THE LEAFLET

October 03 2024

quotation as eloquence, revealed values, asking for the edges

QUOTATION AS ELOQUENCE

A common misconception about effective public speaking in front of your team is that you, the speaker, have to be a Charismatic Author-Genius whose very own eloquent words do most of the work. And yes, getting good at writing for a live audience is a worthy pursuit. But if you act as if that’s the whole game, you miss a move that’s arguably much easier to master and can do more for you and for your audience.

Quote the eloquent / sharp / wise words of others.

You can reap a double benefit by doing this: 1) the words are eloquent/wise/sharp and 2) you yourself look eloquent/wise/sharp AND appropriately humble as well. You’re not purporting to be a genius yourself - you’re curating and sharing the genius of others for the benefit of the group.

I find this move can take you especially far if you “quote” your teammates. Attribute good ideas to individuals who contributed to them; don’t just point at data on a slide - cite the young leader whose team generated that data or did the work it represents.

Bring your people with you up there on stage, even if just by name.

-Eric

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REVEALED VALUES

It’s useful to have a defined set of operating values. Different organizations go to different lengths to script and define these - you can find taut slogans or whole handbooks, depending on the team.

Inevitably, as you do your work and your circumstances shift and humans do all the funny theatrical confounding things they do, your values on paper will no longer perfectly match your values in practice.

This can be subtle and hard to clock, especially if you’ve been around this team for a while or if you were the original author of the values.

One way i look for this divergence is to ask, “What are the things we probably overdo in good faith?” That overdoing is a signal, pointing to something you’re committed to, to something you…value. The good faith part is important for distinguishing this overdoing from a regular old mistake. You’re not just screwing up - you’re screwing up for a purpose, in service to something.

Once you identify what you’re overdoing, you can reflect and decide. Is this de facto value better, more useful than the original one you had on paper? Or do you need to recalibrate your team?

-Eric

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ASKING FOR THE EDGES

A rational employee of yours might keep quiet about a difference of take or opinion they have if they mostly agree with you. It can feel costly to disagree with your boss, especially if you’ve worked in low-feedback, high-politics environments where leaders didn’t take kindly to feedback.

The great people you manage, then, likely have insights they won’t share without direct permission. And even that permission might seem suspect to them.

One prompt I’ve found useful for getting folks to pipe up is a Venn diagram. In person or on a video call, I’ll model the two circles of the Venn diagram with my hands held up - one hand = one circle. Then I say something like, “From our discussion so far, it seems like we have some similar views. I’m eager right now to find the places where our views differ. Imagine there’s a Venn diagram - tell me what is on the edge, where the circles don’t overlap.”

-Eric

Read the rest here.

COMPELLING QUOTES

Biographer Ann Wroe on Pontius Pilate:

“Mi Pilate”, My Pilate, would have been a term of endearment or nickname for the man, but his mother bending over his cradle would have whispered a name that history has rubbed away.

Strategist Richard Rumelt on the failure of strategic planning

The essential problem for most businesses is that their so-called strategic planning exercises do not produce strategies…Put simply, they are a form of budgeting. They do not address critical challenges.

Essayist Eula Biss on work:

Never forget that work is the story we tell ourselves about money.

Keep going, keep growing,

Ben & Eric