Why every leader should be writing

photo credit: Israel Andrade

If you are the boss, the CEO, the president, the business owner, the executive director, the person the buck stops with, then you might want to heed this advice: you should be writing.

Arguably it could be the most important facet of your leadership. Here’s a bulleted list of why:

• Your people want to hear from you – not just at the quarterly meeting or when things are getting tense. They want insights based on your years of experience, miles on the odometer, your wins and losses, your relatable stories of what they are challenged with right now.

• Your people want to know what’s working and what’s not, what the plan is and what direction the company is headed. Don’t assume they know this or will remember it. Remind them regularly.

• If your company’s mission, vision, and values aren’t well known, or if they don’t sound like you, or reflect how you lead or where your organization is going, it’s your responsibility to consciously connect the dots or redraw the lines so people get it. This is foundational to your writing and messaging. 

• It is a way to crystalize your thinking before you start communicating. Bullet points have their purpose, at the right times and venues, but they are not a substitute for writing with intention or communicating specifics.  

• You will  have a record of your messaging and what was shared; a written reminder of what has – and hasn’t – been said.

• You will be sharing stories (making you more relatable) instead of regurgitating talking points (making you come across as unauthentic). 

• You provide important perspective to data, trends, successes, and where things fell short.

• It gets what is in your head onto paper or screen where you can refine your thinking. Because your first draft isn’t your final draft.

• You begin articulating what you believe about business, leadership and success based on real-life trial and error, not someone else’s that is captured in a book.

• By communicating, first in writing, and then finding additional ways to bring those stories to life, you are consciously setting and reinforcing the culture. 

• Because every business challenge is first a communication challenge, and open communication cures many ills.

• Because bad news never ages well, and the grapevine distorts reality.   

• You will cast a shadow of what good leadership looks like by sharing deeper insights, plans and priorities.

• You will be building the archive; leaving a legacy and a blueprint. And you will be more attuned to the passing of time and the inevitable passing of the baton when the time comes (and it always comes).

WHAT THIS FORM OF WRITING IS… AND ISN’T.

This isn’t thought leadership or convincing existing customers and prospects that you have the pulse or unique perspectives on business. That is an entirely different endeavor, and something you might consider as well.

This is internal communication, the most urgent of business communication.

It is a function that might not exist or is relegated to a communications team without your regular input.

This is culture building by the chief culture officer – you.

This is the priority you might never have considered your priority.

This should be happening already. If not, you can start now.

If you don’t know how to start, let’s talk, and then start writing.

If you are already writing, make sure you have a person you trust to challenge, question, push you and, perhaps most importantly, call your bluff when necessary.

Bounce ideas off them. Determine what sticks and what doesn’t. Decide what’s worth committing to type and then sharing with others in various formats.

Because writing isn’t as easy as it sounds, and can come across in ways you never intended without a good edit.  

Even if you don’t see yourself as the writing kind, there are ways to get your ideas to paper/screen. But you must convey them out. Look at them. Chew on them. Own them.

Your people will thank you. The next generation of the business will thank you.

And you will have zero regrets articulating what mattered most during your time leading the people who helped propel the business forward. It is what success looks like when your team believes in, and acts upon, what you’ve chosen to share.

Bigger. Better. Faster. More. Focus on the one that matters.

Every growth-minded organization’s aspirational and unsustainable spreadsheet dream.

Most people can sniff out the BBFM thread of language for what it really is:

• False or misleading marketing claims.

• Running to the beat of the corporate drum (which is typically the opposite of disruption and, in turn, true innovation).

• Unchecked hubris born of previous success.

• An undisciplined and insatiable desire for more.  

 (Those last two are part of the five stages of decline that Jim Collins outlined in his lesser-quoted book HOW THE MIGHTY FAIL)

Yet it doesn’t prevent businesses from believing in the false promises of this mantra. In time, and always sooner than desired, this will happen:

• Bigger becomes bloated.

• Faster needs to increase its speed.

• Yesterday’s version of more is not enough.

• Better is subjective and becomes a point of contention.

If we can sniff this out as consumers, then why is it that we, as businesspeople and leaders, apply this same misguided thinking and bake it into our systems and processes?

We know that bigger isn’t intuitively or explicitly better.

Faster doesn’t guarantee greater efficiency or effectiveness.

And more gets you more of everything – the bad along with any good.

Better is the only meaningful pursuit on this list.

Better, when articulated what it entails and how you’ll achieve it, will present nuanced versions of more that you, as a leader, get to decide if the pursuit is worthy of the effort.

And while better might remain subjective to the end customer, you get to define the terms of what better means to your organization.

It will be discovered in the metrics, the anecdotal, the company culture, as well as the hard to quantify.

It will be in the ability to recruit and the ability to retain your best people.

It will be proven over the long term. Not last quarter or next quarter.

It will reveal itself in a loyal base of customers, suppliers, and partners.

Better has a purpose. It has a definitive feel.

The pursuit of better is ongoing, just like business itself.

It will be written (literally) in your company’s DNA.

And you will know when you are going astray.

Because all of us want – and are looking for – better.

We’ll all take the upticks of bigger and more as they come (and inevitably go).

Which is why our aspiration should be to laser-focused on better.

Better is achievable, measurable, sustainable, and profitable…

as long as we aren’t derailed by short-term, fleeting promises of bigger, faster, and more.

VW's latest problem: is it the message, the messenger or something else?

Volkswagen CEO Matthias Mueller.

Photo credit: Guenter Schiffmann/Bloomberg

I feel bad for Matthias Mueller right now. The current CEO of beleaguered automaker Volkswagen is attempting to smooth things over with lawmakers this week in his first official visit to the U.S. However, he couldn’t hide from his off-putting comments on Sunday at the Detroit Auto Show. Remarkably VW dug a deeper hole for Mueller when it cast blame on the circumstances of the interview rather than the substance of his remarks.

Frustrating as this is, I don’t blame Mueller.

I don’t blame the former head of Porsche, who was appointed to CEO of VW and thrust into the smoggy limelight last September, for his overall tone-deafness, lack of urgency on the emissions scandal, or even the gulf of truth that lies somewhere between his “I apologize once again” and “we didn't lie” statements.

I don’t blame Mueller because so far he’s just been the messenger – a poor one perhaps (and that is fixable) – but a messenger nonetheless. And I hold true to the notion that we shouldn’t shoot the messenger.

While VW's communication has been anything but a well-oiled machine, the opportunity to reverse that trend starts this week. Here's what can be gleaned from VW's recent road bumps and how the company can get back on track.  

TELL THE RIGHT STORY

Mueller’s messages are crafted talking points designed to share VW’s point of view or story, which is key here: it's the story VW wants to share, which sometimes isn't the story that needs to be shared. Mueller is still in his infancy as CEO, so getting the story right every time can be challenging, especially when the story is changing, opinions are shifting and emotions are running high.

As hard as it may be for some leaders to tell the unvarnished truth, doing so invites transparency and simplifies things. But simply saying the right thing isn't enough. The right words only begin to mean something when they don't always require notecards and are followed up with meaningful action. This transparency also kills a deceptive form of creative storytelling, often designed to appease a niche audience, rather than getting on with the work of repairing broken trust. In his incredibly short tenure, there has been a repeated theme of ‘misunderstanding’ with his answers that needs to be resolved immediately.

BE PREPARED

Mueller’s counselors and advisors had to know that he’d get tough questions not only from U.S. lawmakers later in the week, but also from media at the auto show in off-the-cuff moments. Language barrier aside, a lack of preparation and ownership of the clear and concise story beyond the scripted moments is showing,  and it's reflecting poorly on him and the company. His response to NPR about ethical problems is an example of not being well prepared and inconsistent: 

MUELLER:  I don’t understand whether (why) you say that.

NPR reporter:  Because Volkswagen in the U.S. intentionally lied to EPA regulators when they asked them about the problem before it came to light.

MUELLER:  We didn't lie. We didn't understand the question first.    

COMMIT TO POSITIVE CULTURE CHANGE

There is no guarantee that Mueller will choose to do the right thing – or the wrong thing – when it comes to steering the company forward. But his recent statements regarding his desire to infuse fun back into the company hints at problems with VW’s culture, especially given the cover up and deception that put VW in this position in the first place. The leadership team that has been running VW prior to and through the emissions scandal also is responsible for anointing Mueller as chief messenger. Whether he emerges from this crisis as a transformational leader is yet to be seen – and it hinges on whether or not he can deliver truthful, transparent answers and simply do the right thing, no matter the short-term cost. That alone will signal a significant shift in corporate culture, which will help to repair its troubled reputation from the inside out.

WELCOME WISE COUNSEL & COMMUNICATION

Like any successful leader, Mueller needs good counsel and must surround himself with thoughtful individuals committed to bettering the company and exceeding public expectations. He needs to set a high bar regarding insights into all facets of the company and candor of how shortcomings will be addressed. However, if what we’re seeing is an eschewing of wise counsel, preparation and well-developed messages that have failed to be delivered with the sincerity in which they were written, then Mueller’s tenure likely will become a brief footnote in the company’s history.

Until now, VW has been its own worst enemy in the last several months, but this week Mueller has an opportunity to change that. While Mueller could benefit from a more thoughtful and concerned public persona that most people intuitively expect of chief executives under fire, there should be an undefined "grace period" for inheriting and cleaning up a mess not of your own making. And despite some foot-in-mouth moments and inconsistent messaging, I find myself rooting for Mueller to make the successful evolution from brand messenger to respected CEO, and here's why:

America loves a great comeback story – especially when one humbly accepts its wrongs and works with unmatched determination and transparency to right the ship or, in this case, the car.

It is without question the story that VW should be working tirelessly and without compromise to write.  

Your company's purpose should be this simple

Being helpful.

What is your company's purpose?

It is not a trick question. In fact, it could be the most straightforward question organizations can ask about their existence. As Graham Kenny points out in his brief Harvard Business Review article, purpose is different from mission, vision and values as it serves to connect the heart with the head in a way that people can feel it.

A clearly defined purpose should have a meaningful impact on internal and external audiences. It's why concepts like making money, dominating the market or wielding influence -- things that organizations may want to achieve and are not inherently wrong -- don't make for convincing or motivating purpose statements. 

The words you choose will matter. So will the actions they inspire. With that in mind, simplicity could be the key to successfully defining your purpose.

At Ratchet we live by a simple, two-word purpose: be helpful. (In full disclosure, when we created this five years ago we didn't think of calling it "our purpose." It was simply the way we wanted to think about the business.) It is actionable and prescriptive without any guardrails. It puts the focus on others rather than the company. It doesn't suggest being helpful in some areas but not others. It demands we think and rethink what it means to be helpful, and that can lead to some innovative ideas and opportunities.

Can something as simple as "be helpful" work for larger organizations? We believe so. Amid all of the important and pressing aspects of running a successful business, we've found there is no substitute for being helpful -- however the situation defines it. We've also found that those things that many organizations aspire to achieve are attainable through a "be helpful" purpose. Consider the following:

BOTTOM-LINE GROWTH happens when products and services provide value, making it a direct and recurring byproduct of being helpful. Clients and customers are likely to stick with those who provide value. 

HAVING INFLUENCE comes when others openly vouch for your credibility. Demonstrating your influence in ways that help others -- whether you were paid for it or gave it away -- matters. This is the power of third-party validation (PR 101) over simply blowing your own content marketing horn.

THE GENEROUS RUNNER-UP is often remembered by companies that have granted opportunities to others. They will need other partners in the future, so consider sharing insights you were holding back even when things don't go your way. It sets you up to be remembered or referred.  

THE TRANSPARENT PARTNER is one that admits to not having all the answers or solutions. Being willing to refer or contract with expertise outside your own four walls isn't a sign of weakness. Rather it's a gesture of helpfulness that puts clients first, not your company's agenda.

There isn't an algorithm or dashboard that can measure helpfulness. In fact, it will be challenging to see the immediate ROBH -- Return on Being Helpful. But helpfulness is a gratifying way to operate on a daily basis and it tends to pay dividends in the long run.

And yes, quarterly earnings, fundraising quotas or stiff competition can cloud the ideas and ideals surrounding purpose -- which is why organizations should take the time to consider a clear and actionable purpose that inspires and will not falter, even during challenging times. When executed well the right purpose can enhance company culture, spark innovative thinking and deepen business relationships. In essence, it can transform a company and its trajectory.

If it helps, feel free to borrow ours. One thing is for sure: you will never be criticized for being too helpful.