You can be more relevant
If you become a communicator grounded in strategy
👋 Hey, it’s Andrés. Welcome to Astrolab’s weekly newsletter on how to become a better communicator at work. We write for knowledge workers and business owners.
Today: How to be more relevant by focusing on convincing those who matter
Read time: But what is time, really
Here are my three ideas for today:
Why being more strategic will make you a better communicator
What does this mean for your influence habits
Case Study: the guy who nudged Nike to sign Michael Jordan
Two weeks ago I said that I was going to start going deep into each of the five things great communicators do while preparing for a meeting, presentation or conversation (being aligned to a strategy, defining your objective for each interaction, choosing ideas, designing a plan, and thinking about the specific words you’ll use).
Last week I bailed on that, and wrote about a topic I absolutely love: why connection is important, and how to get better at that.
This week I’ll start to deliver on my promise, because my friend Taylor ratted me out. But I won’t have it easy:
THE IDEA BEHIND THIS POST SOUNDS VERY CORPORATE AND BORING
I’ll make an extra effort to keep you engaged.
Deal? Ok, let’s do this.
Why being more strategic will make you a better communicator
I’m going to start with a statement.
Becoming a good communicator at work is only a mean to an end.
Either you want to:
Grow faster (get a promotion, get hired, sell more),
Be more relevant at work (and therefore have more impact and grow faster)
Until recently, I was constantly surprised that communication was a skill that always appeared at the top of the most demanded skills in the workplace lists. Here are just two of them: one, two, see, only two; and see, this is me trying to be engaging.
What I finally understood this year is that communication is not just another soft skill, but
A, a set of skills, and
B, a set of skills that you put in practice Every. Single. Day.
Being a good communicator matters because you’ll rarely achieve big stuff on your own, and because convincing others is hard.
If you combine these things, you have the following result:
Communication skills could make or break your career.
The starting point is to think more strategically, and I’m not talking about communication but business-wise.
(The following rant will resonate much more with people that are part of a medium or big organization. If you’re a small business owner or a freelancer, try to frame this thinking about your industry and all the different stakeholders that part of your stakeholders).
So here’s my first suggestion: Can you do a better job aligning to the strategy of your organization?
If you do, you’ll be offered more resources and opportunities
If you’re not, you’ll be seen as less relevant
I know that this seems like sucking it up and turning your voice down. Not quite. But it is obvious that your organization is trying to achieve something (growth, brand awareness, operational excellence, getting into new markets, etc), and that resources will flow into the people who act upon this.
So, if you want to be invited to the adult (?) grown-ups table, think:
How is role relevant for the company’s strategy? Then, adjust.
I do have to say: if you’re working for McKinsey, and you’re advising Purdue Pharma, have the guts to NOT be aligned.
Now let’s see how does this translates to your communication and influence behaviors.
What does this mean for your influence habits
First. Think about how are you going to spend your time communicating with others.
A lot of the work that you do follows a well established path:
Do X, and
Coordinate with Y, to
Achieve Z
Now, here’s where being aligned with your groups’ strategy can change your focus:
Could you look for other Ys to communicate and collaborate?
Are there any other stakeholders that would help the company get to Z faster, better and cheaper?
Who else do you need to get on board?
A good example of this is Trump’s decision to accept podcast interviews with bros—borrowing the term from the HuffPost— Joe Rogan, Logan Paul, Theo Van, Lex Friedman, thanks to his 18-year old son Barron.
Barron was involved in the campaign, and he personally made this recommendation, which in the end seemed to tip the scales in Trump’s direction, according to this Time long read.
Second. Aim for being perceived as strategic while communicating
Wes Kao, a brilliant thinker and entrepreneur, has several pieces on this. This is my favorite, where she gives specific examples on how to say things in a more strategy-y way.
The tl;dr of her post is that you can always do a PR campaign for yourself. I do think that this sounds cringey, but think about it in the following terms:
People will make up an impression about yourself. You could say that that is none of your business, but it is, if you’re trying to grow and be more relevant in your organization.
Sharing stories at work is one of the best ways of doing this.
Sonny Vaccaro, Nike and Michael Jordan
Have you watched Air, Ben Affleck’s movie about Sonny Vaccaro? If the answer is yes, you can close this post now.
Sonny Vaccaro’s is a great case study on how you can be better at aligning to your company strategy, and how that can make you think about new collaborations.
Here’s the tl;dr:
Sonny Vaccaro worked for Nike in the early 1980s, a time when Nike was relatively unknown in the basketball scene.
Vaccaro was in charge of finding players that Nike could endorse with the hope of raising brand awareness.
Because he was aligned to Nike’s and Phil Knight’s strategy and brand—edgy, passionate about sports, cool—, Vaccaro came with the idea of spending all the budget in one player instead of three, the usual practice. He just needed to find the correct player
He did when he saw a Michael Jordan college video
After this, Vaccaro tried to convince Nike’s head of marketing
Once this happened, Vaccaro persuaded Phil Knight, knowing that there was a big risk on doing this. Knight said yes
Then, he bypassed the usual gatekeepers and went directly to Michael Jordan’s mother to convince her to go to Nike with his son for a demo
Finally, he lead the meeting with Michael’s family, winning them over
The trailer pretty much explains what’s the movie about, without with some big spoilers.
So here are my two take aways for today:
Make sure you understand your company’s strategy, and how your role is relevant for this
Then, find ways of influencing your stakeholders, current or new
Next week, we’ll talk about how to get better preparing for specific interactions (your objective).
Thanks for being here! I’ll see you next Thursday.
Andrés