Be Present, Be Heard

HOW LEADERS COMMUNICATE WITH IMPACT

Let's Talk, People: Episode 24

[00:00:00] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Hi, I'm Emily Frieze-Kemeny, host of Let's Talk, People, where leaders come to bridge humanity and profitability. Informed by a couple decades of work as a head of talent and leadership development, I'm here to amplify leaders so they can exalt everyone and everything they touch. Are you ready? 'Cause it's about to get real.

[00:00:28] Let's talk people.

[00:00:37] As a Jersey girl who grew up right outside of New York City, it was so fun to have Jane Hansen on. Let's Talk, People. Jane is a former television journalist with nine Emmys under her belt. She began as an anchor and correspondent for NBC New York and became co-anchor of Today in New York, a position she held for decades.

[00:01:03] She became the station's primary anchor for local programming and the host of Jane's, New York. She covered everything from the tragedy that I and many of us lived through. That was 9-11 to the joy of Yankees victories and the parades on Wall Street and in Washington, had interviews with presidents, business magnets, prisoners and celebrities, and today leaders can be the lucky ones who get to work with Jane as a communications coach and presentation coach, and as a trainer.

[00:01:36] We cover all these various aspects of communication today because it's such a big part of what we do as leaders, whether it's trying to galvanize and motivate our teams to drive higher performance, whether it's influencing, whether it's the way that we show up and have impact with confidence and presence, whether it's our ability to help influence decisions, gain more resources.

[00:02:02] All of it is about communication. We'll go all of those places. We had so many great questions that we were able to dive into. So let's dig in. 

[00:02:12] Jane, it is such a pleasure to have you on. Let's talk people.

[00:02:15] Jane Hanson: Thank you for having me. I really, obviously you touch on my favorite subjects in the whole world and there's just so much information and hopefully we can make a little bit of an impact today with our conversation. .

[00:02:27] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: We sure will. And given your background as a journalist and the coaching work that you do today, there's so much wisdom to be shared. And we know that even if it's sometimes not called communications, so much of what leaders struggle with and could upskill. And I think it's like one of those things that you could upskill in for your entire life and keep working at it, which is how to communicate, how to influence, how to move people.

[00:02:49] So I know this is one that everyone's gonna need and want in terms of their career journeys.

[00:02:54] Jane Hanson: It's constantly changing. And in today's world, communication is no longer considered a soft skill. It's considered a hard skill because at the heart and core of everything we do is good communication. And if you think about our world today, we're being inundated from every direction by information. Some of it is real, some of it is not.

[00:03:17] We have to figure out how to know the difference. If we're a leader, we have people who come to us because maybe something that's happened has frightened them. Or maybe they're worried, or maybe they're jubilant or maybe they're, whatever it is, it's a constant flow and motion of information that we're getting from the outside that affects us all from the inside.

[00:03:38] And so to know how to handle that well, it's imperative, absolutely imperative for leaders to know how to deal with it and deal with it effectively.

[00:03:48] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: it's so true. like the intake. Is overwhelming and exhausting. And that's both, as you said, it's like from all of the media sources, social and then our own team's needs, So there's a lot of needs that we're grappling with within organizations and, our own feelings, right?

[00:04:05] So there's always so much to navigate. So yeah, I'm excited to get into it with you. So what we like to do though is we like to go back. I think that, who we are as young people is usually a little glimpse into some of the ways we show up in the world as adults and maybe even professionally.

[00:04:21] So just curious, give us one little window, a little story and your childhood, and what it tells us about who you are.

[00:04:29] Jane Hanson 1: I was born a little tiny town called Canby, Minnesota, which is, if anybody ever remembers watching Little House on the Prairie,

[00:04:37] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Oh, yeah.

[00:04:38] Jane Hanson: really close to Walnut Grove, Minnesota, which is where, you know, Little House was allegedly shot. Anyway, so. It's in the middle of nowhere. And as a child, I didn't have a whole lot of contact with the outside world and everybody was just like me and my father, even as a little girl, like I was four years old, five years old, six years old.

[00:05:03] He would read me stories out of newspapers, and we'd talk about them. And so I think that wetted my curiosity for the world. And when you're a journalist, it's all about being curious. So for me, when he told me about these places like New York City, where I ultimately ended up living for over 30 years working for NBC, that was it.

[00:05:28] That just got me going. That made me want that life. And so I think our childhood, by the time we leave home, when we graduate from college or, or we leave for our first job or whatever we're doing we don't recognize what an impact they've had on us. And that has stuck with me for my entire life.

[00:05:46] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Hmm. I love how it imprinted a passion into you so early and how stories the news connected you to something so much bigger and that you knew you wanted to be a part of it, and it's just so perfect how it all played out, right? this is what it means to follow your passion,

[00:06:04] Jane Hanson: exactly. Except for the fact that, you know, when I was little, people would say, you're so nosy. So that curiosity was interpreted as being nosy.

[00:06:14] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Right? And then now you're like, thank you. I am, and I'm good at it. And thank goodness that didn't shut you down. If anything, it catapulted your career. So there's so much, Jane, in terms of all the success that you've had, and we could spend a whole podcast just unpacking all the stories. Maybe if you could just share a highlight, like what's one that comes to mind that you feel like when you look back was your greatest, moment from your perspective.

[00:06:43] Jane Hanson: Well, there's so many. We always used to say that our best story or our best interview was the one we just did. And I don't really wanna focus that much on also the broadcast part, because that was just an amazing experience. One of the highlights was going to Mongolia with some of the rockstar paleontologists of the world from the American Museum of Natural History, which is located in New York.

[00:07:07] And we were in Mongolia on the dinosaur dig. And if you. can picture now, the Goby Desert is thousands and thousands of miles of emptiness. There are no roads there. We had to take these giant Semitrailer trucks, or in my case, we took a former Soviet Union aircraft that had been abandoned in Ulan, Batar, the capital of Mongolia.

[00:07:31] And you know, by the way, we had to carry with US tanks of gas on it because there are no gas stations out there.

[00:07:38] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Oh my.

[00:07:39] Jane Hanson: And the pilots were smoking, and I'm thinking, I've just signed my death certificate. But we made it. I'm still here to tell the story, but we're in this place that nobody has been in for, you know, thousands and thousands and thousands of years.

[00:07:53] And so by day we're searching for dinosaur remains. And we did find four young dinosaurs. they thought they were teenagers by judging by their size and et cetera, and they were all facing in the same direction, which meant there had to be some catastrophic event that happened to their demise.

[00:08:10] And at the same time, by night, we're sitting in this, in, in this desert where you can hear a voice will travel for almost the length of a football field because there's no sound and there's no lights, the brightest stars you've ever seen in your life. And we're telling stories and they'd all brought their guitars and we're singing, you know, things like Kumbaya. So that was, that was truly wonderful.

[00:08:32] Jane Hanson: But I would say just in terms of my coaching, one of the things that truly excites me is when people who come to me, because maybe they have a fear of public speaking, maybe they're not communicating well, maybe they're asked to do a keynote address or they've got a new leadership role, they've just become a CEO and they're afraid and they're vulnerable.

[00:08:56] And in that moment when I can get them to a place where there's this aha thing that happens where they say, I can do this, that moment to me is so gratifying because I feel like I've taken everything that's happened to me and everything I've experienced, and I'm able to give it to them in a way that makes sense and makes them reach a point where they can, they can actually succeed.

[00:09:24] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Hmm.

[00:09:25] Jane Hanson: Do it with confidence and do it with an ability to have the right words in that moment. They lead people, they lead them to a better place. That is exciting.

[00:09:38] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: And to me what you just described, Jane, is great leadership. 'Cause leadership is taking what you've had to go through, what you've learned, and really seeing someone else and where they are and catapulting them to their next level, and that they feel it within themselves. So it's not necessarily just the teaching, which is obviously a part of leading and coaching in your case. But that you changed their ability to amplify their own impact. And so that's such a great visual.

[00:10:08] When I think about this topic of communication, there's so many things leaders are struggling with today, right?

[00:10:14] There's, as you described it, the more, putting yourself out there in a very present way, be it on a stage or, you know, being recorded, whatever it may be, being in front of a big client meeting that you weren't expecting to be thrown into. And then there's the everyday too, which people are really struggling with, and I would love your perspective of, you know, again, we know communication is essential to leadership success, but why is it feeling so hard to engage, connect, motivate people, stay focused? Like what are you seeing as the dynamics that are at play that maybe are more acute right now than they were in the past even?

[00:10:51] Jane Hanson: I think it's the ram rodding of information. We get information from so many different sources on a daily basis. We have our phone that's got the calls, although I don't think anybody gets as many calls as they ever did because we text, it's the text, it's the emails, it's the internet, it's just the way that we can communicate from so many different directions we're bombarded and it can be overwhelming and it's so overwhelming that we forget what we're doing, and I feel overwhelmed at times and I think that's at the heart of it. You use the word presence.

[00:11:30] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah.

[00:11:31] Jane Hanson: I think it's very hard for us to be present and by being present, I mean being in that moment, giving full attention to whatever we're doing. Now, how hard is that when we're having a conversation with someone and this is true leadership because you need to be present.

[00:11:54] If all you're doing is thinking about, how soon can I get this meeting over with because I need to move on to my next one, you will be ineffective. And it will also cost you. The cost of not being present is outrageous. Because if in that moment I can A. Make a decision that maybe needs to be made or B. Understand every point you're telling me and put that into play in some way, or C. Be able to answer your questions or D. Say, you know, you're right.

We do need to consider this. and if we can spend 10 minutes being truly present versus half an hour being, "I have to go, I have to go, I have to think about this, blah, blah, blah." The reward is outstanding. So I would say one of the most important things about today's world is truly being able to set aside everything else for that moment. And then you just keep doing that. And as you do it, you will find that you're gaining time.

[00:12:56] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: That's right. And that's the thing that people are struggling with the most is they feel overwhelmed. it's so ironic because the overwhelm is what keeps you from being present. But to your point, Jane, the presence is what allows you to decrease some of the overwhelm because there's an efficiency being in that moment.

[00:13:14] Jane Hanson: Exactly.

[00:13:15] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: How do we break that cycle? I think you know, we're sitting either with an individual or with our team and, you know, we're worrying about that urgent thing. Like, you almost didn't wanna even do the meeting because you have something pulling at you.

[00:13:26] How do you drop in and deal with that? Or when do you not? And you just say, I'm really struggling and I gotta go. You know, what, how, how do you help people with this?

[00:13:35] Jane Hanson: You need to put your devices away.

[00:13:38] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: It's like putting your arm away. It's so hard. Right.

[00:13:42] Jane Hanson: So you know, Simon Sinek. So Simon I was watching something he did the other day. He was doing a conference. He was on stage all of a sudden he goes. Anybody here have an iPhone I can borrow. And of course, 50 people shoot in their iPhone. He takes the device, and he holds it up. He goes, do you feel any differently about me right now? And the audience goes, yeah. He said, do you feel that I am not present and that I'm not paying as much attention to you?

[00:14:11] And they go, yeah. He goes, okay, if I set it down so the face is down, what does that mean? And they go, you could still pick it up at any moment, and we're a little afraid you're gonna pick it up. He said, so here's what I say. You do have a drawer that you put your phone in and you set it in there the moment that somebody walks into your room.

[00:14:35] And you make a point of telling that's what you're doing and you ask them to do the same thing, you know, put it away from them. Said it changes the tenor of the meeting unbelievably. Now you also say, you have my undivided attention for 10 minutes.

[00:14:53] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Mm.

[00:14:54] Jane Hanson: Go for it. It makes people believe that they are the most important thing in that room at that time.

[00:15:01] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Think about how sad that is. Like that's so easy and that, people wouldn't expect you to be giving them their full attention. Right. Like, like what we've gotten used to is such a low bar.

[00:15:13] Jane Hanson: Mm-hmm. You can get a lot said in 10 minutes if you're prepared for it or if you're listening. But gets me to my other point about great leadership is being present, but actively listening.

[00:15:27] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Hmm. How do you, how do you know when someone's doing that?

[00:15:32] Jane Hanson: Because when I'm listening to you, I am not immediately thinking about what I'm going to say. I'm asking you questions. I follow up and by asking people questions. Yes, it's curiosity. But to be truly curious means you are actively listening.

[00:15:52] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah,

[00:15:54] how do you shut your brain off? I feel like it just happens naturally, right? You get a thought or you know, you wanna rebuttal the thing they just said. You know, how do you manage your own, your own crazy? You know? It's like our brains are really active in that way.

[00:16:08] Jane Hanson: Pause, you ask me a question, and I respond to that question, and instead of immediately jumping in, you take a pause.

[00:16:21] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah.

[00:16:22] Jane Hanson: And then say, but how do you do that? Like, you just did it actually, you actually just did it because you asked me a question, you didn't come back and say, well, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[00:16:35] You asked me a question,

[00:16:36] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah,

[00:16:37] Jane Hanson: and when you ask questions, what's really interesting, try this. Just try this sometime. Don't tell a person a single thing about yourself. Just keep asking them questions about them. They will walk away and they'll say, wow, I really like Emily. She's interesting person.

[00:16:57] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Totally.

[00:16:58] Jane Hanson: They don't know one more thing about you than they did when you walked into the room, but because you cared enough to ask about them, they think you're amazing.

[00:17:07] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: That's right. This is one of my tips that I give to people who are looking for a job. If you get the person who's interviewing you to answer questions, they're like, wow, that was such a good conversation. They're like, I learned nothing about you, but I feel fantastic.

[00:17:24] Jane Hanson: Yeah, exactly. So I wanna hire you versus the person who just sat and bragged about themselves.

[00:17:31] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: And they felt great.

[00:17:33] Shining the light on others is Yes, that is, that is a superpower. And one that I am a big, a big fan of, so, yes. Love, love that. Awesome.

[00:17:44] Let's transition into some of the questions that we've gotten from our audience. I'll turn it over to you, Abby.

[00:17:51] Abigail Charlu: Yeah. Thanks Emily and Jane. Such a rich conversation. I love this. some of the most basic things, but we just need reminders. We need to sit in this often to practice it because the world we live in is just so busy and we forget.

[00:18:08] Jane Hanson: Mm-hmm.

[00:18:09] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: And there's the understanding and there's the doing, and they're very different,

[00:18:12] Jane Hanson: Yep.

[00:18:13] Abigail Charlu: Hundred percent. Yeah.

[00:18:14] Totally. we have some great questions from managers. Let's dig into it.

[00:18:19] One manager said, I have a dispersed team, and in my team meetings, it is like pulling teeth to get people to engage. Is it just me?

[00:18:31] Jane Hanson: no, that is a very common problem, and I'm assuming if he's got a disperse team, he is talking about things being virtual, So virtual can be really hard or it can be really easy. One of the things about. Having great virtual meetings is A, we need to keep 'em short. B, I highly suggest you have a terrific agenda about what, what are you gonna talk about?

[00:18:58] How much time are you going to allot to each one of those subjects? what's the bottom line of what you want the meeting to accomplish? And that should be right at the top. Is it something you're gonna make a decision about? Is it, simply checking up, making sure everybody's got what they need for whatever they're doing, whatever it is?

[00:19:14] So, create a great atmosphere, the meeting ahead of time by having an agenda by giving them any information that they need and expect that they will have looked at it and read it. That's their job. And then and then ask them for input ahead of time about what do you want to be included in this meeting?

[00:19:33] So now you've set the basics for what you want, then. I start each meeting by checking in. And what I mean by that is as people come on board, 'cause you know, they all come on board differently. I always get on a meeting early and then I start by just something. I'll see, oh, Emily's on, Hey, what's going on?

[00:19:55] How's your kid? Wasn't there some big tournament coming up? You know, ask a little question and then, oh, Abby, hi. Hey, what's the weather like where you, whatever it is, just some little thing that makes them know you care about them.

[00:20:08] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: An engagement, yeah.

[00:20:09] Jane Hanson: So I do that at the beginning as much as possible.

[00:20:12] You can go around and do a little something with with each member, depending on how big the team is. I also, let people know that they're going to be called on.

[00:20:20] For example, let's just say that we've got two other people here, and it's the five of us on this session. I, I know that Abby's been talking, Emily's been talking and the other person, Georgie's been talking, but I haven't heard a word from Kyle. So I say, Kyle, how do you feel about that?

[00:20:38] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah,

[00:20:39] Jane Hanson: And which puts people on guard that they are going to have to speak out. I force people to talk during my meetings, and I do that by asking them questions. I ask for their input. I make sure that everybody is heard. The other thing is, if any of those meetings, somebody doesn't have their face on, they don't have their picture, I make them put 'em up, or I tell 'em to leave the meeting.

[00:21:06] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: I have a question on that.

[00:21:08] Jane Hanson: Yes.

[00:21:09] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Because that is, I agree. 'cause I want to be able to connect with the person. I hear from a lot of our leaders that people are resisting that and they're just fatigued by Zoom or teams and being on video all day. How do you balance that, the, the positive impact of people being on video with the exhaustion of feeling like you always have to be on video?

[00:21:35] Jane Hanson: I have had a number of CEOs tell me that if somebody does not have their camera on, they believe they're doing something else and they're not paying attention, that they're multitasking and that that puts them on guard, that they're going to start watching their performance more.

[00:21:52] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Mm. Right. So better to know the perception than to, to not. Right. Okay.

[00:22:00] Jane Hanson: And it's your job. If you were in an office, you would be going from meeting to meeting.

[00:22:05] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Right. You would be, you'd be on,

[00:22:07] Jane Hanson: I, I think it's irresponsible of somebody not to do it. Now let's just say for example I just had a tooth pulled, my mouth is really swollen. I don't wanna be on

[00:22:17] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah,

[00:22:18] Jane Hanson: I'm asking for your permission not to be.

[00:22:20] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: yeah.

[00:22:21] Totally. Right?

[00:22:23] Jane Hanson: fine. You, you own it. and also If you make that agenda very clear that each person has a responsibility, they're gonna show up and they're gonna be on camera. And by the way, if you are all on camera, the meeting tends to be shorter.

[00:22:39] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: That's right.

[00:22:40] Jane Hanson: If I were a, really good manager, I try to end things early, tell people it's gonna be half an hour meeting, end in 20 minutes, you get 10 minutes back. Yay.

[00:22:49] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: That's right. You're hero. Exactly.

[00:22:52] Jane Hanson: It's up to the facilitator and the participants to each play their part.

[00:22:56] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: That's right. That really resonates. One of the things that I find with leaders is that they have information to provide, right? They're cascading information that they've received, you know, from the staff meetings that they're in. They're privy to certain things and people want a lot of transparency.

[00:23:12] I think one of the things I've noticed that leaders struggle with is how much they should be relaying information in a staff meeting versus this engagement piece that you were talking about. So I, think we haven't varied enough the modalities, right? Like when do you send that via email instead, when do you send a little audio message or video message or drop it in your team's channel versus using the staff meeting forum to pontificate?

[00:23:39] Jane Hanson: I think it depends upon the importance of the message. If it's something where there is any possibility, an email can be misconstrued. You need to say it. You think about it logically. It's just as if you are in an in-person meeting versus a virtual meeting.

[00:24:00] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah.

[00:24:02] Jane Hanson: What do people need to be told in person? Do it in person and give them the ability to ask questions. And you may want to preface that meeting by saying, This one is important, and you don't wanna scare people. But you know, some meetings are more important than others. Let's let them know what is what. and by the way, most of the time there's not a lot of information that is do or die. Right?

[00:24:28] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah, that's right. No, that's a great way to unpack it and put it in context.

[00:24:33] Abigail Charlu: Great. In terms of motivating and driving my team, when should I be in selling mode and influencing mode? And When is it a better strategy to give them more agency to chart their own path forward?

[00:24:49] Jane Hanson: So I think sell, influence, persuade… in a lot of ways they're all kind of the same word.

[00:24:55] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Right.

[00:24:56] Jane Hanson: a good leader is always trying to inspire.

[00:24:59] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah.

[00:25:00] Jane Hanson: And trying to get their team to go out and do the best job they can. What I find today in a lot of people I've worked with. Some leaders have a really hard time delegating.

[00:25:14] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Mm-hmm.

[00:25:15] Jane Hanson: And so one of the ways in which you inspire people and you motivate them is to be able let them take responsibility and allow them to do it. I see a lot of leaders their fingers are so tight on the throttle that people aren't allowed to really do their job.

[00:25:34] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah. They don't trust, right?

[00:25:36] Jane Hanson: And you have to let them do their job and don't micromanage them. And so what some of what I hear in this question is, I really want to inspire them. I really want to let them go, but how much am I going to allow them to have that freedom? I have to use positive words. I have to talk about the outcome, give them some kudos about where we are, a few suggestions about where we could go next, and then let them take the reins.

[00:26:06] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah, I wanna just tie that back to what you're saying about the positivity. 'Cause what I've found is in teams where there is performance challenges, the leader can sometimes shift into more of the negative motivation than the positive motivation. So I think there's something really important there about, you can still use the positive in terms of the impact, who you wanna serve, why this matters, right?

[00:26:30] You can still use all that, and then you can have one-to-one conversations with certain individuals and say to them, I have some concerns here and this is what it's based on. And, we need to calibrate on expectations. But I, I think that shifting into, you know, the more negative group message ends up demotivating everybody or scaring people into performance, which I don't believe is sustainable.

[00:26:52] Jane Hanson: Oh no, never. That never works. It just makes people think, man, I better go look for a job. Again, respect the people that work for you, and understand that they may be doing the best job they can in that moment, but maybe there are underlying reasons why their performance isn't as good as it could be.

[00:27:08] So you could talk about the team overall. You can talk about ways in which they might not have tried. Let's think about looking at it from this point of view and let's change our tactic a bit. Our strategy and maybe the strategy could be altered in this fashion so that we will have better touch points with our customers or our clients, or whatever it is they're trying to do.

[00:27:35] As a leader, you always wanna think about, maybe this isn't working. how am I going to change it so it works better? And so the answer to that question is then if the performance needs help, then I've gotta sell them on a new strategy maybe. Or if they're doing great, I wanna be able to influence them to continue to do as well as they are and make it even better.

[00:27:59] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: That's right. Oh, that really resonates with me. And I think sometimes we make things too complicated. I think if you really wanna focus performance, you can't give people too many different priorities or change it up every other day. I think when you keep it really simple and clear people then remember and that will keep coming to mind for us.

[00:28:19] And it's not necessary. And then I think the other thing, you know, we use this strategy a lot when we coach people on how to manage up, right? How to influence. But I think it's the same thing with your team.

[00:28:28] It's like, how do you ask the right questions so that people can come to maybe the same perspective or same decision that you're trying to draw them to? Like how do you help them to feel like they came up with it, I think is one of the most powerful influencing skills. And so you're, guiding them to reflect, and then they feel like they had the aha themselves.

[00:28:49] Abigail Charlu: Back to managing up, another manager asked, I'm having trouble getting my boss to understand the reality on the ground and listen to the feedback from my team on our workload. How do I better communicate in a way that she can actually hear me?

[00:29:09] Jane Hanson: Stories

[00:29:11] Abigail Charlu: Hmm.

[00:29:12] Jane Hanson: needs to take a couple of individual stories you know, let's just say there's one person who is now working 60 hours a week because they really need an assistant to take care of like administrative duties and that.

[00:29:27] This manager walked into the office at nine o'clock at night. They were on their way home from a dinner and they realized they needed some something. 'Cause they were making an in-person meeting the next morning, walked in, found this person at their desk trying to take care of the administrative stuff.

[00:29:44] That's a story that talks about how overwhelmed they are. have two or three stories that are gonna resonate because you can give them all the facts and figures you want and they'll just say, well, they need to work harder, or blah. Instead you're saying, this is what's happening to my team. They're exhausted.

[00:30:01] So it's gotta be stories. You tell them individual stories and that will resonate.

[00:30:05] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Hmm. That totally speaks to my experience as well. I remember I was working with a group of senior executives, and we were trying to convince them with the data 'cause they were engineers by training and you know, we thought, they need to see numbers. They'd look at the numbers and it was like nothing.

[00:30:21] It was blank in the room. there was a myth, we were told that you have to prove it with the data. Now you do need data to move certain people. But I completely agree, Jane. What I found would happen over and over again was either the interactions they'd have with an individual would move them, or as you said, the stories we'd tell.

[00:30:38] And the only ad I would say it was often more compelling around people they already perceived to be high performing.

[00:30:47] Jane Hanson: Yes.

[00:30:47] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: If they had any glimpse of not knowing the person or thinking the person was mediocre to not a strong performer, they would blame it on that person's performance. But if you pick the right kind of case examples that you just described, bingo, that nails it.

[00:31:01] The only other thing that I would add is I love the word guidance. I think that when you go to leadership or your board, whoever it may be, and you say, you know what, can we sit down? I just need to get some guidance from you. It shifts them psychologically into like a mentorship, like, I'm here to help you mode.

[00:31:21] It triggers a different mindset versus I have a problem and I'm coming what they'll perceive is I'm complaining to you about something that then your leadership thinks you should just be able to deal with yourself. 'cause they're sick of everybody bringing their baggage and their problems to them.

[00:31:35] It's exhausting to be a senior executive.

[00:31:37] Jane Hanson: I love that. I think that's really a really good idea. So if you combine, if you say, I really need your advice. I really Wanna know how to deal with this. Because last night it was nine o'clock, I stopped at the office to pick up some paperwork I needed for a meeting I had out of the office this morning.

[00:31:56] I got in there and Mary Sue was. Sitting at her desk and said, what are you doing? And she said, well, I had to put to this administrative stuff for that deal. We closed last week and I was at meetings outta the office all day. So I came in to do this and she said, I'm almost done.

[00:32:12] I'll be outta here in an hour, and so to the leader, I mean, what's your, what do you think?

[00:32:16] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah, that's right. Enlisting them. Yeah, that's right.

[00:32:20] Abigail Charlu: this is good. Our last question One leader shared. I receive feedback from my boss that in order to get promoted, I need to show more executive presence. What does that even mean? How can I build that skill?

[00:32:38] I.

[00:32:38] Jane Hanson: This is, I do so much work in this area now because it's kind of, you know, it's this big buzz word, executive presence. What does it mean? And then people talk about gravitas and having gravitas, which I think is a misnomer because if you look up at the definition of gravitas, it's, I'm very serious. I'm very this, I'm very, that.

[00:32:57] I'm always in control, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I don't think that's at all what we need. When we have executive presence,

[00:33:04] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah. That feels like old to me, like an old model of leadership.

[00:33:08] Jane Hanson: Very much old. What I see in executive presence, the real core of it is confidence.

[00:33:14] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Hmm.

[00:33:15] Jane Hanson: Now, confidence is not really easily defined. I. We know confidence when we see it, but we don't know exactly how to get it.

[00:33:26] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Or like the boundary between confidence and narcissism or confidence and you know, too much ego.

[00:33:33] Jane Hanson: So there are seven keys, one of them is to be able to articulate our vision and to have a vision. So we know where we wanna go within a company. We know we wanna go within ourselves, and we are able to talk about that in terms that are practical. They are deliverable but they're also visionary.

[00:33:56] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Mm-hmm.

[00:33:57] Jane Hanson: So articulate your vision. 

[00:34:00] There's a lot about body language in there. How do we use our posture? How do we use our eye contact? Do we look people in the eye or are we shifty? If we're shifty, we ain't got EP, executive presence. Our gestures, how we talk. Remember, when we talk about communication, all of life is simply a conversation.

[00:34:22] And if we decide we're going to, when I speak to the people for work, for me, I am going to be formal Jane. And yes, that is the way we will do it. Instead of saying, sit down, tell me what you're thinking. How are you today? Have a conversation because life is a conversation, and communication is a conversation.

[00:34:44] So we have to use a tone of voice that makes people feel comfortable, makes them feel welcome. Then another part of it is actually, it's not the word simplicity as such, but it's about making complicated subjects uncomplicated. And so somebody who has executive presence is able to describe the mission of the company.

[00:35:07] They're able to describe how something works. They're able to tell great stories about why something works the way it does. They can communicate in a way that's easy to be understood. So that's really important. Executive presence also means that you can handle a crisis. That you are calm, that you don't get upset, that when something comes your way, let's say that the deal doesn't get done, or you've gotta deal with an emergency.

[00:35:38] When maybe employees are unhappy. If you know how to calmly handle a situation and come up with solutions that are useful, but not necessarily all on your own, you can be collaborative. That's executive presence. So executive presence is really being in command of your emotions, in command of your communication skills, in command of your thinking. It's true leadership.

[00:36:07] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah.

[00:36:07] Jane Hanson: Leadership combines all of those things. I would suggest to this person, if he's being told he doesn't have executive presence, that may mean He or she is not speaking up in meetings. Maybe they're not taking control when something happens where they should be. Perhaps they're not having the right conversations with the people that work for them. 

[00:36:28] I'm working with someone right now on executive presence because it's someone who's in line for a huge promotion, but they're not sure he's capable of handling it.

[00:36:37] One of the things that he does is he's very much of a people pleaser and he says what people want to hear versus what they should hear. Now there's ways of saying what they should hear in a non-threatening way, but you can't always be a yes person or a, oh, we can handle that, no problem.

[00:36:59] Instead of saying, we can handle that if we take these steps, or even being willing to admit. We need to explore that further. And here's what I'm going to commit to doing. I'm going to look at the situation. I will have some possible outcomes for you within a certain period of time.

[00:37:18] So it's really to help their employers understand that they can do the job. It's about proving themselves.

[00:37:26] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: the thing that is really helpful that I'm taking away from this is executive presence feels like it's a category. It's not a thing I.

[00:37:35] Jane Hanson: Mm-hmm.

[00:37:36] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: And I think it's really important for people to get feedback if they can, from their leader, maybe even from safe colleagues that they have a close relationship with or members of their team to try to understand what are ways that I make you feel more safe, more confident in us being able to achieve the results that we've set out to do.

[00:37:59] Because it sounds like it could mean so many different things. So that's like one nugget of gold. And then the other is like, if we took that list of the things that can mean executive presence, it's almost like you could do a bit of a self-diagnosis and back to the keeping it simple. Where do I wanna start?

[00:38:18] And I believe that often the best place to start, and this is where you started us off, Jane, is like the internal game. It's confidence. And what does confidence mean? It's like, I believe in myself. I think I'm good enough, I feel deserving, ready able, I think that that's another really, really helpful tool that you laid out, is just that it's a variety and probably is the case for many.

[00:38:38] There's multiple things at play but picking them one by one and starting to unpack them, you know, makes change possible.

[00:38:48] Jane Hanson: Yeah, the feedback part is really important, I do think that a, lot of us don't take the time for reflection on what we do well and what we could do better. And if you are really interested in upping your game. I believe that you should on a daily or a weekly basis, Write down three things at the end of the day, write down three things that you did really well that day, Now they can be super simple. Like today I finished that agenda for the meeting that I've been putting off and it turned out to be so much easier the anticipation was worse than what happened.

[00:39:29] Or today I had a conversation with Molly about how her constantly being late for work was harming her impression. Or today I actually walked 10,000 steps, whatever it is, three things that you've accomplished that are gonna make you feel good about

[00:39:48] yourself, because that builds up. Our perception of ourself is 30% worse than what it is by other people,

[00:39:58] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Right.

[00:39:58] Jane Hanson: which means we think less of ourselves than other people do. So go to five people that you either trust or believe in. For example, you could go to your boss if you want to go to a peer that you really like, go to somebody in your family, maybe your spouse, go to a friend, and ask them to give you an adjective or a phrase that describes you.

[00:40:21] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah.

[00:40:22] Jane Hanson: And you will be shocked at what they say. They may say, you are the most organized person you think, and you open up your closet no, I'm not. But their perception is because that's what you show to the world. That's what you show at work. Maybe you truly are organized and you just, that's the one place you're not.

[00:40:40] Or they'll say, you always listen

[00:40:43] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Mm.

[00:40:44] Jane Hanson: and you have no recognition of how important your listening is, because that is a sign of a good leader. So If you really wanna up your game, spend some time reflecting on who and what you are, what you think you are versus who you really are, it will change the way you do your job.

[00:41:05] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: So powerful and so true. Yeah. We have a, and we have a lot of inner wisdom, right? When we really get quiet and listen to ourselves, and as you said, and if you need a little help, you know, that's when you dial a friend or a colleague. that's awesome.

[00:41:15] Jane, one of the questions we care about is that we believe all of us have a role to play as leaders and driving change. So when you think about yourself and your purpose here, what do you believe is the pattern that you're here to break as a leader?

[00:41:30] Jane Hanson: I want people to learn that they can communicate well and in ways that will allow them to get their message out there so that it's heard. So many people have terrific things to say. They have words that can help us all, and I just want them to be able to say them in a way so we actually hear them.

[00:41:54] The one other thing that I really want is our world right now has got so many issues. through communication and through truly listening, we can begin to understand one another and we can solve problems. We can learn to live together despite our differences. So communicating well, listening well and understanding and showing respect will go a very, very, very long ways towards solving problems. That's what I think is crucial.

[00:42:31] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah. Bringing us back together. Hmm. Jane, thank you so much for teaching all of us and for the work that you're doing in the world and for giving us, I think the hope that leaders are needing that they can be even more impactful communicators and really leaders.

[00:42:51] Jane Hanson: They can be. I promise they can be.

[00:42:55] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Thank you.

[00:42:56] Jane Hanson: You're very welcome. It was wonderful talking with you both.  

[00:43:01] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: That was a masterclass in communication and influence. So many takeaways. One is we forget how powerful and meaningful being truly present is. So if you could stick one posty on your mirror, on your laptop, I would say it should be, be present. It's about connection. It's about moving people, it's about trust, it's about efficiency.

[00:43:27] The importance of preparation and structure, whether that's for your staff meeting that you have coming up or for a talk that you're giving. Do not underestimate how much that helps us to be effective communicators and influencers. How we move people, be it our leadership or our teams, through the power of telling real stories by making it real.

[00:43:47] The other thing that came up in our conversation- this idea of executive presence. I think we use it as a term, but it really means so many different things as Jane described. So when someone says, or you feel you need to work on your executive presence, I think it's important to unpack that. Really getting quiet with yourself and reflecting as well as soliciting feedback from others so that you can figure out where to start to continue to build your executive presence.

[00:44:11] And then the other thing that came up in our conversation that I've been reflecting on is really the importance of confidence. And that confidence is, it's sometimes quiet, it's calm. It's about simplicity of message. It’s not necessarily what we think, but if we don't have it within us, it's hard to relay that to the world. 

[00:44:34] On let's talk people. What we love to do most is help you unpack your toughest people management challenges. So send them in. Send in the situations you're struggling with, questions that you have about leading your teams, and we will anonymize them. Give you answers and our advice on an upcoming episode.

[00:44:53] You can write them in an email or attach a little audio message with your scenario to abigail@arosegroup.com. That's Abigail, A-B-I-G-A-I-L at AROSE Group A-R-O-S-E-G-R-O-U-P.com Thanks for joining today's episode of Let's Talk, People. For more info and insights, visit a rose group.com and find me Emily Frieze-Kemeny on LinkedIn and Instagram. If you're enjoying the show, please follow, share on social, and leave a rating or review in your podcast app. It helps other listeners to discover us.

[00:45:33] Well, that's a wrap, friends. Until next time when we come together to talk people.