Grudge Match: Ideas vs Communication

In a zero-sum game, what’s more important: an idea or the communication of that idea to stakeholders who can make it come alive?

Quite often, those two things are conflated as if they are almost one-and-the-same. But they aren’t. And - there’s a HUGE opportunity to take advantage of by changing that thinking…

I was reminded of this at a meeting some time ago. On one side of the table, where I sat, we had a team of highly experienced professionals who are well-practiced in the art of presentation and persuasion. Think: Executives and marketing executives.

On the other side of the table sat the presenters. A group of passionate, respectable individuals with high standing in their own right, but without the same level of communications mastery. 

The presenters were there to share a proposed solution to a challenge that affects everyone at the table. Their presentation wasn’t bad: they explained their idea clearly and examined it from numerous perspectives. But in all honesty, it was far from world-class. 

That said, I thought the presenters were onto something. Their idea had merit. But the other people on my side of the table disagreed. The presenters were dismissed, their idea shot down. 

Walking away from that meeting, something gnawed away at me. I couldn’t shake the feeling that we’d missed an opportunity. That we—the listeners, not the presenters—had made a mistake.

It’s not the first time that this has happened. In fact, it’s a common mistake. One that in my experience, observations, and research (HBR, and we’ll add way it happens today) says a lot of people in leadership positions are making. 

The mistake is this:
People are confusing the quality of the communication of an idea with the quality of the idea itself.

Logically, poor communication of an idea does not mean the idea has no merit. Yet as a leader it can be easy to dismiss an idea if it was not expressed effectively. 

We might pin the responsibility on the person presenting. As in:

You didn’t communicate well enough for my standards. I will not support your idea.

Or

You didn’t walk me through the need, the solution, and the impact well enough. I will not support your idea.

We might also make the inverse mistake of assuming an idea is solid just because it’s presented well. Unfortunately, good communication doesn’t magically transform a bad idea into a good idea. It simply changes the perception of the idea in a way, leading us to buy into it, invest in it, or simply believe it’s a good idea. But at the end of the day, a bad idea, bad product, or bad service is still bad. Just look at Theranos.

Obviously, communication matters. Whatever the idea is, expressing it in a compelling and convincing way is powerful. We should all be working on our communication skills. 

But what catches my attention is this: 

→ How many good ideas are slipping through the cracks, because we’re not willing to do the work of understanding? 

→ How many good people (and their ideas) are we dismissing as “poor communicators” when really we should be better listeners? 

This is a management challenge. And I believe it’s something everyone can work on to get better at. 

(Which is awesome, ‘cause you know how I love to get better at stuff.)

In a leadership seat, one gets an up-close view of a lot of things that happen when people communicate “up”. This provides two places to improve:

#1 Leaders can better support, teach, or train the people presenting, so they do a better job and more ideas are leveraged. 

#2  Leaders can improve how they listen to, respond, to, and react to those ideas.

Considering opportunity #1, leaders can equip people as much as possible but also need to recognize that some people are simply going to reach their capacity before they’re fully satisfied. Not everyone is born to communicate in a boardroom setting. Furthermore, opportunity #1 is ultimately out of a leader’s control. We can only control what comes out of our own mouths, no one else’s.

So, I believe leaders should turn their attention to opportunity #2, and how we listen, respond, and react. 

An attitude of “that was poorly communicated, try again next time,” puts all the responsibility on the other person. 

On the other hand, if we say “it’s up to me to extract the information I/the organization needs because this is a smart, proven, and capable person currently in front of me”—then we’ve taken back responsibility, putting ourselves in a much better position to improve and act! 

Now you might be thinking, “But Steve, isn’t it the job of the presenter to communicate effectively?”

Sure, to a point.

One of my long-time mentors and good friends, Mark Fitzgerald, who is a leader in the global energy company Petronas, taught me something early in my career that I carry to this day. He said: “it’s the sender’s and not the receiver’s responsibility to ensure understanding.” 

Meaning, as a leader, you can say something until you’re blue in the face, but if your team isn’t understanding it, it’s on you. You have a responsibility to ensure understanding, not them. This drives much of my ethos of leadership and makes me constantly question if I’m communicating properly. I love it.

But there’s a hole here - and I believe when we’re in the listener’s position, this excuses us too nicely from having to do the work of understanding. 

Because, while it is a leader’s responsibility to communicate, it’s also their responsibility to understand.

If we take the responsibility to dig deeper and extract the idea from the person delivering the message, we stand a much better chance of not missing big ideas, of exposing risks, and of uncovering opportunities.

So, why not change our mindset to something like this:

It’s not their job to communicate better. It’s MY job to understand incredibly well. 

How can we put this into practice? Here are some ideas I’m consistently working on:

1. Check our assumptions in order to challenge our biases and preconceived notions. 
- Homework: Forbes, Are You An Assumptive Leader?

2. Practice our listening skills.
- HW: Forbes, 10 Steps To Effective Listening

3. Ask better, deeper questions. 
- HW: Harvard Business Review, Good Leadership Is About Asking Good Questions

If we get better at doing the above, we’ll be better able to judge the idea itself and not the way it is presented.

To be honest, I myself don’t do this right all the time, and likely not most of the time. I can’t help but to think back and wonder what valid viewpoints and ideas I may have missed because I didn’t do the work of listening, checking my assumptions, or receiving the idea properly. 

(I also know that there were many times my own struggles to communicate got in the way of other people hearing what I had to say. This is why I now work with a writing coach, to help me get my message across because the idea is more valuable than the communication, but the communication makes the idea 10x more valuable.)

I’m still learning, but this mind shift has been really impactful for me. I hope it helps you bring the best out of yourself and those around you! Or, that it at least made for a good distraction for the past few minutes. ;-)

- Steve