Circle of Fellows #134: Lead, Communicate, and Connect

What becomes possible when people feel seen at work? As workplaces feel increasingly transactional, helping people know they matter is both a human and leadership imperative. When people feel seen, they are more likely to engage, contribute, connect, and thrive. There are many ways we help people feel seen, but one of the simplest and most powerful is appreciation: noticing who people are, what they bring, and the difference they make — and letting them know. In this conversation, four IABC Fellows explored the role leaders and communicators play in creating workplaces where people feel seen, and appreciation becomes part of how we lead, communicate, and connect. What changes in people, teams, and organizations when people know they matter, and what gets in the way? About the panel: Although Zora Artis began her career outside the communications field, she has had an outsize impact on the profession since entering it more than 20 years ago to as an account director and then strategic planner with branding and integrated marcomms agencies. Since then, she has led her own brand and communications consultancy and served as CEO of a 20-person creative, digital, and strategic communication firm. In 2019, formed her current management consulting practice, bringing together strategic alignment, brand, and communication expertise. She has received five Gold Quill awards. Her significant contributions to the profession and the body of knowledge include her original research with IABC colleague Wayne Aspland on strategic alignment, the role of communications and leadership – the first substantial research effort for the reconfigured IABC Foundation – and co-authoring a subsequent white paper, “The Road to Alignment,” supported by 27 senior communicators from five continents. Zora has also researched the correlation between strategic alignment and experiences and the impact on stakeholder value and brand. This has led her to develop her own proprietary Alignment Experience Framework. She has also examined gender equity, perceptions, and bias in organizations, and wrote a chapter on this topic for the Quadriga University e-reader, Women in PR. Since joining IABC a decade ago, she has contributed as a volunteer, including serving as chair of the IABC Asia Pacific Region and IEB director; she currently chairs the 2022 World Conference Program Advisory Committee. As a certified company director and chair of the IABC Audit and Risk Committee, she introduced proper risk oversight into the board’s processes. Zora received the 2021 and 2015 IABC Chair’s Award for Leadership and was named IABC’s 2020 Regional Leader of the Year. She is also a Strategic Communication Management Professional, Fellow of the Australian Marketing Institute, and Certified Practicing Marketer. John G. Clemons, SCMP, ABC, APR, IABC Fellow, an independent communications consultant based in North Carolina, has held senior executive and consultant roles throughout his career in corporate and organizational communications. He specializes in providing strategic counsel and support to top executives and corporate offices at Fortune 500 companies. John has served as chair of IABC and holds accreditations from both IABC and PRSA. John has worked with Walmart, Raytheon, and Marriott (among others). John has been an adjunct instructor for six years at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and Loyola University in New Orleans. Founder and Principal of Fluency Leadership, Catherine Ducharme, IABC Fellow, PCC, CLC, is a career communicator, certified coach, and facilitator with more than 35 years of experience in communication and leadership. She has held senior roles across public relations, corporate, internal, and marketing communication in industries, including high-tech and health sciences, grounding her work in deep, real-world expertise. Building on that foundation, Catherine now focuses on developing communication and marketing professionals to be exceptional leaders. Catherine is also the author of the book SEEN: The Power of Appreciation at Work. Jennifer Wah, MC, ABC, has helped clients deliver ideas, plans, words, and results since she founded her storytelling and communications firm, Forwords Communication Inc., in 1997. With more than two dozen awards for strategic communications, writing, and consulting, Jennifer is recognized as a storyteller and strategist. She has worked in industries ranging from healthcare and academia to financial services and the resource sector, and she is passionate about using storytelling strategically to support business outcomes. Although she has delivered workshops and training throughout her career, Jennifer formally added teaching to her experience in 2013, first with Royal Roads University and more recently as an adjunct professor of business communications with the UBC Sauder School of Business, where she now works part-time to impart crucial communication skills to the next generation of business leaders. When she is not working, Jennifer spends her time cooking, walking her dog, Orion, or discussing food, hockey, or music with her husband and two young adult children in North Vancouver, Canada. Raw transcript: Hi, everybody, and welcome to episode 134 of Circle of Fellows. This is the monthly panel discussion among Fellows of the International Association of Business Communicators, of which I am one. I’m Shel Holtz. I am Senior Director of Communications at Webcor. We’re a commercial general contractor operating in California, and I’m coming to you from our headquarters offices in San Francisco. Today I am joined by four of my friends, four IABC Fellows. I will ask them to introduce themselves in just a minute. First, I want to let everyone know what we are talking about today: the role communications can play in ensuring that employees feel seen and heard at work. From the description that we shared: In this conversation, we’ll explore the role leaders and communicators play in creating workplaces where people feel seen and appreciation becomes part of how we lead, communicate, and connect. Recognition undoubtedly will be part of this conversation as well. I hope that you who are joining us live will participate in the conversation. You should do that by sharing a comment in the comment field on YouTube. I’ll be able to share that on the screen for our panelists, and we will pivot to talk about your observation, your question, your experience. I’m very much looking forward to your engagement. It really makes these things even more fun than they already are. They’re already fun because I get to moderate a panel of friends. I’m going to ask them to introduce themselves now, starting with Zora. Hello, everyone. I’m coming to you from Melbourne in Australia, so it’s Friday morning for me. I love being here with friends, as Shel put it: Catherine, John, Jennifer, and Shel, of course. I’m a strategic alignment specialist. I am a facilitator, leadership coach, and advisor. Thank you. Great. Thanks, Zora. John, you’re up. Hello, everyone. I’m John Clemons, and I’m coming to you from Huntersville, North Carolina. I’ve worked in my career for a number of Fortune 100 companies, including Marriott International, AT&T, and Walmart. I am now a communications consultant and an adjunct professor for two universities. Great to see you, John. Catherine, you’re next. Hi. I’m Catherine Ducharme, coming to you from Vancouver, British Columbia. I am a leadership coach, and I develop leaders. I’ve been in communications for most of my career, and I’m also the author of the book SEEN: The Power of Appreciation at Work. This is a topic that’s near and dear to me, so I’m looking forward to discussing it with my friends here. I think it’s highly appropriate that you be part of this panel, given the theme of your book. Next to you is your neighbor here on this panel, as well as in Vancouver, Jennifer. Hi, everyone. Just theoretically up the street from Catherine, and pleased to be here. I work as a storytelling consultant with my own boutique agency, Forwords Communication. I teach at the UBC Sauder School of Business as an instructor there. I love it all, and love these Circle of Fellows gatherings and the conversations that come out of them, which are always both unexpected and insightful. I’m particularly pleased to be here on this topic. I love Catherine’s new book. Terrific. I’m going to have to give that a read. This is a really interesting topic. I have been focused to some extent here at my job on psychological safety, something that we believe in. As I was reading through the topic and some of the comments that you, the panel, shared in advance, I connected those dots: You can’t feel seen and heard if you don’t feel safe to speak up in the first place. I was wondering if you felt that way, if you think psychological safety is part of what we’re talking about here. Catherine, I’d like to start with you, given that this is the focus of your book. I love that thread that you pull through of psychological safety, because I think being seen is all about building relationships and trust. Without psychological safety underpinning everything, if we don’t feel safe to speak up, to see people in a vulnerable way, to show up differently, we remain quiet. I think that’s what’s happening in a lot of workplaces today. It becomes very transactional. Some of us can feel like cogs in the wheel because we don’t feel safe to say what we need to say, to see each other as human beings in the workplace. Catherine, can you explain a little bit what you just said, “show up differently”? What exactly are you saying? I love that. I think particularly as leaders in the workplace, we have an opportunity to be more relational in how we show up. As organizations, we can often focus on getting the work done, efficiency, results, metrics, and all of that’s important. But if we don’t see people, the people behind who’s making that happen, if we don’t see the value of how people contribute, then we’re missing out on something, because it’s relationships that get the work done. It’s incumbent on leaders and communicators to say, “How do I show up in a way that’s more human, where we see what people bring to it and we actually emphasize that value rather than just the metrics?” Thank you. There was another book that came out earlier this year called Forward Talk by a fellow called Gustavo Razzetti, who does a lot of work on culture. He was wondering why people stay silent, so he did a survey. Over 5,000 people responded. When the question was, “Why don’t people speak up?” most said it’s because of fear. Then when the question was, “Why don’t you speak up?” it’s because they’ve either been shut down themselves, they’ve seen somebody else shut down, or they’ve tried before and nothing’s changed. It becomes apathy to a degree as well, so people stay silent as a consequence. It was something like over 70% stay silent because of that, which is quite a striking number. Just to layer into this, our friend and colleague Priya Bates, who’s not on this call, speaks a lot about diversity and wrote a book on culture and inclusivity. It occurs to me that when we’re talking about psychological safety, and exactly what you’re describing, Zora, the culture where someone doesn’t feel comfortable or has been shut down, that can in some cases have to do with the cultural filters around diversity. Understanding how someone shows up, how someone might communicate, how someone might express or receive appreciation or feel seen in a different way than I might—that’s a nuance that is a pretty important one in workplaces. To both of your points, for minorities, what I’ve seen with myself and with other African American professionals in particular, they feel like they are not heard when they are in those meetings. We all have stories where we’ve said something, and then someone else who may be Caucasian says the same thing. Then people go, “Okay, okay,” but you have just said that a few minutes ago. That makes you back down from commenting because you realize you’re not being heard, so why should I say anything else? John, the data really backs that up. Particularly African Americans and Hispanics feel that recognition in the workplace, of being given credit, is actually not fair. That really bears out in the data. We just wrapped up Construction Inclusion Week. I think it was last week or the week before. It’s an annual event organized by a coalition of construction companies, and a lot participate. It’s based on this idea that inclusion means listening and bringing people into the conversation who may not be like you. It seems to me that in addition to psychological safety, or as a requirement for building psychological safety among all our people, inclusion is also really important in helping employees feel seen and heard. I wanted to make a point about psychological safety, which is, of course, part of organizational culture and has the tone set by leadership. One of the things that I find most hopeful and inspiring about this movement that Catherine has written about, and that is having a bit of a moment, is the individual ability to participate in appreciation or to participate in feeling and creating a culture of being seen. Even within organizations where I have not felt particularly seen, appreciated, or heard—John, completely different than what you’re describing—but I will say that as a woman of a certain age, I have found myself far less visible than I have been at other points in my career. In a similar, but not at all nearly as impactful or concerning a way, others of different generations taking my words and being heard in different ways. I don’t want to go down that thread. I wanted to focus on our individual ability to contribute to a culture of appreciation. That’s really about the one-on-one connections that we have with people. Yes. I write about how we don’t need a program or a policy to actually see people and appreciate people in the workplace. What usually gets the attention in the workplace is the loud voices or just the results. In fact, in the book, I really make the distinction between recognition and appreciation. Recognition tends to be about the results and the outcomes, whereas appreciation is about who you are. One is about what you do; the other is about who you are. It’s seeing the people in the workplace who may be the quieter voices, but they’re the peacemakers in the organization, or they make things run smoothly, or they speak to customers in a certain way because they’re really listening. I think there’s an opportunity to really see the strengths and qualities of people in the workplace, and when you see it, to name it out loud, because then that becomes feedback for them on what’s working and how somebody’s contributing in the workplace. I like that, Catherine, because if you look at people in the workplace, in the environment that you’re working in, whether you’re a leader, manager, or another team member, and you’re showing them appreciation and acknowledging them for who they are and how they make a difference, rather than just “What did you create today?” or “What did you produce today?” I think that makes a big difference for them as an individual. I appreciate that distinction between recognition and appreciation. It’s not one that I had made in my own head before, and I was going to raise the idea of recognition. How do you get an organization to demonstrate that appreciation? Does that happen at a high level? We talk to our leaders about the fact that recognition is not really aimed at the employee that you’re trying to recognize. It’s trying to get everybody else to say, “This is the kind of behavior that earns recognition. You want to get recognized, do what this person did.” Appreciation is something else altogether. Does it happen at a higher level, or does it happen within the teams? I will say I’ve worked for employers where appreciation is so big, so huge. One company that I worked for started with a yearly appreciation day, and it was so successful that it was expanded to appreciation week. This is a global company, and they had all kinds of specialty items, free lunches, working with Habitat for Humanity, doing community work, recognizing employees, an awards program. This was something employees looked forward to, and at that company, you were appreciated. I’ve worked with other companies where it was very important for you to assimilate, to become like others, as opposed to being an individual. If you were an individual and a little bit different in your approach to communicating and operating, then you stood out, and you were not seen. You were moved to the side. In my experience, it depends on the organization that you work for. John, that makes it sound like culture is in play here. Yes. How we do things. That’s absolutely right. I think there are ways to build appreciative cultures, and it does require you to look at what matters in the workplace and what is recognized. In certain cultures, there’s a feeling that we’re a team, and if I recognize one person on my team and not the others, I’m showing favoritism. I go into a whole chapter on that, because that really gets us into the participation ribbons: We’re all special, we all need to be appreciated. But I believe people have their moments where really seeing and valuing what they did and how they contribute is important to point out, because it’s feedback for them in their development. While it can be a cultural thing, I think it can start with just the leader, as a leadership behavior and a skill to notice what’s good in team members and just to say it. It doesn’t take much more than that. I was just going to ask, John, in the organization that you referenced, to what degree did that come from leadership? Without getting into the weeds, what did you notice about leadership in that circumstance versus others? Where employees were appreciated, those leaders, and in fact the founder of the company, would go to the cafeteria and just sit down with a tray and start having conversations with employees, starting with “What do you do for our company?” That would become almost like company lore. Having a Christmas party for those employees who have done an outstanding job during the year and inviting them to his home—that was an extraordinary experience. Then with those companies where employees just did not respond, they did not ask questions, it was the leader in that situation who really did not appreciate the work that his employees were doing. It was a company where we had to put out a lot of contracts, and we would lose them repeatedly. I think it was driven by this person’s leadership and how he made employees feel. I’ve seen the extremes in both situations. To Catherine’s point, it starts with the leadership, and that’s where it can break down, as you said. Leaders modeling the right type of behavior and being genuine in how they’re doing it and why they’re doing it as well, rather than it being performative. Yes. One of the questions in the book was: Appreciation is free, it’s abundant, it’s renewable. As soon as you give it away, you have more to give, yet it’s surprisingly rare. Looking into that, what’s the barrier for a lot of people? There are many barriers, but one is people aren’t sure how to do it. They may say, “Hey, good job,” or “You aced that goal,” and feel they’re appreciating someone, but the recipient doesn’t feel seen through that. It’s often how it lands, not how we give it. Recognition always strikes me as programmatic. While there are certainly managers who are good at it more organically, most organizations need to have recognition programs to ensure that recognition happens. Again, that’s to influence the behavior of others. Appreciation seems to me to be more of an organic thing that happens because it’s in somebody’s character. Can it be trained? Is it something that should be included in manager training? I totally believe it can be trained. I think looking at the barriers that keep leaders from giving appreciation and challenging that, because often it’s about our discomfort with giving appreciation rather than being focused on others. What’s the benefit? How can I lift this person up? How can I help them with their development by pointing out what their strengths are and how their qualities make a difference? I think it’s context setting. Then there are some really practical things. I came up with a mnemonic called TAPS that really talks about how you give appreciation. It needs to be timely and authentic. It needs to be about the person, not about the results. Then it needs to be specific: In what way are they making an impact? In what way is how they showed up really making a difference or making a contribution? I totally believe it can be trained. Catherine, in your research for your book, do you find that some leaders view recognizing or appreciating employees as a sign of weakness, that they’re giving up something? There are all kinds of reasons, and that’s one of them. I think it can feel vulnerable for some people. “Can I say that? Is that too squishy? It doesn’t feel professional,” which is a bit at arm’s length. One of the interesting things I found is that our comfort or discomfort with appreciation impacts how we give it. If we find receiving appreciation very uncomfortable, we’re likely to withhold that because we don’t want to create that experience for somebody else. It does come down to what’s our relationship with appreciation? Have we seen it modeled? How do we receive it, and then how do we give it? It seems to me, based on that, Catherine, that it’s also important for managers to have a good understanding of the personalities of the people on their team and how they like to receive appreciation. You don’t want to make somebody uncomfortable. Totally. There’s a whole chapter on tailoring appreciation, but it’s relational. It’s about getting to know your people and what matters to them, what’s important, and how they like to receive appreciation. I was going to say, Zora, you point to research that speaks to the gaps between what leadership thinks and how it’s received. I’m curious if you can talk to that, because I think perception can be a factor too. That’s right. There’s been so much research out there, as well as the work that I’ve done when I was looking at alignment and leadership. The perception, mostly at the C-suite but also at the senior leadership level, is they genuinely believe that employees trust them more than they actually do. There is a significant gap. There is a gap even around AI as well, but I won’t go into that just yet. It’s really about leaders being able to recognize what that gap is. I think a lot of that comes down to those in the organization who have that enterprise-wide, potentially stakeholder-wide view, that lens, which is people in the communication profession, who will see and feel and hear where the gaps are. They will see what leaders are saying and doing, the decisions they’re making, what they’re resourcing, how they’re treating people. They will see where those don’t match up with what they say the culture is supposed to be, or what they expect of people when they’re not doing it themselves. When there are those gaps, it takes courage on our part as communication professionals to surface that and bring it to leaders so they understand there is a gap, and to help them understand how to address that. There’s an opportunity for us, but it’s not an easy one. I wonder if there’s anything generational going on here. As I was reading the description of this session in preparation to post the announcement that it was the topic for this panel, I became aware of something I hadn’t really been aware of, although in the back of my head I was noticing it. Younger people in this organization tend to respond when something is done for them, even if it’s just a response to a request. They’ve asked for something and you deliver it. They say, “Thanks. I appreciate you.” That “I appreciate you” is kind of new, and I am hearing it mostly from younger employees. Is appreciation something that is more highly valued, maybe in Gen Z these days? I don’t know who wants to take that. When I was doing my research, the generational stuff really didn’t come up, because when you think about a time where you’ve been truly seen and appreciated, and somebody has really valued a quality that you bring to the workplace, that resonates. I have coaching clients who have kept appreciation notes they’ve received from a leader for 10 or 15 years as a way to remind them of their value. In that way, appreciation sustains. I hear you, Shel. I’m hearing more people saying, “I appreciate you,” and every time they do, I get warm fuzzies. But no matter who you are, to be seen and heard and valued is a human need, because we’re wired for that connection. I’m glad if it’s being verbalized more. Shel, I hear that and I see it in messages from friends more and more: “I appreciate you.” But when it comes to myself, I think about it before I say, “I appreciate you,” because I’m thinking about the person and how they will receive it. “My God, why is he sending that emotional message to me?” as opposed to “I appreciate it,” which takes the personal out. I think about it before I put it on a page or say it. It’s not something I just do. Right. I’ve been hearing “I appreciate it” for decades. “I appreciate you” seems to be fairly current, fairly recent. Just to make a sidebar observation from a generational perspective: In the classroom, I teach first-year and third-year students. In both cases, and in my own kids, who are of a similar age, young adult children, there is more of a rightful expectation of psychological safety in the workplace, in their communities, and therefore a greater desire to have appreciation expressed and received. I have students who come to office hours who are seeking appreciation and feedback. Obviously they’re grade-motivated, but they are, at their very human core, not afraid to ask for appreciation in ways that I really admire. How do they ask for it? They will say, “Could I have some feedback on this assignment? What did I do well? What didn’t I?” We’ll go through that. Toward the end, I’ve had an increasing number of students over the last year or so say, “Would you mind me asking some ways that I show up well in class?” Again, this is more about what they’re doing than who they are, because I don’t necessarily know them. But I believe I can tell that what they’re getting at is a greater set of data about how they’re showing up in the world. I think that is generational, to be able to ask for that, a greater vulnerability and a higher bar around psychological safety in the classroom and in communities. I was going to say, I imagine there are some older people hearing this who are thinking, “Wow, is that needy?” I’m sorry, Zora, go ahead. There’s a fellow, an Australian, who is also a coach who works with a lot of high-performance athletes as well as executives. His name’s Ben Crowe, and he wrote a book last year called Where the Light Gets In. He talks a lot about the difference between moving, as individuals, from a human doing to a human being, and recognizing the difference. It was really obvious in the work he did with the former world number one tennis player, Ash Barty. She was doing extremely well, won Wimbledon, and then she retired the year after, I think, because she didn’t want to be defined by what she’d done. She wanted to be defined by who she is. There’s much more of this recognition about who am I as a person, and appreciating myself for who I am rather than just what I do and what I achieve. There’s an element of the individual starting to appreciate themselves more. When they do, that shows up in how they are, how they do work, and how they treat other people. Their performance actually improves, and it improves in the workplace. It’s really fascinating stuff. It’s really cool. It seems that speaks to the need to take this to our manager communication. I think a lot of people who have risen through the ranks over time and achieved that level in the organization of being a manager know how to recognize what people did, but don’t know how to recognize or even see how people are. You want to talk about people not feeling seen: If their manager doesn’t see them as a person, only as a producer of outcomes, that’s an obstacle to appreciation. I’ve found in my career that if there were messages from leadership that needed to be cascaded down, we would look at those mid-level managers to share key messages. They would have scripts, the Q&A, everything. But the problem was they didn’t really know how to communicate. We assumed they knew how to communicate, but it was stalled because they didn’t know how to approach it. They had everything they needed, but actually doing it fell short. I agree, John. It’s a skill, and I think that’s where communicators can play a huge role in shaping culture and supporting managers in where you can bring in appreciation. Appreciation isn’t only just words. We show appreciation by how present we are in a conversation, how curious we are, if we’re involving people, if we’re giving them context. All of those are forms of saying to people, “I see you. I value you. I’m inviting you in.” It’s such a playground for communicators to help shape that and help leaders build those skills. Jennifer, I know that you have been doing some work about office-first communication. We’ve been talking about generations, which is dividing employees up into classes. Those who are in the office and those who are remote is also a distinguishing set of classes of employees. Is it harder to feel or to give appreciation to people who are not in the same room as you, if it’s over a Zoom call, for example? Like all of our communication, it requires thinking about the audience and how they will receive it. Is it harder? I don’t know if I would say harder. I would say it’s easier to make an impact in person. I’ve been thinking of this as we’ve been talking about some of the examples. John, when I asked you about the leader of the organization where you felt appreciation was part of the culture, you talked about in-person expressions of that. I’ve been doing some work with a couple of clients on office-first environments. The research is not showing greater productivity for being in the workplace versus working from home, let’s say. There’s for sure room for that hybrid approach. However, what we’re missing out on in the longer term, in the interest of the short-term convenience of not having to drive to an office, of saving on gas and transit and maybe shorter childcare and all of those important things, is several things, including one of the things I’ve been working into some of my communication planning: proximity to success. I think that is true in all aspects, including the expression of appreciation. In other words, when we actually see firsthand the way something should be done, the way a conversation should go, the way a conflict is handled, the way appreciation is expressed, it has a far greater, exponentially far greater impact, the research shows, than when we don’t see that firsthand in real life. That’s something workplaces culturally are going to have to address, or consider at least, as we see the impact of post-COVID changing workplaces. I think appreciation can be delivered over a screen, absolutely. With each of you individually, I hope I’ve expressed appreciation for who you are over a screen at some point in the time we’ve known each other. I think we’ve probably all done that for each other. But we know it, to Catherine’s point, when we are able to gather in a room together, be fully present, show with our body language and our eyes and our engagement how much we appreciate each other and appreciate what we bring to, in this case, our IABC community, but also as professionals out into the world. I would say biologically too. There’s the oxytocin and the dopamine and all the brain chemicals that are released when we’re in close proximity. Oxytocin is the bonding kind of chemical; we feel it more. I would say there’s a more felt connection. But the research also shows that appreciation online works in terms of aligning our brains, and we feel closer to a person. Zora, you shared some thoughts about AI as it relates to all of this. A lot of it is around the idea of trust, which is a word that has come up several times in the conversation already. Trust is something that communicators are very accustomed to dealing with. One of our jobs is to build trust between the organization and its various stakeholders. One of the data points that I’m aware of with AI inside the organization is that employees are starting to turn to AI instead of subject matter expert colleagues when they have a question, which is producing fewer employee-to-employee interactions and therefore fewer opportunities for appreciation. “I’m a subject matter expert. People used to come to me all the time, and I felt really appreciated for my knowledge, and now no one’s calling me anymore. They’re all just going to a chatbot.” I wonder what you think the impact of AI is on trust and, by extension, on appreciation and this need or desire to feel seen and heard. I feel like the workplace environment is becoming much more transactional, with AI being introduced at speed. A lot of decisions are being made at speed, and change is just a constant thing that happens. It’s almost like it needs to be a capability across an organization. I think there’s clearly a breakdown of trust, and there’s lots of research showing a breakdown between leaders and employees. The way AI is being introduced, the way people are going to that because it’s simpler, quicker, easier, all of that sort of thing. But then there’s that element of: Do we know why AI is being introduced? Do we really genuinely understand why it’s being introduced? If they’re saying it’s to improve productivity, what does that actually mean? If it’s not clearly communicated and people aren’t involved in the conversations and given some sort of autonomy in this, how are they going to interpret things? They’re going to interpret things in their own ways, and they’re going to potentially feel threatened. Then there’ll be a lack of trust. If they’re feeling threatened, they’ll be less engaged. It’s going to have a detrimental impact on engagement within the organization and potentially performance as well. Then you’ve got all the layoffs that come along, and it’s like, “How can we trust people at the top?” It’s certainly hard to feel appreciated when you see your colleagues being laid off and wonder if the same thing is coming for you, despite a track record of outstanding performance reviews. I was speaking at a conference last week, and it was technology people, knowledge management folk, intranet people. I was talking to one particular fellow, and he worked for a large law firm that has just gone through another round of layoffs, and it’s in the knowledge management team. Last year they reduced their team from, say, the mid-20s to the high teens. This year, he just lost his role. He was second-in-command, literally lost his role last month. Now the whole team’s been wiped out because AI’s there. What does that say to the rest of the organization? I get that. I remember years and years ago hearing an anthropologist talk about how, as humans, we have this need to balance. When one thing is getting over-indexed, like the transactional workplace, then somewhere there’s a need to go, “What about the relational part of the workplace? Relationships, human interactions, being kind, noticing what’s good in people?” As a species, humans have that need to balance. Hopefully that provides some optimism around this bleak AI world where it’s all transactional and we don’t need to talk to people. We are wired for connection. I’ve got to trust, and I’m an unapologetic optimist, that humanity, human-led leadership, heart-led leadership, is going to become more of a factor because of the way a lot of workplaces are going. I’m reading more and more about some leaders moving toward that servant leadership model. Zora, you also pointed to Boston Consulting Group research. I was already familiar with this: 90% of CEOs believe that the workforce trusts leadership, but only 46% of employees agree. We could talk about the trust element of this, but it led me to wonder: We have been talking about appreciation here as a top-down process, where we want to make sure that the people who report to us, or report through the chain up to us, feel appreciated. It seems to me this is something all humans need, that leaders need to feel appreciated too. But I don’t hear a lot about what happens in organizations to help leaders feel appreciated. I can imagine the approach they take to leadership would be influenced if they felt they weren’t appreciated. There is also research showing that because of the complexity of the work and the uncertainty, a lot of leaders are genuinely under a lot of pressure and feeling, to some degree, that they don’t necessarily have all the capabilities they need to do the job to the level of expectations that are there for them. Your point about them feeling like they’re seen, heard, and appreciated is a really good one, because what’s happening to them? Who’s doing that work for them? Who’s showing them that they matter? Other board members? The CEO? They say the higher you get in leadership, the less feedback you get. I would say the less appreciation you get too. If leaders can instill a culture of appreciation even within their team, then it can be shared among the team, from the team to the leaders. If they can model or understand how to give it, it’s not a one-way thing. Back to the point of psychological safety, that needs to be in place. Anyone can appreciate anyone at any time if they know how to do it. Even if they’re learning how to do it, that’s okay too. It’s the intention behind the appreciation. But your point at the beginning, Catherine, was that it’s a capability, a leadership capability. For it to become a leadership capability, it needs to become part of the rhythm of the work. It needs to become a practice. That will require vulnerability from everyone in the team so they can practice and do it well. In the United States—I don’t know if they do it in Melbourne or in Canada—a number of companies have annual employee opinion surveys or associate opinion surveys. We communicators would get that information. I think that’s a huge responsibility for communicators, to share the information, the results of what employees are saying, which could lead to greater appreciation and recognition, because employees are telling you that they are not happy with X. The leader of the company needs to know that and then take action to resolve the situation, which could lead to greater recognition. I think one of the things we’re talking about is career resilience. Zora, your story about the conference and the person you spoke to who had just lost their job and their team had been wiped out: That’s a really hard moment in your life to feel in any way appreciated, when you are dispensed with in that way. I’ll be vulnerable for a moment and share that early in my career I was fired from my first communications job. I was young and had messed up, and I deserved that consequence. But one of the things I did not have at that early stage of my career was professional resilience in a way that allowed me at that time to bounce back with any necessary speed, because we have to. Generally, most of us have to get back out into the workplace. Circling back to what we were talking about generationally, I admire this next generation for seeking out the building blocks of that resilience that they, on some level, perhaps consciously or unconsciously, know they are going to need. In my circumstances, I acknowledged that I had messed up, but I thought I would be a little bit immune because I thought I had been appreciated. I didn’t understand that it wasn’t a culture where that was going to be valued, and my lack of resilience on lots of fronts didn’t let me process that. I think what we’re talking about culturally, from a leadership perspective, obviously needs to be there. But it really comes down to us building that muscle within us individually, both the giving and the receiving. I also think leaders have a role to play in building that resilience. Appreciation is seeing who a person is, their qualities, their strengths, their character. I started out my career with a mentor for whom that was second skin. I was very clear about where I was succeeding and what my strengths were, and that built resilience. At the same time, when I had these learning edges, as I like to call them, and when I screwed up, he would have those conversations with me too. That gets back to the John Gottman memo: We need to receive five positives to one negative. I think appreciation can build that resilience. To your point, Jennifer, it also has to be intrinsically within us. But the more we know about ourselves and how we show up, I think that builds resilience too. If anybody can feel seen and heard, you would think it’s leadership in an organization. Yet there are leaders who could just be introverts, could feel they’re too busy to be visible to employees. How important is executive visibility to the ideas of appreciation and psychological safety and trust and everything we’ve been talking about today? I think it’s essential. I think it’s really essential that leaders get out of their offices and take the time to see and meet and hear some of the people who are working hard for them. I think it would give them a greater appreciation for the work they do too, to lead people who want to give, who want to serve, who want to be in those roles and make a company successful. I’ve had meetings with them, and I’ve done the impromptu coffee-with-the-CEO type thing, where you just invite some employees to meet the CEO or the president of the company, really relaxed, no formal agenda. Those have proven to be really successful. They need to be out there. I remember hearing about John Chambers when he was the CEO at Cisco Systems. They would have a monthly event at their headquarters in San Jose. Everybody having a birthday would get together with the CEO, with John Chambers. There was no program, there was no talk. He was just wandering around wishing everybody a happy birthday and chatting with them, regardless of their level. I swear people would have followed this guy anywhere. When they do show up, it’s to show up with that curiosity, to listen, because a form of appreciation is just being present and attentive and creating space for people. You talk about the introvert leaders or the ones who don’t have time. They can be introvert leaders too. If you’re asking questions about other people, if you bring in the curiosity, it’s easier to have those conversations because people are responding to that. It doesn’t have to be scripted. As you say, John, it’s just showing up and being there and not having anything scripted, but showing up with curiosity and listening. Shel, I think you’re saying that some CEOs and presidents are introverted or they don’t have time. Those are excuses. I don’t buy into that at all. Okay. I plus-one that, John. We’ve been talking a lot about all of this without really getting tactical in terms of what communicators can do to promote it. I’d love to hear your thoughts about the role of the communicator here. I think it’s seeing appreciation as a skill, and also seeing appreciation as a little distinct from recognition, from gratitude, from acknowledgment, a compliment. Communicators who know how to communicate and connect with audiences are well positioned to help teach those skills. There are practicalities of how you give appreciation and what’s the difference between the two. Then the channels where appreciation can be brought in can be where communicators play a role too. Absolutely. We are the catalyst for greater appreciation and recognition and communication. We know how to do that. Just to underscore, I know you mentioned it earlier, Cath, but to get practical: Since I have been close to you as you’ve gone through the research and developed this book, your TAPS acronym really works. It’s something we can take into workplaces and teach and model and practice, and even develop as a program. As you say, it’s generally a low- or no-budget item within organizations that can have big payoffs. I would just add that there’s an opportunity to shift from top-down communication and cascades to more conversations, and show people that they matter and you want to hear from them. Give them some element of involvement in how things are done. Opportunities to be seen and heard that they may not get through the normal course of their day-to-day activities. Right. Correct. I’ve got to get your book. I’ll just say, Catherine, I’ve got to get your book. I’ve already made a note. Excellent. I’ll send you the links. It’s available on Amazon. Excellent. It’s been as fast an hour as they usually are, but we are at the end of our time. I have just enough time to let everybody know that episode 135 of Circle of Fellows is scheduled for Thursday, November 19. It will be at noon Eastern time, which means nobody from Australia. It is an international panel, though. Diane Gayeski is in the U.S., Andrea Greenhous is in Canada, Andre Oberholzer is in South Africa, and Gloria Walker is in the U.K. A global panel. The topic will focus on long-term communication value, inclusive communication, cross-team collaboration, and role clarity. Somehow we’re going to pull all those threads together and unify them. It sounds like it’ll be a great conversation. I want to thank all of you for your time and for your insights. Of course, as always, a big thank-you to Anna Willey, who is the behind-the-scenes producer of Circle of Fellows. It couldn’t happen at all without Anna. Thanks to Anna, and thanks to all of you. We’ll see everybody next month. All right. Great job. Thank you. Take care. The post Circle of Fellows #134: Lead, Communicate, and Connect appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.