13. Leadership: 3 Tips To Communicating Effectively During Uncertain Times

Hey, my friend, welcome back to leadership in a Nutshell where we're cracking the code of this driven mind that you and I both have. And today's episode, we are talking about three tips to communicating effectively during times of uncertainty, times of change, times like these. Put that in air quotes because there's always times of uncertainty, there's always times of change, and you and I are leaders and leading through these specific times. It just happens that today is a moment in time. Today is a snapshot in time of our incredible lives that we get to live at the greatest time ever to be alive. Let me challenge some maybe limiting beliefs and assumptions. It is the best time in the world of our time of our lives to be alive. How about that? Easy for me to say, right? Let's just chunk it down and let's get real, my friend. We are leaders and we chose this path because of that. We need to stick together. We need to keep on communicating like this. I want to thank you for joining me here. Whether you're listening in the audio version or you're joining us on the YouTube version, I encourage you as a leader to go to kennychapman.com group and please get involved in our leadership in a nutshell private community. You've got to fill out a couple quick questions, then make sure that you're a leader. Because I want leaders in there. Open forum, open space. Not just, oh, talking this and posting about nothing. It's about things that you're struggling with. Things where you're winning. An opportunity for you to really connect with like minded individuals just like you. It's what I'm on the planet for. It's why I'm facilitating this group in this community now, today. It's about communicating. It's about being able to lead when you know, hey, wait a minute, what's going on? How do I communicate with my team? What are they looking for right now? Here's the reality. Regardless of your industry, regardless of what brought you to our podcasting time together, here, you are in the people business, period. Make that a note. Make sure you're clear about that. You are in the people business, my friend. I owned a plumbing, heating, air conditioning company for 24 years and I always said it is about people, not plumbing. If you're in the manufacturing business, I could care less. I don't care less about the widget you make, but let's be very clear. The widget is not made without the people. Nothing happens without the people that make up a business. Oh, well, there's technology and there's software companies and there's things that run automatically. I don't care. Everything happens by people. And let's get really clear about that. And people struggle because of the lack of effective communication in the world today. And then dump on something like a pandemic, dump on something by unclear leadership at the global level, down to the country level, down to the state level, regardless of your country, down to city, county, whatever it is. You get the point, right? And today's point is we're here to talk about you and the team that you are communicating with. And so when we start to really think about this whole communication piece, I want you to write this down. Number one, don't just communicate over communicate. Absolutely. I'm talking about when you think, okay, I've hit them right here, they're about to be full. Now we over communicate that. I want you to really get clear about that. When you, you know, I heard it said once, when your team is beginning to roll their eyes about what you're saying, whether it's. Sometimes it happens around you, your vision, your mission, your core values, different things like that, the drums that we consistently beat as top leaders in our organizations. If your team's not going, oh, here we go again. And I can almost hear the jingle of my core values. And okay, yep, we're truth centered, we're team centered, we're abundance minded, we're truth focused. All the different. It's like, oh my gosh, here we go again. Hey, now we're getting somewhere. And the same is true right now. The same is true when people have going, wait a minute, I'm not sure what's going on. You've got to continue to enter the conversation in their mind. Why? Because you've communicated with them. Then their day goes on. They have different interactions. They're working with vendors, they're working with clients, they're working with other team members. Then they go home and they're dealing with family, they're dealing with community, they're dealing with church. Then they watch the news. I'll say the four letter word, the news. I'm not talking about fake news, I'm talking about any news. I realized it recently. Lovely Christy and I have been visiting up in upstate New York around her father's area. And we're just out doing different things and not watching. I very rarely watch much news, but I had gotten sucked into watching a little more because of these times. And then we went for about a week without anything. And then I sat down and watched a little bit Felt my physiology literally changing as I was like, whoa, what's going on? I'm not talking about, you know, bury your head in the sand. Many of you know what I'm talking about here, about being, you know, here's here. I live my life by, if something's big enough is happening in the world, then somebody's going to tell me about it. And that's where I come from. Because I've got to protect this and I've got to protect this. And if you're not watching this, if you're listening by audio, I'm talking about my head and I'm talking about my heart. That's my job to protect those and over communicate with my team. Don't. Number two, big one, have empathy for people's struggles, have empathy for people's perspective right now. In uncertain times when people don't know exactly what's going on, when there's massive change being chosen by you as a leader in your organization as well as being thrown on people whether they signed up for it or not. Massive change, massive uncertainty, people handle this differently. Have empathy for that. It's okay. You might be more like minded, you might be a little more optimistic, you might be a little bit more, let's say honey badger about it perhaps, right? You're like, I don't care what's going on, let's go, let's open the country, let's do that. Whatever your perspective is, that's fine. But whatever your team members perspective is also fine. And sometimes as driven minded leaders we can get frustrated and be like, I can't believe, man, I want to send this team member off to training and they're afraid to get on an airplane and what the heck. And I thought, you know, I thought well, this team member was down to go and get on the plane and get this training. And then that team member went home and talked to a spouse and a spouse got in their head and said wait a minute, I don't think you should go. What about that's all real, my friend. And you have got to honor that and have empathy for that. As a driven leader in the organization. Even if you don't understand it, it's okay. But when you're communicating and over communicating for understanding rather than to just be understood now you really gain ground with your team now suddenly your team sees you as real. They might understand that you're on a little bit different sides of the aisle as far as your belief systems if you will, possibly even political beliefs, possibly even religious beliefs, possibly even you still believe in Santa Claus and they don't. I don't know. It doesn't matter. What matters is that you're all rowing in the same direction. The canoe of your business, of your leadership, and the direction that you want this company to go, they are in your canoe. So let's make sure that we're rowing together as good as we possibly can. One of the best ways to do that is have empathy. Here's the reality. Fear is real. Anybody ever had that wondering, huh, I wonder how I'm going to make payroll. My gosh, it's Tuesday, payrolls Friday, and we've had a poor couple sales weeks and cash flow hasn't been great. And I'll raise my hand here. I've had times in my career where I'm going, I don't know how I'm going to make payroll. Guess what? That stings. That hurts. Now that I've been in business since I was 23 years old, and unfortunately, I had to learn that lesson a few times and knock on wood. Fortunately, I'm not currently still learning those lessons. Hopefully I've graduated from the school of not making payroll. Right? And so. But however, when I'm in that school, it's real. It's no different than. My niece recently became a dental hygienist, and with some of her finals in school, she was calling her mom and going, oh my gosh, I'm, you know, getting anxiety, almost panic attacks about this test. And as driven leaders, many, many years further, many, many years, having more experience. Not better than her, just more life experience, going out, it's no big deal, you know, you'll be fine, you're smart, you'll pass the test. By the way, she got a 98, but she was tripping out. That fear was real. Have empathy for that. The same is true with your team members when it comes to all these different types of things. Here's the fact. The third thing I want you to remember is people are looking for leadership. People are craving leadership. One of the reasons that people are so divided and trying to get in these different camps of, you know, individualism and dogging. What? Regardless of politics, regardless of nation decisions, whatever it is, somebody has to be wrong. And the fact of the matter is, if I make somebody else wrong, then perhaps intrinsically I might feel right. And that's just human behavior. It is what it is. We're not here to make it right, wrong or indifferent. We as leaders are here to study it, to learn what we can from it, to understand it, to the best of our ability so we can influence behavior to. To get the results that we want for our team members, for our clients, for our vendors, for our community, for everybody that we impact in our own circle of influence, my friend. And so when we realize people are craving leadership, if they're coming at you kind of pushing back a little bit, like, I don't know, it means they've been burned. It means they've been lied to. It means they haven't trusted your opportunity to gain their trust. Your opportunity to be an action taker. Certainty trumps all. Even when you don't know where you're going. Sorry for the trump word. Those of you that get out might frustrate. I realized when I said, how about trumpet or trumpet? See, certainty is overarching uncertainty. I'm trying to be, quote unquote, politically correct here. Right. The reality is people are looking for certainty. Tony Robbins talks about human needs. We desire certainty. And almost as much as that, we desire uncertainty. Guess what? We've got tons of uncertainty. Your team has more uncertainty than they've probably ever had in their lives. Regardless of their age. It is up to you to have certainty, even if it is about uncertainty. You go, kenny, what are you talking about? Now you're starting to lose me. Holy cow. Hey. The fact of the matter is, sometimes even if you go, hey, look, I don't know exactly what's going to happen, but what I will promise is that I am certain that I'm going to give you everything that I've got as your leader. I'm going to train this management team with everything that we've got. We are going to utilize every resource we've got. We're going to make the most of every client opportunity we've got. We're going to handle our marketing to the best of our ability to make our client acquisition process as streamlined as possible. I am certain that I will give you everything that I've got. Just those words alone are more certainty than people get from the news, from their family, sometimes from congregation, all kinds of different areas. So it is the time for you to rise and shine, if you will not like my drill instructor used to say at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. But it's definitely time for you to focus on three keys to improving your communication during uncertain times and in times of change like these. Don't just communicate over communicate. Have tremendous empathy for people where they are. Their situation is real to them, even if you can't understand it or don't agree with it. And make sure that you realize people are looking for leadership. They're craving some form of certainty. When you become that, the game changes for the better, my friend. Make sure you please subscribe to Hop on and rate us. Review us. Give me a rating, stroke my ego a little bit. Give me some five stars out there. If you would please rate review the podcast, subscribe on YouTube, subscribe on Apple, subscribe on Stitcher. Whatever your platforms are, please make sure that you follow us. And if you're a leader, we would love to have you join us in our private leadership group. It's@kennychapman.com groups. I look forward to seeing you very soon. And until we talk, make it a better than fantastic day. Thanks for your time.