The fourth in a series of five reflections from 20 years in the comms trenches
I know, it's been a while. Don't you hate it when work gets in the way of blogging?
I was thinking about a question I've been asked every other time I step into a boardroom: 'Who do you think does a really good job at comms?'. The answer, which is not something I often give so directly, is: 'smart people who listen to the counsel of their comms advisors'.
I've met some impressive people who seem to communicate exactly how they would whether you met them in an elevator, or interviewed them on live TV - Warren Buffett stands out.
I've met people (and indeed coached people) who work on their comms assiduously, and it stands them in good stead because they have the sense to know they're not Warren Buffett.
But what does strike me is that interviews, and other comms settings, seem to demand roles from people. There's the urbane TV interviewer on Bloomberg who won't 'um' or 'er', who always finds their camera, and whose practiced rises and falls of tonality through an introductory question run like the fingers of Barenboim up and down the piano keyboard.
Let me be clear: don't be that guy. That is not your role.
Equally, I hear a lot of people talking about 'authenticity' and I worry (such as in this blog) that people are mis-categorising risk when they use this word. Trust me: you don't want the 'authenticity' that some corporate leaders would bring to their comms if they were off the leash and without filters.
But the OPPOSITE of authentic is probably even more of a problem. People who act their way in comms situations are always smiling and laughing and gesturing themselves into a world of pain, because anyone witnessing the performance soon realises that there is a deep schism between THAT person there, and the person they encounter the rest of the time.
So, please: don't be them either.
I've done a great job so far in telling you not what to be. What, then, should you be?
The answer is: 'the appropriate version of you'.
When I work with corporate leaders over a few sessions, or even years, we work on how they manage their communications and the perception they deliver to others. That means, always aligned with how they were yesterday, and will be tomorrow; that means taking a variety of audiences into consideration; that means, easier for them to deliver. It's a consideration how to be the right version, deploying just two factors: social interaction, and competence.
And over the years, that approach has survived as a valid and useful way to frame leaders, and how they communicate well.
So that's who I think does a good job when they talk: those people.
Be like them.
Matt Guarente is a leadership communications coach. GuarenteCo.com, matt@guarenteco.com.
May, 2023
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