It all started in Barcelona… Sort of. In this video, I’m going to share 2 really phenomenal examples of how organizations, clients that I’ve worked with, things they’ve done to improve upward communication in the organization. We’re going to answer this question –“What is two of the best examples of upward communication in an organization?” Let’s get into it.
If you’re new here, I’m Chad. And this channel is specifically for leaders and educators, busy leaders and educators to help make connection and engagement really easy. And a big part of that is the way that we communicate in an organization. My job is working with some of the top organizations and universities on the planet help make connection engagement and communication as easy and as simple as possible. In this video, I’m going to share with permission, share 2 stories of 2 clients separately that I worked with that had some really phenomenal approaches to fostering upward communication, Now, what I mean by that is at all levels of the organization, do people feel psychologically safe enough to share their ideas, their concerns, etc? Because if they don’t, that will cost the organization money, it can create safety issues, it can put a cap on the amount of creativity and innovation that can exist. And in order to unpack the story from both typeform.com who several years ago was in Barcelona facilitating a company retreat for them. And then my second example will be about jetblue airways.
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When I was at their headquarters in New York City and got to tour and preview kind of their whole operation and some really beautiful insights that the learning and development team shared with me there. Quick aside, the reason i’m wearing a sweatshirt is my “A tiny act can have profound effects” sweatshirt. This was the internal motto of an organization that I used to work for. And the reason I’m wearing it, (1) is because i’m recording this just after voting. I’m recording this and I don’t know the outcome of the 2020 U.S election. Without sharing any more than that. Where I chose to keep this sweatshirt on. A tiny act can have profound effects. Because my question to you that typeform and jetblue have asked implicitly in the examples I’ll share is does your vote count?
Does your vote count?
If you’re talking about and wanting to improve and foster upward communication in an organization, does everybody at every level of the organization believe that their vote actually counts? Did you know that like roughly 50% of the voting-age population votes in the U.S? At least in the last 3 elections, those are the numbers. More interestingly though, if you look historically at the population that’s voted, it’s been a huge increase in the United States anyway. And part of the reason, the main reason is all of a sudden people who weren’t white had the chance to vote. People who weren’t white then had the chance to not be counted as just 3-fifths of a person. And then believe it or not, not that long ago, 100 years ago, women gain the right to vote as well. And so, you see this upward trend which is upward participation which is more communication going upward, right? More votes going upward. And I want for the sake of this video for the sake of thinking about communication and organization, I want to think about a vote as a voice, right? I want you to think about in your own organization when people share their voice that is something they’re voting for. Whether it’s in an annual survey, whether it’s in a performance review with their boss, whether it’s you as the boss in a performance review to your employees.
That voice going back and forth is communication both going downward and upward, right? Ideally, you want an upward… You want more people including their voice. In fact, you want everybody’s voice included and you want everybody to feel that their voice was included, right? A lot of times in organization we send out an annual survey and then we do nothing with those results. We communicate nothing with a larger employee base what we actually learned or what we’re going to do because of it. And then next year rolls around and we send out another survey. And that starts to create some frustration and some burnout. And people start to wonder, “Does my voice count? Does my voice matter?”
First example, the way that Typeform really cleverly communicated that “Yes, your voice matters” is they actually installed and maybe we can put a clip just as I’m sharing this over here.I was in Barcelona several years ago at Typeforms company headquarters prepping to lead a retreat meeting with a team. And I walk in and there’s a typewriter with an iPad sitting pretty close to the front of the office when you walk in. And it was a suggestion box. Now, Typeform is this amazing tool to like collect data and information from people in a very human, beautiful, simple way. We use it a lot in our own business.
Anyway, the idea was that they have a suggestion box that is not just like the black box at the YMCA that you like put a suggestion in and you never hear anything about it for years to come. This was front and center. They took time and attention and built actually put on the wall, right? A placard of like “share your voice here”. Now, from talking to them and I don’t know where this has developed over the last few years. But at the time that I was actually there, there wasn’t necessarily like thousands of suggestions pouring in every single day. But it communicated… At the very very least, it communicated a very strong message to every employee that walked into the office every single day. And that was, “You Matter”. And when you say that over and over and over again to people in an organization, that starts to sink in.
They start to say, “Hmm, maybe my voice does matter. Maybe if I speak up here, It’ll actually cause a difference. Maybe my tiny act can have profound effects within this organization.” every time we perpetuate the idea that, “Oh, it’s bureaucracy. It’s going to all this red tape.” Every time we use language like that, we decrease the chances that upward communication happens, right? And I’ll tell you from working with a ton of leaders at the very top, it is one of the most isolating roles. I have met very few leaders who don’t feel separate and isolated in some capacity. And the higher you get, the more isolated you are because the less peers you have to connect with.
Leaders are starving for honest feedback
Leaders generally, not always, but generally are starving for honest feedback. They’re so sick of people buttoning up and putting on their bowtie in order to talk to them and give them their best and share what’s going well. They just want to know what’s real. They want upward communication in general. They want that upward communication and yet people either feel too fearful to share it because of whatever repercussions or whatever culture is in place. Or they believe that their vote or their voice doesn’t matter. Beautiful story number 2 from Jetblue Airways I was in New York City about 5 years ago and at Jetblue Airways headquarters which by the way super cool. Gigantic placard on their wall all of their values as well as their mission which is to bring humanity back to air travel. And I wanted to use them as an example in particular because I’m recording this in the midst of a pandemic. And airlines are going through the ringer right now.
Just sending some love to Jetblue in this video as well. One of the things in Taurean working with them facilitating a couple workshops that I found from the learning development team that they utilize a practice from Michael Watkins book called The First 90 Days. Now, to be honest, I have not read this entire book. It’s got about a billion positive reviews on Amazon. Feel free to pick it up if you want to. But the idea that they shared with it was basically you know here’s the plan for when a new leader executive comes in.
If you really want to promote upward communication from the very beginning of that leader’s journey, one of the methods they would use… And I think there was a name for it that I kind of forget. We’re going to call it the invisible leader. And what they did basically was have that new leader walk into a room with a bunch of existing employees that had been there for years and say, “Hey, I really want to hear and find out what my predecessor did well, what they didn’t, what you feel like needs to change. I want to hear from you. I want to listen to you.” Because primarily in the larger organization, in the first 90 days in a roll, there should be a lot of this going on from that leader’s perspective. Now, that said, with a brand new leader, I don’t know about you. But if I’m working in a job and a new leader comes in and says, “I want all your honest feedback. I’m going to be a little questioning of how honest I want to be.” What they did is they brought in a third-party facilitator to sit there and be the listener and recorder and anonymously record what everybody shared and then meet with that leader afterward and share back everything that the group shared. So that the leader leaves and the group can just completely unload, right? They can unleash all the most honest feedback therefore really promoting that upward communication in a transparent way that’s not guarded because of people’s fear of losing their job or getting on this new leader’s bad side or whatever else.
I hope you really enjoyed learning about the snippet of my experience at typeform and Jetblue Airways. One last thing to ponder, what is a vote, right? Because in an organization, you’re not going casting a ballot necessarily other than an annual survey. You’re not literally filling anything out. What is voice or what does a vote look like in practice in an organization? I would say that by you watching this video, you’re casting a vote. If you choose to hit like, you’re casting a vote. If you choose to be subscribed to this channel and get notified about other videos that are coming out, that is all a vote. Meaning your behavior and any employee’s behavior in an organization is a vote, is a voice, is communication. My question is “Are you listening?” Right? If you’re noticing that your team is consistently showing up late, they’re voting, right? They are communicating upward. They’re communicating that well it seems like there’s it’s, “I don’t need to show up on time” or “There’s flexibility” or whatever, right? Sometimes instead of asking people to vote, sometimes you can just pay attention and see what people are voting for by observing what they’re doing. Because people’s behaviors are the best form of upward communication because it’s the most accurate form of upward communication that you can get. Because the moment somebody thinks about what to say and forms it into a thought and then speaks it out in english or any other language, they’ve changed that communication and packaged it in a way they think will be acceptable to whoever is reaching it.
Now, are there about a billion exceptions to this rule and ways that the things I shared today might not be applied to your exact specific situation? Yes. But that’s why with all my videos, I invite you to ruthlessly misinterpret and steal and adapt anything that I say and do and share and apply it to your own context. Lovely hanging out in cyberspace. I’ve got a ton of tools in the link in the description below for free to help make communication, connection, and engagement really easy in your organization. Feel free to download our digital connection toolkit that’s got questions like this and cool quotes. I hope that i get to see you in cyberspace sometime soon. Have an awesome day.