The COMMUNICATION Movement

Communication in the workplace is typically ranked as a 10 out of 10 on its level of importance. Unfortunately, most business leaders do little to develop their people to communicate in ways that unify their people. Instead, the experience is higher degrees of division, separation, and unnecessary conflict. When it comes to using a language that unifies people, does your current team communicate like an orchestra performing a symphony with fine-tuned instruments or do they sound like a bunch of novice kazoo players? In the regard to communication that brings unites people, not just speaking our Business Language, most leaders and team members are speechless. Failing to speak the Shared Language of Success, increases the difficulty of any task, even the most basic. It is a costly endeavor and can waste both time and money while reducing team morale and your overall results. The COMMUNICATION Movement will transform the words, speeches, gestures, and actions permeating your organization and convert them into a shared language that unifies your entire team and empowers them to hit the high notes required for success. Your team is far too important to leave their unification to chance or hope for the best. Just as an orchestra does much more than play music by following the four movements of a symphony, the Language Empowerment System (LES) will create a powerful cohesion in your people as they apply the four movements of the Shared Language of Success. Orchestras can be comprised of many players and many instruments. Musical tuning is critical to the sound of each instrument as well as the shared sound of the entire orchestra. When two or more instruments play together it is important that they are in tune with each other. One instrument, improperly tuned, could be heard by the entire audience and have a dramatic impact on the desired emotional result of the collective performance. Similarly, one team member, who fails to fine-tune their communication, could have a devastating impact on your entire team, company, and end-users. Worse yet, imagine the impact when multiple members of your team fail to speak the Shared Language of Success. Tuning a musical instrument means preparing it to play at the correct pitch: not too high or too low. Untuned instruments produce sounds that create disturbances in the “flow” of the music. Musicians ensure that their instruments are properly tuned as a professional and common courtesy for the audience. Like a highly trained musician, people in the workplace must fine-tune their communication to avoid a disturbance in the “flow” of the message. This, too, is a professional and common courtesy. While I don’t read music, I understand that a symphony is made up of four distinct parts, all necessary for the collective effectiveness of the entire piece. The roots of the symphony can be traced back to the overtures of operas during the Baroque period, and by the late 17th century, thanks in part to Alessandro Scarlatti, symphonies started to take shape and were continually developed in the following decades. Symphony parts, also known as movements, are typically free-standing, and when one movement ends, there is a pause, then the next movement begins. Each section is conceived as parts of a whole and they relate to one another. The German word for Sentence is Satz and is commonly used to refer to a movement in a musical piece. Hence the four parts, or movements, of a symphony are designed to fit together just as the four sentences of this paragraph are all linked together to create a deeper meaning and understanding of my intended message. While some symphonies have three or five movements, with rare exceptions, most use a standardized pattern consisting of four movements to take the audience on an emotional journey. It is imperative that the conductor, and all members of the orchestra, understand each movement if they want to achieve their desired results while performing together. Your business is no different. Leaders and team members must understand each movement involved in the Shared Language of Success and how to achieve the desired results while performing together. Just as every orchestra can play beautiful and moving music, when their instruments are tuned properly, every team can create a seamless harmony when everyone is speaking the same language of success and using properly tuned communication. It would be easy to write a book about all the challenges we encounter in business. I hear the endless barrage of struggles, difficulties, and headaches that people face. Interestingly, one challenge seems to be shared by nearly everyone I coach – communication! If I had a nickel for every time I heard a leader say, “We are not speaking the same language,” I could fix the United States budget deficit. Much deeper than referring to the misuse of the English language, they use this cliché to describe a void that exists. Something is missing, and it can be felt. More than mere types of poor communication, like misleading, unclear, late, untimely, and irrelevant dialogue, they are referring to the lack of a language that unifies their people. When our people are not “speaking the same language” the impact can be significant, causing major problems, unnecessary mistakes, and unwanted disengagement that all could have been avoided with the proper tuning of our communication. You will need more than just good intentions to harness the power of a unifying language. To unify your people, you must create a movement.