Page 14 - The Voice of Authority

mean by that comment? But wait. Before you answer that
question, consider the following situation:
Jorge walks out of a big presentation to the senior exec-
utives and turns to his boss, who is leading the project
team. “Well, how did you think it went in there?”
The manager says to him, “Nice job. You nailed it.”
A month later, Jorge is terminated. Reason stated: Lacks
understanding of big-picture goals and how his projects
align with those goals. Where did the miscommunication
happen? Did Jorge’s manager just not give him the straight
truth about a bad presentation? Was Jorge’s manager off
base in her understanding of the meeting dynamics and
feedback? Or had the executives failed to communicate
their goals clearly from the beginning?
Companies lose employees and customers every week
because they can’t teach people to communicate clearly
and candidly with each other. Period. It’s that simple. And
that complex.

Your Opportunity to Lead

This is where you come in—that is, your answer to the ear-
lier question: What makes people complain, “There’s just
no communication around here”? If you can answer that
question—and do something about it—you can be heard.
You can create conversation. You can change things.
The answer is not about technology. Blogging, instant-
messaging, text-messaging, smart phones—all, just like e-
mail and faxes, will be passé after a few years. New tech-
nology appears and disappears from the scene. The one
constant is human communication.
Your career opportunity is your ability to use the prin-
ciples of effective human communication to create con-
nections and make things happen.

2 The Voice of Authority