Communication Bubbles

Innovation and the Algonquin Round Table

What can the legendary Algonquin Round Table show managers about innovation? Nat Benchley moderated a symposium of literati to celebrate the 90^th Anniversary of Dorothy Parker’s Algonquin Round Table last Monday night at Manhattan’s Algonquin Hotel. I heard New York Times bestselling author Jane Green, Joel Stein, Paula Froelich, Michael Musto, and Morgan Spurlock engage in repartee to commemorate the original Round Table’s witty conversations.

From 1919 until 1929, a brilliant group of famed communicators– writers, actors, and critics–bantered at lunch in the Algonquin Hotel. Their scintillating ideas and opinions “changed the nature of American comedy and established the tastes of a new period in the arts and theatre” according to Brooks Atkinson, theatre critic for The New Yorker.

What do the imaginative minds of the Round Table tell us about today’s workplace? These thinkers forged Innovation. Innovation can only thrive when communication flows freely. The Round Table creatives listened to, argued against, and built upon each other’s ideas. They did not censure their thoughts in order to protect their jobs like so many people today. Their ideas resulted in best selling books, plays, and top newspaper columns.

Are you fostering an innovative environment where employees are free to state their creative, if differing, ideas? Can you help your staff debate ideas and not attack people?

The more you tease out dissimilar thoughts while you manage relationships, the greater the cutting-edge work.

Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree

The crane raised the Swarovski crystal star onto the top of the 76-foot high Rockefeller Center Christmas tree last Wednesday. We tourists craned our necks and dropped our jaws. The tree is positioned behind the statue of Prometheus at the world-famous Rockefeller skating rink. On Tuesday we had watched workers with green hard hats scurrying around ten stories of scaffolding to prune the 40-foot wide, 10-ton Norway spruce. The Salvation Army bell ringer standing behind us repeatedly shouted, “It’s 150 years old and it’s from Easton, Connecticut. Come back for the tree lighting on December 2^nd!”

Can you imagine the communication necessary to plan and execute the annual Christmas tree project? Much is repeatable process—like where to put the tree. Are the project interdependencies and deadlines also recycled from years past? Regardless, it is a mammoth job requiring communication and coordination among many people. Tasks include: locating the tree, cutting and moving it, unloading and erecting it, securing it, trimming the branches, designing and creating and adding the star, decorating with lights and ornaments.

Everyone must meet their deadlines and still work together safely. Think of all the conversations in which people state–and clarify– their expectations to ensure others share the same understanding.

Whether you are working on a world-class Christmas display or on a smaller project, the communication requirements are the same. Coordinating expectations keeps the workers in sync and gets the job done on time.

Communication at 30 Rock

Yesterday I stood outside 30 Rock--Rockefeller Center in mid-town Manhattan. One of those great 1930’s mosaic murals stretches above the entrance. On closer examination I realized artist was telling a story of Communication. God-like figures floated from the central theme—THOUGHT—to either salvation or damnation.

We had visual story, body language and facial expressions, lots of words, and color to stir up all kinds of emotion and ideas about Thought and its relationship to words.
The central figure faces us, wearing a hooded robe with gold trim. Under this figure is the word “THOUGHT.”

THOUGHT extends both arms outwards embracing two people. To our right, we see “Spoken Words” and that person faces towards the right. To the left of THOUGHT, we see “Written Words” and he holds a plumed quill and gazes intensely off to our left.

Let’s stay with the “Written Words” side of the mosaic. There are three messengers flying towards words stacked in front of them: “News,” “Politics,” and “Poetry.” We keep looking left and see a female holding a lyre and three words to her left: “Religion,” “Drama” and “Music.”  Then further to the left are a man in overalls and an orange shirt shooting his eyes Heavenward. Next to him is a blindfolded woman who holds one hand on her head in apparent anguish and one hand over her heart. Further left are the words “Cruelty” and “Ignorance” depicted by a woman and man falling downward into Hell’s flames while Rain pelts them from clouds above.

Ah—the power of Written Words! We can use them to distort and destroy or to construct and elevate our Thoughts to the arts and true journalism.

But what is the breadth of Thought when using Spoken Words?  There are three messengers with flowing capes flying towards three words stacked to the right: “Physics,“ “Biology” and “Sports.” Right of those words is a large angel or perhaps the messenger Mercury with gigantic wings and carrying a torch and the words “Philosophy,” “Hygiene” and “Pvblicity” (yes the classic v version of the letter u).

Further right are a man and woman facing the messenger. The woman points towards the words. The man salutes those lofty concepts. On the far right are the obligatory green and yellow man and woman falling headlong into Hell, he being “Poverty” and her moniker being “Fear” (of Thought I imagine). Again, the power of words to influence Thought for noble cause or for close-mindedness.

So managers, do you choose your words carefully when communicating with your colleagues? Your Spoken and Written Words have great power to influence people’s THOUGHTS about work, the team, and you. Choose well!

Communicating With Wild Things

    Is there a message for managers in Spike Jonze’s film “Where the Wild Things Are”? Jonze has turned Maurice Sendak’s famous book into an exotic adventure movie. A boy named Max goes on a hero’s quest to gain control. Do you ever think some of your employees are “out of control?”

    Max controls the physical environments he creates in his bedroom and with snow caves. But Max’s fears collide when his teacher scares the class with environmental doom, his older sister’s male friends smash his snow cave on top of him, and his mother kisses her boyfriend instead of sharing the space ship world he constructed in his bedroom. Angry, he acts up prompting his mother to yell, “You’re out of control!” Max escapes by sailing off to an imaginary island.

    This remote world is populated by “wild things” and Max becomes the boy who would be their king. Yet even as king of the monsters he has befriended, he finds he cannot control their behavior. When he shouts, “You’re out of control” to one of the friendly creatures, he realizes the reason for his own behavior with his mother was fear. He explains to a monster that one often acts badly when fear is the real problem. Once Max helps the creatures solve their communication problems, it’s time to leave his parallel universe and return home to solve his own.

     What do you do if an employee acts in a way that prompts you to think, “He’s out of control?” If said out loud, that phrase drives people away and shuts down communication, sometimes permanently. In a workplace, employees need to know that their manager consistently “has their back.” Managers earn trust when they help staff stay the course or return to it when they veer off.

    When faced with an employee’s anger, remain cool. Instead of saying, “You’re out of control,” try asking, “what’s going on?” or “what’s up?” in a friendly tone that conveys you are on the employee’s side. These open questions create a safe environment so the employee can choose to tell you what their real problem is. Once invited into the employee’s private world, act like a well-mannered guest who wants to stay for a visit. Listen empathetically. Is she afraid she will miss a deadline? Does he fear he doesn’t have the knowledge to do the next task? Does she need the participation of others who do not report to her? Does she require your organizational power to motivate people in other departments?

    Once you have identified the employee’s real communication problem, you can help him solve it. Relationships are enhanced. You help the employee gain control of his work world and ability to be productive. The Wild Things will fade away.

Introducing Nannette Rundle Carroll’s Blog

Each of us in the workplace juggles endless goals, tasks, and projects. Much must be done with and through other people. More than ever success requires the best possible interpersonal communication.

This blog will focus on communication issues in the  workplace. It will discuss intelligent, easy ways to deal with everyday situations—especially for managers.

All successful people manage their goals, tasks, and projects. And they also manage their communication and relationships with their bosses, peers, and employees because that’s how the goals get done.

I’ve worked with thousands of managers in consulting and training situations. Because I have also been a manager, I understand the intricacies of a manager’s job and the impact communication has on a team.

My book, The Communication Problem Solver: Simple Tools and Techniques for Busy Managers (AMACOM Books) is being released mid-November 2009. Apparently there is a big need: both BarnesandNoble.com and Amazon.com are showing substantial prerelease orders.

Check back as “Communication Bubbles” makes the workplace a better place.