By David Lykken
Communication and Leadership (Part 1) Communication ‌ the foundation for every relationship and certainly the key to leadership, good or bad.
SEPTEMBER 2011
COLORADO MORTGAGE PROFESSIONAL MAGAZINE
NationalMortgageProfessional.com
40
Welcome back. This is the sixth installment in a series of articles on “Leadership.� Given this month’s article on “communication,� it seems an appropriate occasion to communicate a special “thank you� to those of you who have taken the time to e-mail me or send me a LinkedIn message to communicate how much you have enjoyed and benefited from this series of articles. I truly appreciate your encouraging feedback. In this month’s article, my goal is to provide you with some valuable information that I have learned over the years that has helped me in connecting and communicating more effectively with more people than I thought possible. I teach these principles in my seminars and to my clients. Even though we are only going to be able to scratch the surface of this topic, this article contains some practical “nuggets� of information that, if implemented, will greatly help you improve your ability to communicate and lead a larger and more
diverse group of people more effectively. Please keep in mind that the focus of this article is “leadership development,� yet the principles I share are universally applicable to every relationship, whether it be personal or professional. In addition, because the topic of communication has some intricacies and complexities about it, I will break it into two parts (part two will follow next month). When you think about it, we were all born with an amazing ability to communicate, and to do so rather effectively, albeit in a very basic manner. Our ability to communicate was there with our very first breath. If you doubt me, just ask any sleepdeprived parent of a newborn if their baby is able to communicate or not. Babies have no problem communicating when they are hungry or if they need their diaper changed. They start “communicating� by acting fussy and agitated. If someone does not respond quickly, they begin to throw a fit and scream their lungs out. Everyone around hears it, regardless of the hour of
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day. This may not be the most advanced form of communication, but it is certainly effective and gets results quickly. In theory, we all grow up and learn more advanced forms of communication. However, as some loan processors and underwriters might attest, there are more than a few loan originators (LOs) who have failed to advance beyond this most basic form of communication ‌ that of being fussy and throwing a fit (sorry, I couldn’t resist the opportunity.) Regrettably, some managers use this same style of communication. If the staff doesn’t do what the manager wants when they want or in a manner they want, they get bent out of shape and eventually throw a fit. This has more to do with manipulation than management, even though it can have the illusion of getting results. I like how Ken Blanchard defines this “managementâ€? style in his book, The One Minute Manager. He calls it, and I am paraphrasing here, a “seagullâ€? management/communication style. The manager flies in, craps on everybody, and then flies out. It would be funny if it weren’t so true and fairly common. Even though the definition of communication (the exchange of information) is simple enough, the topic itself is about as complicated as any on the planet, primarily because we are complicated. In addition to the numerous forms of communication available to us today, consider all of the new methods of communication available to us and how rapidly new methods are emerging—texting and social media being some of the more recent methods. Yet, the principles of effective communication across all channels have remained the same since the beginning of time. It all boils down to how well we relate to each other. An interesting side note ‌ texting is fast-becoming the preferred choice of electronic communication, even in the profes-
sional world, it is supplanting e-mail— especially when we need to know if someone received time-sensitive information. The reason is that we have immediate confirmation if someone received a text message. In the case of an e-mail, we don’t have that same level of certainty. Therefore, with all of the new and varied methods of communication available to us today, would you say we are doing a better or worse job as a society at communicating with each other? Recent studies indicate that we are doing worse ‌ MUCH worse in fact! Is it for a lack of exchange of information? No, in fact, while technology is a wonderful enabler to accessing information about each other (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.), it is not helping us to genuinely “relateâ€? or “connectâ€? with each other. This is profound in its significance. We see evidence of it all the time all around, and it isn’t just with our teenagers. Look around the next time you are with a group of your peers. You will see people sitting together, each with their face in a screen (iPhone, iPad or equivalent). We are not talking with each other as we used to, and therefore, are “relatingâ€? to each other like the “good ol’ days.â€? Technology and these new devices are here to stay, but we must go beyond the technology and learn to relate to each other again. Please consider this fact: Our ability to relate to each other is the single biggest predictor of how effective we will be in our efforts to communicate with one another and LEAD. Consider the marriage relationship for a moment. How many marriages do you know that have failed and ended up in divorce because the two parties involved came to the realization that they no longer “relatedâ€? to each other. How is it that two continued on page 42