah. We're genuinely curious. Help us out. Yeah. We'd love to know.

Prina: Brilliant. Brilliant. Well, there we go. That's one. Taking phone numbers off.

Mel: Give me a pet peeve of yours. Let's just go. Alright. One of my top five is communication versus broadcasting. And what I mean by this is I go into an organisation and we're, we're talking about the change comms, and one of the questions I ask is, how much do people already know about this?

Prina: Yeah.

Mel: And they'll be like, oh, we mentioned it in a town hall six months ago, or it was in an email a few weeks ago, so they should all be aware. And yet you've broadcasted a message. Mm-hmm. That doesn't mean you've communicated a message. So there's no understanding. People have, it's not [00:09:00] memorable. It hasn't sunk in. And when you consider that. The amount of noise that we are getting every single day in our, so much in our lives, it's ridiculous.

Like the average person gets 121 emails a day. Time's up by how many inboxes you might be managing, how many days a week. Then text messages, teams chats. I mean, the productivity that's lost by those workplace apps is huge. Um, you know, social media content and messages, et cetera, et cetera. So we are being bombarded.

And you think that something you mentioned off the cuff in a town hall six months ago is gonna be remembered. Keep dreaming. It's not happening. Um, and the other thing is too. Yes, you might be aware of it because you're living and breathing it every day.

Prina: Yep.

Mel: But your audience isn't, so they don't have that sense of context.

But also, nobody cares as much about your project as you do. Nobody cares. Sorry. Yep. Yep. Uh, so that's kind of [00:10:00] the gripe, but I guess why it's a problem is. What that does is when you just think you've ticked a box and you've communicated and you've actually broadcast, you are slowing down. Change makes it really hard to get through because people don't have the depth of understanding that you need.

They don't have the change readiness that they need. They don't understand how, you know, this work aligns to your strategy or your purposes of business. You're gonna have poor engagement. So the fix is really think about your audience first, and then tailor the approach to meet their needs. Meet them where they're at.

All good comms. Start with who not with why. Yeah. The why is different for everybody, but your who helps to direct. Well. What's the best channel to reach that? Those people. What's the best voice to use? The most influential voice. Yeah. What's the timing that's going to work best for them? How do we position this messaging with those people? All those things. So that's my pet peeve number one.

Prina: That's brilliant. And I'm sure I, I'm gonna add to this. So once you really [00:11:00] work out that, so consider the audience first and then meet them where they're at. So you've talked about the channel, you've talked about the voice, you've talked about the time, um, and how to position the message.

And, you know, some parts of your workforce might be far more visual.

Mel: Yeah.

Prina: Some might be far more auditory. Uh, and so if you're really considerate in this aspect, you can really, really target it, target your messaging in the right way. And then another thing I'd add as well is when you target your messaging in this way, you could reuse this messaging as well, eat, sleep, and repeat.

Because as they say, with important communication, you have to communicate, communicate, communicate.

Mel: Repeat, repeat, repeat.

Prina: Communicate. Communicate, right? Yep. So the more information you have in different various formats mm-hmm. The better it is for you to share your message and land your message to the different ears that we will have within the workplace. Right.

Mel: A hundred percent. I always say repackage in three different ways because repetition is great, but after a while it becomes white noise if you're just saying the same thing in the [00:12:00] same way.

Prina: Yeah.

Mel: So repackage the same message, you know, maybe it's. Yeah, an audio message. Maybe it's a graphic as you talked about, or an email, whatever it might be.

Yeah. Um, but the other part of communication rather than broadcasting is also checking People actually understand it. So again, what are the feedback loops that you're putting into this? How are you checking that that comms land, that people actually are aware and do actually understand and asking a question like, do you understand this change?

Most people are gonna go, yep. Because they're like, sure, whatever. Yeah, I totally do. You know? But then when you actually ask a proper question like, tell me what you think this change means to you, Uhhuh, that's when you get to, oh no, they've got completely the wrong end of the shtick here. Or Great things have landed.

Either way. You get really good information about what you keep doing, what you stop doing, what you change.

Prina: Perfect. So it's user testing early on from your comms perspective to see if that comms is actually firstly [00:13:00] landing. Yes. And number two, being understood,

Mel: Uhhuh. Exactly. Now Prina, I know that one of your pet peeves is professional ghosting.

Prina: Yes it is!

Mel: Tell me all about it.

Prina: Professional ghosting. Mel, I am sure you've had this. I have had this for sure. Right. So you email someone and then you just hear nothing, nothing back. Mm-hmm. Now I really had this in my corporate days as a consultant. Now I don't really get it as much because I work with people who wanna work with me.

Corporate days though, what the hell? I, you know, like I've been out of the workforce now for a similar time to you, actually nearly five, six years. Mm-hmm. So. I know why it happens. Okay, so people are super busy. You've talked about this, I've talked about this. People can be avoidant, so hey, I'll just avoid, ignore that email.

It's not a priority. Uh, the ownership is unclear as well. It's like, oh, I won't email, but professional ghosting kills me. Um, have you come [00:14:00] across this first off?

Yeah, absolutely.

Mel: And you know, you still occasionally get it as a consultant where. Um, especially when you do do a proposal and so you've had like multiple conversations with people.

Prina: Oh yeah.

Mel: You spend hours putting this proposal together and then silence. Nothing. Nothing. Yep. And you follow up and you follow up. There's nothing Yeah. Like okay, cool. Um, but yeah, absolutely in the workplace, uh, seen it before when you've asked for things and don't get it or whatever. So yeah, totally get it.

Prina: I just think it's frigging rude.

Mel: It can be. Yeah. I think a couple of the other reasons why, yeah. One of the big ones is the messenger effect.

Prina: Tell me more.

Mel: So basically this is a bias that says who sends it matters more than what the content is itself. So if I don't like you, I don't know you, I don't trust you, there's a good chance I'm just not gonna do what you want me to do, I'm just gonna ignore it.

Whereas if the same request and same message was sent, sent from somebody that I like and that I know and trust, okay, yeah, I'll probably do [00:15:00] it. So I think the messenger effect has a big part of that. Uh, but also when it comes to things like proposals for example, maybe people are just shying away from it because, oh, I don't wanna let people know they're rejected, you know?

Prina: Yeah.

Mel: And it's like, I'm not gonna cry. It's fine. It's okay. I'd rather just get some feedback on why you didn't select me, so I can think about that and, you know, I move on. Um, but yes, I do think the messenger effect would have a big part of, of that as well.

Prina: Okay. That's fascinating. Um, so how do we fix it Prina?

Mel: How do we fix it? How do we fix it?

Prina: I can get really anal, and I used to do this with my team, so, you know, working in HR teams, my team could not afford not to respond. And sometimes, unfortunately, that's what happened because of the fact that, you know, we had our own individual mailboxes, then we had two other mailboxes that we were managing and things slipped.

That's the other reason as well. So in that instance, especially for the service email mailboxes that we had, we had, um. I set up [00:16:00] just we have to respond within 48 hours. If we don't, then we need to get back to people to say, Hey, email received, but we're working on it.

Or we'll get back to you at whatever time. 'cause you cannot leave people hanging, especially when you're a professional services team. That's one thing. Another thing as well, I mean if you're finding this within the workplace, which I did with a couple of people, messenger effect I think was the issue.

Now I've come to realise. I just walked up and had a conversation with them. Yeah. So when you can just have that conversation. Um, and I guess the third part as well now is knowing about the messenger effect, consider who actually sends that message.

Mel: Yes.

Prina: If it shouldn't be you. I mean, unfortunately we work in this hierarchical situation mm-hmm. Where the messenger effect is especially prevalent because we've created these levels of. Seniority, you know?

Mel: Yeah.

Prina: So someone else's voice might be far more important. So I could have then, back in the day, asked my manager to send that message instead of me. It would've completely landed differently.

Mel: Yeah. Yeah. Or [00:17:00] you recruit that person's manager to talk to them too. Yeah. Because again, if I don't know your manager, then why would I care? Um, and be like, well, they're at another team asking me to add to my workload. Why would I do that? Yeah. Uh, the other thing is too, you make a good point about group mailboxes, because of course, internal comms, we always had.

20 million are the bloody things. Yeah. Um, when it's everyone's job to monitor it, then it's nobody's job.

Prina: Mm-hmm.

Mel: So you can't just say, Hey, that team needs to look after that mailbox. What's the system? Yeah. So one owner a day, for example, you know, you're on a roster system. So it, you know, Mondays Prina manages like monitors the mailbox.

Tuesdays, Mel does it Wednesdays, Leanne does it, whoever.

Prina: Cool.

Mel: That way it's, you know, that there's somebody who's actually responsible. For it that day. You spread the load around, but you make sure it's done because it's like when you ask, you know, when it's an entire family's job to take out the rubbish

Prina: Uhuh,

Mel: the rubbish doesn't get taken out.

Prina: No, no. How I do, so what I used to do going back to my [00:18:00] corporate days is, um, there'd be one admin person looking at everything that's coming in, and then they'd allocate it to us based on, you know, that colour code.

Right. Like

Mel: triaging. Sort of thing.

Prina: Yeah, I'd be purple because it'd be more senior stuff. And then some other people who are working on change projects, the change stuff would be this.

IR would be other people's. So yeah. Yeah, that helped. But sometimes it didn't help when we got really busy as well. But we've got ideas of how to deal with it. Well, I'll jump into another issue. Similar concept in terms of, uh, the messenger effect. I used to have one in one. One manager in my corporate days who said, Prina, if it's a difficult message that you're emailing about, then just wait until the end of the day on Friday and then press send.

Mm-hmm. This is the person who used to work in HR and this was his advice. Okay.

Mel: Oh my. Oh, my...

Prina: What thought? What are your thoughts on that one?

Mel: That's a terrible piece of advice.[00:19:00]

Talk about avoidance, but also, yep. If you receive that thing on last thing on a Friday, you are gonna be stewing about it all weekend, thank you. And come in on Monday completely pissed off or upset or angry or whatever. You've made it worse for yourself. You've made it so much worse. And also, if you have to send a bad message, why are you doing that by email?

Why aren't you picking up the phone? Maybe 'cause there's no phone numbers, but why aren't you having, why aren't you having a conversation so that you can, you know, have that opportunity to explain and have, get them to ask questions and those sorts of things.

Prina: Exactly, exactly.

Mel: Terrible piece of advice.

Prina: Don't do that. Don't do it. What not to do. So you remember also within the workplace, I always, uh, state that that which in front of you is your teacher, the good stuff. But we especially learn from the bad stuff. Mm-hmm. That's really your big teacher there, isn't it?

Mel: A hundred percent. I think it's a Nelson Mandela quote. Um, you know, we don't win or we fail, we win or we learn and. That to me is huge. Like I'm not a huge fan of that concept [00:20:00] of, you know, safe to fail. Yeah. Because fail, it's one of those words, and I'm going off the beaten track a bit here, but that's fine. Fail is one of those words that feels like so final.

Yeah. But if you learned from that and you're able to apply that learning to something else, then it wasn't a failure. It was just an experiment. It was a learning. You move on. Um, so yeah. Anyway, that's a total tangent for me.

Prina: No, no, no. Okay. I'm gonna work with you. So one of your issues, one of your pet peeves I know is the urgency myth. Talk to me about the urgency Myth. What is it? First off.

Mel: Oh, it is this idea that, well, everything is urgent, but the idea it, it's urgent because it wasn't planned well in the first place. That's usually what happens. So, lack of organisation, lack of planning, a lack of understanding of what, what is urgent, what does that actually mean? And things are rarely urgent for most of us. We are not saving babies. We are, there's a great saying, you're in pr, not [00:21:00] er, you know what is urgent?

And you know, the thing is too, when you're constantly focusing on the urgent things and just putting out fires, basically you can't focus on the strategic stuff, the big stuff that actually matters because it's stops being your work stops being about quality. It starts become about becoming about quantity and speed, and the result is.

You get people who are burned out, you get people who are really frustrated, who are totally disengaged. So what about you? Have you come across this?

Prina: I've been a culprit of this. Oh my gosh, I've been that bad person. Okay. Okay. Okay. We live and learn. Okay.

Mel: Story time, story time, story time.

Prina: Working in corporate days. Of course, I thought I was frigging important and everything I sent out was urgent, you know? Uh, so let's talk about HR days. Okay. So when I worked internally, um, let's talk about, so my team used to manage the performance and development cycle.

Mel: Mm-hmm.

Prina: Every organisation has that. It's a fun thing that everybody [00:22:00] loves, not okay. And then we used to deploy all of our comms, all of our training, all of our upskilling. Uh, just before the end of the financial year, the worst time of the freaking year to do it. Mm-hmm. 'cause the whole of the organisation, they're working on budget planning and strategic planning for the next financial year.

They're also stressing out to close off this financial year, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then here comes HR merrily along to say, oh, let me add this other mandatory, by the way, to do, uh, onto your, uh, plate now as well. Bad. Bad. The amount of feedback we got in relation to that and the amount of kickback we got as well.

Was good learning. Okay? Mm-hmm. So case in point there. So I think sometimes you think in your little, only little echo chamber of HR or pr, whatever world we're working in, that this is the most important thing. But the lesson here I'm trying to state is that we need to consider the whole cycle of the workplace and what's happening across the whole organisation.

And the larger the organisation, the [00:23:00] tougher this is. I know. Um, but we really need to try and align, uh, to the cycles of heavy, uh, peak and trough.

Mel: That's a really good No, it's such a good point. Uh, you know, thinking about, well, what else is going on in their worlds that, you know, my thing is the least of their problems and it's the least thing they're worried about.

It's the thing that's the nice to have, the thing that can get shoved, you know, until later in the date or not at all. So I think from a fixing this problem. Uh, perspective. Yeah. As an organisation, as a team, you need really need to get clear on your criteria of what is urgent and why.

Prina: Yeah.

Mel: Versus what's not urgent and why.

Prina: Yeah.

Mel: So as a team, is it urgent? If okay, if people are gonna be hurt or, you know, damaged in some way? Absolutely. It's urgent. If it's a safety risk, 100000% that is urgent. Um, if it is, you know, you've gotta do your performance review by the [00:24:00] 30th of June. Maybe that's not as urgent.

Prina: No.

Mel: When by your criteria, actually the budget for the next year is an urgent piece of work.

Yes. Because without that, you don't get these things. Yeah. So I think it needs to align to a people's safety, but b, or what are the strategic priorities?

Prina: Yes.

Mel: If aligns to a strategic priority, then yes, that's, that's more urgent. But if it's not, or it hasn't got a, a deadline on it, like, you know, a piece of equipment's going to... Be no longer supported as of a certain time, then why have you put a deadline on it and what could you be spending your time on instead?

Prina: Yeah. I think another big lesson I learned as well is to really work well and really be friend. First off, all get to know my internal comms partner 'cause she was a gun.

Oh my gosh. And one thing that she knew, which the rest of us didn't know, is the full gamut of stuff that was, you know, being commsed out. So if I was trying to compete against other stuff, she'd say, Prina, good luck. That ain't gonna [00:25:00] happen. Re put you, your project to land in a couple of months time instead. So even before I started my projects, I just used to check in with her.

Mel: Mm-hmm.

Prina: And, and then allocate work around that.

Mel: You know, that was actually, that's a huge benefit when I've worked in internal comms teams, which I did for most of my career, is you do get this helicopter view of the world and you know, I've actually said to.

Yeah, this has happened. I, I swear. Mm-hmm. Um, I had a person in HR come to me and go, we want to do the next engagement survey on X date. Yes. And I'm like, do you realise, and there's another team within your team that's aware of this, that we're actually kicking off a restructure on that same day, that same week.

So that would be a terrible idea. But again, they were in the same team. They hadn't even connected the dots, so Right. It's a really, it's a nice place to be. But one thing I do wanna tap into is the urgency thing. And I know one of your pet peeves is about the late night pings. Oh, tell us about it.

Prina: Someone's just had this brilliant idea. [00:26:00] Okay. And then they just send this email out, or even sometimes messages out if we're really close. Boundaries. I mean, in Australia we've got the, what's the legal right to disconnect.

Mel: Right To disconnect.

Prina: Right. To disconnect. Yeah. Right. So we all have a right to disconnect after nine to five whatever hours you work. But let me explain. So this late night pings, this late night pings sometimes happen because if you know you're excited, you've just had this wonderful brain fart of an idea and you can't just stop to wait until Monday morning to send that message through. Or it's poor planning. It's like, shit, man, I just forgot and now it's in my head and I've gone home with this, you know, load in my head.

Okay. So that's a big issue and it's really unfair to dump that onto other people. Have you come across this in your world?

Mel: Yes. And I have been a culprit. Yeah. Yeah. We all have. Yeah. Yeah. It is a little bit different, I think when you've got an understanding with somebody. So for example, April on my team, we ping each other at all [00:27:00] hours, but we know we don't have to reply.

It's just like, oh my God, I've had an idea, or I found this article, or whatever. Right. So there's no expectation of replying. Yes. Um, I try not to do that with clients and my staff on a weekend like I do. Uh, schedule emails to go out early on a Monday morning instead.

Prina: Can we just stop that? We can schedule emails, people, we can, let's remember that. Let's use technology.

Mel: Yes, that's it. I think you can also do a delay send on some texting apps too, can't you?

Prina: Yes. Yeah.

Mel: Um. Yeah. And if I do get super excited about something, I'll just write myself a note write because I know I'll get, I get excited and I'm like, ah, and I have to write down or forget about my exciting idea.

Yeah. Um, but also sometimes that's good. It gives me a bit of an incubation period before I go tell anybody about my idea and I'm like, oh, that was crap. Um. But yeah, like I have been a culprit. Uh, and again, I think this ties into that urgency piece as well, where, yeah, every now and then I'll get a text [00:28:00] message from someone going, oh, I'm sorry to bother you, but, but, so I am sorry to bother you on a Saturday, but yeah.

Uh, and you go, well, are you really that... Sorry if you're doing it, why? Why exactly.

Prina: I love that. So, but, but the trick around that is have the conversation on expectations so we can, so I know that even if you text me on a Friday afternoon, I don't have to respond to it. That's just you sharing your ideas. And the big, big lesson here, we've got technology at hand. Yes, let's use it for good.

Yeah, if you wanna send that email, still send that email, but schedule it to land on a Monday morning or whatever time's appropriate, which is a work time. And we can do that with text messages as well, can't we?

Mel: Mm-hmm. A hundred percent. It's not hard. It's not hard. Just ask a millennial to help you. Well, you know, well work it out yourself. That's it. Yep. AI will help. AI can do all sorts of things. Now, there's another one that [00:29:00] you, I know is on your list, and these are another two pet peeves of mine. Hedging and weasel words and jargon. Okay, blah. Tell me all about it.

Prina: Okay. Jargon. So TLAs, three letter acronyms. First off, within an organisation when you walk in, oh my gosh, it's a different language and I feel when you're new to a workplace, it takes around six to 12 months to actually understand the lingo and to really fit into that.

Okay, so jargon. And sometimes we just use jargon to make ourselves sound more important than we are. We don't need to do that. We really have to remember that there's a workforce that's super diverse, you know, from an age perspective, from a background race perspective as well. So plain English is the best way, and I know from a comms perspective, especially written comms, what's the age that we need to write to? Is there, is there specific?

Mel: Yeah, so it, it, I mean, guidelines differ a little bit, but it's typically around the 14-year-old or grade nine level. Yeah.

Prina: So imagine, imagine that we don't do that in the workplace. We don't write for, you know, [00:30:00] a 14 year old's brain. Mm-hmm. And we really should, we should really simplify all of our messages.

Um, and then the other big, big bugbear I have is hedging and weasel words. And by that I mean, is. At words that don't give you a complete answer and they leave you hanging. Right? Yeah. Um, tell me more about this, 'cause I know this is an issue for you as well.

Mel: Oh gosh. Yeah. So there's probably a couple of things there.

One is you made a really good point that people often use jargon and big words because they think it makes them sound smarter.

Prina: Mm-hmm.

Mel: And. We know that's actually the opposite of what is true. There is a great piece of research from 2009 and regulars in my show, probably heard me talk about this before, uh, but to go by a researcher called, uh, Daniel Oppenheimer.

And the title of the paper was The Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity. And the subtitle was The Problem with Using Long Words Needlessly. And so what he did was he [00:31:00] had a, an academic article.

Prina: Okay.

Mel: Written in its original academic language and then a plain English version of that same article, and different groups were asked to read a different version, and then they were asked to rate how intelligent they thought the author was.

The people who had the plain English version rate, the perceived intelligence as much higher than those who had the academic version. And it's simply because they could understand it. You know, how does anybody know how smart you are? If they can't understand you, it's not gonna happen.

Prina: Mm-hmm.

Mel: Um, and you know, we live in a world where our audiences are so diverse.

Prina: Mm-hmm.

Mel: Everybody's got a different background. The story of literacy in our world is such a recent story. You know, we were never made to sit and read emails all day.

Prina: No.

Mel: Most we're at a, I think a literacy rate in Australia of about 99%. But of those. Only about, I think it's about 15% are level four or five literacy. So that means that you can understand [00:32:00] large words and read academic papers and those sorts of things. Most people are level one to level three. Okay, that's it. So literacy, yes, I can read and write, but to what extent, and when you think about how diverse our audiences are internally and externally, it doesn't make sense to use big words.

Um, the other thing you mentioned is, you know, the acronyms. I mean, I worked in organisations where they give you a big list of acronyms when they onboard. You go, here, you go learn these. Like, cool. Uh, and again, plain English is useful, but. Um, the other thing you mentioned was weasel words, and we see this all the time and it's honestly, I feel like it's a form of buck passing.

You know, it's trying to be vague because I don't want to be beholden to anything. Yeah. But people see through that and they look at you and go, what are you hiding? Yeah. You know, why are you trying to spin this? People aren't stupid. So the smartest thing you [00:33:00] can do is be as concrete as possible, which builds confidence as well.

Prina: Yeah.

Mel: You know, there's a lot of research around concrete language and how that does build confidence in the messenger and the message. Okay. Uh, but also use plain language, like you said, that level of about a 14-year-old

Prina: Yeah.

Mel: You will reach about 80% of your audience at that level.

Prina: Wow.

Mel: When you start to write more than that, it drops off really dramatically.

Prina: Okay. I'm gonna ask you help for something else as well. 'cause I see this a lot in the workplace. I'm throwing this one at you. Using the active voice and using the passive voice.

Mel: Okay. So I have views. Yeah. So passive voice, please don't use it. It's very, it's used a lot in academia. Yeah. Um, but it's not very direct.

Yeah. It tends to make your sentences longer. Yeah. And more convoluted. So if you don't know, the formula for active voice is subject, verb, object. We used the computer, not the computer was used by us. Yeah. So straight away [00:34:00] you can see one's much shorter and much once more. Much more direct. Yeah. Uh, and once you start to recognise active and passive voice, it becomes a red flag everywhere it pops up.

Where you read it. Yeah. And there's, it's a really simple fix. Ask AI to fix it. Go through your writing. Go find all the passive voice, rewrite it as active voice. Don't even have to do it yourself anymore. Yeah. Uh, but it is much more direct. It gets to the point people are time poor, they don't have time to try and figure out what you're trying to say.

Prina: I know. It is just, it is just mumbo jumbo uhhuh and it has no, it has no ownership to it as well.

Mel: That's it.

Prina: It really bugs me. That kills me especially. So I've got some examples here. So, yes, because I got a cheat sheet. 'cause I really go off on one with. Many a times I'm helping. So a, a, a passive voice. A proposal will be written to clarify the project to the client.

Mm-hmm. What the hell? When what, how. Yeah. Versus I will write a proposal to clarify the project to the client by the end of the week. Yeah. Own it, girl. Own it. [00:35:00] Yep. Okay. Uh, now stressy teams, an intern, will be hired to handle the excess workload, bang. My department will hire an intern to help with the excess workload by blah, blah, blah.

Yeah. How much better is that for me to,

Mel: it's so much more personal too. Like it's instead of an internal, like it sounds like a robot.

Prina: Yeah. And then last example, the event details or finalised at the meeting last week versus We finalised the event details at the meeting last week and this is everything that we learn.

Mel: Yeah. Like a, I think a big part of what we're talking about here is writing like a human. Yes. You know? You wouldn't talk that way if you were having a conversation. Why do you think it's different? Yeah. If you're putting it in written word. Um, and yes, of course you need to be careful, more careful in written stuff from a

Prina: Yes.

Mel: You know. Uh, a, a leak risk in those sorts of things. Mm. But you wouldn't talk like that in [00:36:00] real life. So why would you write like that? You're talking to human beings? Talk like a human.

Prina: There's a thing I. I'm gonna jump onto this one. Okay? Mm. So while we're talking about pet peeves, I know one of yours is the Meeting Madness culture.

Loads of people have talked about this, loads of people have written books about this. Mm. Tell me more about the meeting Madness culture. What is it? First off,

Mel: uh, it is when people spend more time in meetings than actually doing the work. So. Your, your calendar is always Chas from eight in the morning till 6:00 PM at night.

Maybe you're lucky if you've got a 15 minute pee break in there somewhere. Yeah. And there's almost a source of pride in that with some people, but you spend so much time in meetings and get loaded up with all this work and then you have no time to do the work because you're always in meetings. So, yeah.

You know, it's one of those, this meeting could have been an email type of scenarios. Yeah. But what it means is like it happens because there's a lack of governance. First and foremost around channels. So I did [00:37:00] notice the other day, I can't remember who it was, I shared it on Instagram. One of the CEOs from one, a fairly big company, has decided that, uh, he's of the same opinion.

We're just in this meeting madness culture. So he now longer has meetings and he's told the whole organisation, we do not have meetings on Wednesdays and Fridays or something like that.

Prina: I saw that. Yeah.

Mel: Yeah. It's like, it's just wasting too much time. And he's absolutely right. Uh. There is so much we could do differently. And in terms of that, collaboration's important, all those sorts of things.

Prina: Yep.

Mel: But did you really have to meet for that? Um, and I think so. It's a governance around your channels. Yep. Lack of clarity on the priorities and the actions.

Prina: Exactly. Yeah.

Mel: Because if you're just meeting for a progress update, then there's something wrong back here somewhere. Tell me your thoughts.

About meeting madness

Prina: cultures, right? Mm-hmm. So often it's a, it's a result of indecision. I just dunno what to do, therefore, I'm just gonna drag Mel and her brain into the [00:38:00] meeting. Right? But then another thing I think people love to do is freaking pontificate.

Mm-hmm. Blah, blah. Oh my God, blah. Just get on with it and make a decision as well. Sometimes you, yeah, sometimes people can overdo it from a meeting perspective and. Collaborate and collaborate and over collaborate, like just make the frigging decision and have a meeting about that perhaps then it'll be a rich conversation.

Mel: Yeah. Uh, look, and as somebody with ADHD, you've lost me in the first five minutes. If I can't see a point to this, and if you're just going over and over and over things again for the sake of, you know, it's almost like if I repeat myself, then people will agree with me.

Prina: That. Yeah. That's how some people use it.

Mel: You made your point. Yeah, we heard it, but we don't agree with it. Yeah. Just move on. Can we just get to why we're here?

Prina: I mean, in this conversation we haven't even talked about neurodiversity. Mm-hmm. We haven't talked about presenteeism as well. The more we get to Oh yeah. Who the more I'm gonna switch off, you know?

Mm-hmm. And [00:39:00] that all leads to a bad organisational culture as well, doesn't it?

Mel: A hundred percent. And I think there's something else we need to think about with this meeting culture too, is how much does it play into proximity bias? So this has been, uh, proximity bias is something that has been much more, I guess, put in the spotlight since we've gone to a hybrid working model.

Prina: Yes.

Mel: Where the more time you are spent visible. Yes to people, the more likely you are to get better jobs, better like a promotion, be handed, the better work. Even if you're not as productive or as effective as a person who works fully remote.

Prina: Wow.

Mel: Um, it's, it's proximity. You're just seeing, you're seeing more. So how much of this is just because we want to show up and go, we're here. I'm busy. Look at me, as opposed to just get it done.

Prina: Yeah. Very performative. If that's the case. Yes. Yeah. You wanna shine like the peacock? Yes. Wow, wow, wow, wow. Okay. Goodness. Another one.

Mel: There's so much [00:40:00] we could say about that.

Prina: Leading towards the same kind of conversation. My mind. Next pet peeve. No owner and no next step. And this often happens in those crappy meetings that we just talked about. Have you come across this?

Mel: Oh, totally. And it's one of the things I do at the end of meetings and I started being a lot more harsh, well, not harsh, I guess, just more direct about it, uh, over the last few years, even before that, which just end of the meeting.

Right. So who's doing what? Yeah. And then, um, no, no, no. Who's doing what, right? Like what are we actually doing and when are we doing it by? Perfect. And you know, that does then force people to actually. Think sometimes though, kicks off a whole other conversation and you're like, uh, why am I here? Um, but yeah, absolutely.

Like if you've booked a meeting without a point Yeah. In the first place, then of course it's just gonna go round in circles and then you just, nobody, nothing changes, nothing comes outta that once in time.

Prina: So then going back to that point, so [00:41:00] how not to do that or how to avoid that is to, yeah, book a meeting. Have a clear agenda and the outcome that you want. Put those bullet points into your, uh, meeting invite. I had a brilliant manager I used to work with where he'd have that. Then, because we've got brilliant technology, we've got sexy rooms that we work in as well, he'll pull up the meeting agenda

Mel: mm-hmm.

Prina: To keep us on track on the conversation and then before the meeting even ends. So 15 minutes before the close off, you know, our time, he'll say, okay, now we need to summarise. Action. Who's gonna take this on? What are we gonna do as the next step? Who needs to be consulted? Who needs to be informed? All of the good stuff.

But it's using that last 15 minutes really, really well, and just chucking it back into agenda. And then emailing all of us again, and off we went, merrily knowing, knowing what was, you know. On my to-do list, knowing what was on Mel's to-Do list and knowing what's on April's to-do list.

Mel: Yep. You've raised a couple of other things there. One thing about having an agenda, it's great for people [00:42:00] who might be more introverted.

Prina: Totally.

Mel: Because if you get everybody in a room and say, right, here's what we're talking about today, blah. There's people who have more introvert. Personality types who need time to digest the information and then come back with questions.

Yes, and in the meantime, us extroverts are just processing out loud and not actually really contributing a lot to the conversation. So having that agenda gives everybody time, not just you, but gives different thinkers time to prepare and be able to contribute. Really well during the meeting. Yeah. Um, because I've had that thinking time.

I think another trick I've learned is have a safe word that sounds I know, bit sexy, but it's not. Yeah. Um, but as a team, yes. Again, again, as a team, agree on a word that you're allowed to just shout out if things are going off track. So it's jellyfish, pineapple, koala, whatever it might be. And that just, it's a bit funny.

It makes people laugh and go, oh yeah, yeah, okay. [00:43:00] Put on the parking lot, whatever, move on. Um, but anybody can yell it out like jellyfish, like, oh, yep, you're right. We've gone off track. Bring it back. So have, have a symbol. Some people have, um, I've seen, you know, a teddy little teddy bear and you get to throw it at somebody like

Prina: love it.

Classic.

Mel: Um, and again, like you said in one of the other episodes, you gotta have a trusting culture there. That's, you know, you, some, some leaders would just lose their minds if you tried to do that. Yeah. Um, but if you can have those little rituals or symbols or things that you agree on to help keep you on track.

That's always helpful too, because then it's not just the leader saying, stop, do this, do that. Everybody's giving you the feedback that you need to shut up.

Prina: Totally. Totally. Big lessons I've learned from you. So the agenda is really important for people who are, especially the slower thinkers. The deep thinkers.

Mel: Mm-hmm.

Prina: Because then they come prepared, and I'm telling you, those people come really freaking prepared to the meeting. Like that meeting is rich. So rich Uhhuh. I love the idea of having a [00:44:00] safe word when things go off track as well. That's cool. Okay. Noted.

Mel: What's your safe, what's your safe word gonna be, Prina?

Prina: Um, I reckon pineapple.

Mel: Its very, it's gotta be something quite visible that people can, you know, it snaps them out of their chain of thought too. Yeah. Because all of a sudden I'm seeing a pineapple.

Prina: Cool.

Mel: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cool. Might be wombat. Because I love wombats, Because wombats are my favourite animal. Um, okay, another one.

I, I think we've got time for at least one more. And one of the, and I know this is a pet peeve of mine too, forwarding without framing. Oh, tell me all about it.

Prina: Gosh, forwarding without framing that is just so passive aggressive. You know, I know you are busy. I know you're super busy, and I get this sometimes from clients.

I'm sure you'll get this as well. I'll just get an email forwarded to me and be like, uh, what do you want me to do with this? Do I create a course out of this? Is this a consulting engagement? Like what's the point of this? Okay, [00:45:00] so consider before you start to forward an email why you're actually forwarding it.

Give some context if you're forwarding the email as well, because the person receiving it will have no freaking idea why they're receiving it. So context is really, really important in this respect. What about you?

Mel: Oh yes, for the love of God, just. Even just highlight the bit in the email below. Yeah. That you want me to look at.

But also I think a really good lesson learned is be careful of what you're forwarding on. And would the people that you're forward, like who wrote the original email trail five emails ago, be okay with you forwarding that?

Prina: Mm-hmm.

Mel: Um, I've seen examples where somebody had replied to a request going, oh, like we've got nothing better to do.

And ultimately that ended up in a me email train that was sent back to the CEO

Prina: Oh shit.

Mel: Now luckily he took it very humorously. Um, but not everybody's gonna have that good luck. No. Also, you might present yourself in one way to your immediate boss, but is that how you would want to present yourself to the [00:46:00] CEO or somebody else as well?

And then think about all the email signatures and everything else are included on there. If, especially if it's an external, like from a privacy perspective. So. Do yourself a favour and do everybody else a favour. If you're going to forward something on copy and paste the it outta the original email and say, I received this from blah, blah, here's what I think.

What do you think? Yeah. So don't just go FYI below.

Prina: Yes.

Mel: What? What do I do with that? Oh my God, why are you even sending it to me if it's just an FYI?

Prina: Yeah. Yeah. And remembering that all of these emails, all of the work stuff that you're doing at work actually belongs to work. So sometimes.

Mel: Mm-hmm.

Prina: HR can actually open that kind of worms and investigate the emails that you've been sending.

And I've been on the other side of, you know, the email, uh, screen to be the investigator to look at these emails, which have been forwarded, and sometimes crappy emails get forwarded just from a gossip perspective.

Mel: Mm-hmm.

Prina: You know, the jungle drums, all of that kind of stuff. So, be very, very [00:47:00] mindful that this email is not, is not private, it's not just yours.

The company actually owns all of the data that you are inputting all of the data that you are sending, the company owns this material, not you.

Mel: Yeah, and not only that, think about it from a leak perspective. So I call it the courier mail test or the Daily Mail, or the Sun. How would you feel if this email ended up in that newspaper?

How would that look for you? How would your, what would your family think about you if they read that? You know, what would you, yeah, yeah. But also remember, especially in Australia. Even something you've written on a Post-It note is subject to freedom of information laws. So if there's ever an inquiry, which I've seen this happen as well, the Royal Commission into Banking, um, everything, everything these that people had ever written on any notebook, in any Word document, in any email had to be surfaced and sent into a public inquiry.

So you just gotta be careful. You've gotta be really careful. If it's too sensitive [00:48:00] for an email, then it should be a conversation.

Prina: Boom. Definitely. So, okay. Have we missed anything now? That was brilliant. I don't have anything else to add. That was excellent. Any other, have we missed anything?

Mel: Oh, look, there's probably one more, and I know you see this a lot because it is a, it's a basic one, but it's all we see all time. It's not walking the talk.

Prina: Yes.

Mel: So when leaders say one thing, uh, and then do another. Yeah. And again, everything that sends a message is a form of communication. Yeah. And when they do that, they show, or they send a message that, you know, the values of the business don't really matter or they don't, you know, really think that everybody should get along or they're not really aligned with the other C-suite or whatever.

And often I think it happens because they aren't aligned. You know, they, they say yes to the boss, but then go and do their own thing. Um, they might not realise they're doing it either. Yeah. A lot of the time. True, true. Or they're just checked [00:49:00] out. Yeah. They're just going through the motions of managing, not really, really leading.

Yeah. Um, and it's a problem because, you know, for example, if you are constantly canceling or rescheduling your one-on-ones with your team

Prina: Yeah.

Mel: That sends a message. You don't care about them, that you don't value their time. Yeah. Um, if you start, you know, the company values about kindness or something, and then you are caught bitching about a colleague, you know?

What does that send as well? And it, the result is really poor engagement. Really poor, you know, hot and high turnover. But because people see this and think, well, a, that, you know, this doesn't matter. Actually, this doesn't matter. But also this person's not being held accountable. Yeah. For this either. So why should I even bother? What do you think? Have you seen it?

Prina: I have seen it so much. So not walking the talk, not practicing what you preach. And I often see this, Mel, when leaders are in a state of cognitive dissonance. Uh, now cognitive [00:50:00] dissonance is when you have been given a message, for example, to deliver, but from the powers that be, but you don't believe in it yourself.

So you're not gonna practice what you preach now. So you have to get to a stage of cognitive resonance. Otherwise you're gonna be very, very, um. Negative, and your people are gonna see that resentment is very, very palpable, you know?

Mel: Mm-hmm.

Prina: So you really need to work out your funk, even if you disagree with the corporate message that is, and either go and learn more about it, have the conversation if you disagree with it.

Yeah, and then try and reframe your language to try and align with that messaging. Okay. So you have to walk the talk and practice what you preach ideally. And Mel, I think this is the hardest thing, especially for middle managers. 'cause you know, they're the meat in the sandwich who actually have to make people happy beneath them and then keep people happy who they report to as well.

Mel: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I agree. Yeah, they've, like we talked about in previous episodes, you know, they're often given the [00:51:00] role of the messenger. So if you don't. Actually agree with what you've been asked to tell your team. Yeah. Then it's really hard for you to to say it in a really genuine way or say it at all and Yeah.

Oh yeah. And so the fix is, what's the fix? Well. Um, I think firstly accountability. Yeah. You know, if they're not being kept accountable, then who is. Yep. Um, but sometimes they just need a bit of coaching to actually realise, again, like I said, they might not even be aware they're doing it.

Prina: Exactly.

Mel: And so actually just go, Hey, you know, when you said this the other day, do you realise that was different to what you said two weeks ago?

Or you know, and you know, again, people are so busy, maybe they didn't even know they were doing this.

Prina: Yeah.

Mel: Just gotta have a conversation maybe.

Prina: Totally. And it's really important to, I think the final line in this one especially is that if you're a leader, if people report to you, then every single message you are giving, even when you're not giving a message, is really freaking important. 'Cause all eyes are on you there.

Mel: A hundred percent. [00:52:00] Yep.

Prina: Check in on yourself and have a good peer network as well.

Mel: Oh, a hundred percent. I think that's a really good point Prina, around, you know, we, we don't know everything. We never will and. Having a coach, a mentor, um, a peer network, you know, whatever that looks like for you.

Some sort of support mechanism where you can test your ideas and get feedback that's important in any role, but definitely as a leader.

Prina: Totally. Well, we've talked about so much. We've had many of that.

Mel: Oh goodness. I know.

Prina: Um, what are the key takeaways from you? What really jumped out for you in this conversation?

Mel: Oh, yes. I think, uh, there was a couple things you said about the. Yeah. The late night pinging, I think, because as I said, definitely I've been guilty of that. Yeah. Um, and you know, the fact that we have technology at our fingertips that we can use, like even when we do get super excited about something, it's okay.

Yeah. You know, if we can, we can let it, we can let it slide. Exactly. Um, but the professional ghosting thing, yeah. Like until you mentioned [00:53:00] that to me a little while ago, I hadn't even thought about it. And now I'm like, oh, it is everywhere. And I'm so curious to know about this phone number thing that we spoke, that you spoke about at the beginning.

I so wanna know the reasons why they thought that was a good idea. I'm gonna ask you what about you?

Prina: Yeah. I love your anything. This is, I'm quoting Mel. Anything that sounds like a message is a form of communication, please remember that. Yeah. Uh, I love the urgency myth. You are in pr, not in er. Hello. Not everything's urgent.

Mel: We're not saving babies.

Prina: No. I think we really need to check in on ourselves and our own self-importance often because work can get carried away and it's easily done. I was like that. I've been there, done that. But we just need to take that pause and remember. Yeah. The world is still evolving

Mel: and I think one of the things is too, and, and this goes back to sort of just a general lesson.

The best way to learn is to teach and. For me, like for example, with [00:54:00] communication, I became a much better communicator when I started teaching other people how to communicate. As a leader, you might become a better leader by mentoring and, and teaching others how to lead because that's when you really have to think about, well, what's good, what's bad, what works, what doesn't?

What are the lessons you've learned? Um, so think about, yeah, maybe how you could pull that in as a way to get better at what you do. You know, the best way to learn is to teach it

Prina: gold. Yeah. On that we conclude. Mel, it has been a pleasure. Ah, absolutely.

Mel: And you know what, Prina, I feel like we have enough stuff here to write a book. What do you think?

Prina: I'm up for that. I'm ready.

Mel: I'm ready. I'd love to know if our listeners would be keen. Maybe it's... 50 leadership peeves and how to and how to, how to quash them. I don't know.

Prina: That'll be a good read, I tell you. That's it.

Mel: Well, listeners, let us know. Would you be interested? We're, you know, we've got no time, but we'd happy to do it,

Prina: so we'll do it.

We'll do love this job.

Mel: We'll make it work. We'll make it work.

Prina: Tell [00:55:00] us what you want, what you really, really want. Listeners!

Thanks Spice Girls.

Mel: Alright team, thanks so much for tuning in. Bye.