How to communicate during uncertainty (Transcript)

[00:00:00] Anne Morriss:
Hello everyone. Welcome to 2024. We have missed you. We're so excited about the start of a new season of Fixable and to be back with a bunch of new callers and new problems and new experts to share with all of you.

[00:00:15] Frances Frei:
Absolutely.

[00:00:16] Anne Morriss:
We’re diving in with a conversation that I'm gonna put in the bucket of storytelling in the workplace, and maybe to get us all warmed up for this, I wanna time travel back with you to the 1980s so we can talk about one of the most effective storytellers in the history of global business. Frances, do you know who I'm talking about yet?

[00:00:38] Frances Frei:
You are talking about the great Jan Carlson from SAS Airlines.

[00:00:42] Anne Morriss:
Indeed.

[00:00:43] Frances Frei:
So Jan Carlson, who was the CEO of SAS airlines, he took over an airline that was losing money and was 15 out of 16, the 15th worst customer service.

[00:00:56] Anne Morriss:
Wow.

[00:00:57] Frances Frei:
So, losing money, 15 out of 16 in customer service. And within five years, printing money, all the way up to number six in customer service and had, um, the revenue went up by more than fivefold.

[00:01:14] Anne Morriss:
Wow.

[00:01:14] Frances Frei:
So one of the most spectacular turnarounds in business history. It happened in the early eighties, and we're still talking about it in 2024.

[00:01:25] Anne Morriss:
And you attribute some portion of that to his storytelling ability.

[00:01:31] Frances Frei:
Yeah. At least 50% of it was because of Jan's ability to captivate people with storytelling. And was communication, which we, which we now colloquially known as, uh—

[00:01:44] Anne Morriss:
It used to be just be called communication.

[00:01:45] Frances Frei:
Yeah. It used to be called communication. We now call it storytelling. But the, so there were a couple of things that Jan, uh, I think taught the whole world, um, which is our job is to understand things so deeply that we can then turn around and describe them simply. And so the context for him was airline deregulation and all. I mean, all of these like—

[00:02:07] Anne Morriss:
I’m already bored.

[00:02:07] Frances Frei:
Uh, uh, but here's the thing, one of the most spectacular turnarounds in history, like in five years quadrupling revenue, profits going sky high.

[00:02:17] Anne Morriss:
Now you have my attention again.

[00:02:18] Frances Frei:
Haha. Uh, and the way that he did it is he understood all of that complexity so deeply, and then was able to describe it simply in a way that not only every employee understood, but the family member of every employee understood. And he did it in a really radical way. He made a cartoon book of the strategy of the turnaround, and you'd think, I mean, in the 19 days with this totally cerebral Scandinavian organization… And, but the cartoons brought it to life in simplistic terms, even though it was deeply serious content, and there are now, go around today and you will see the power of cartoons. It's like New Yorker-esque, but the power of cartoons to communicate complicated things enormously simply.

[00:03:06] Anne Morriss:
Well, let’s see if we can resurrect the spirit of Jan and travel back to the current moment and make some progress with our next caller.

This is Fixable. I'm Anne Morriss, a company builder and leadership coach.

[00:03:21] Frances Frei:
And I’m Frances Frei. I'm a professor at the Harvard Business School and I'm Anne's wife.

[00:03:26] Anne Morriss:
On this show, we believe that meaningful change happens fast, anything is fixable, and solutions are often just a single conversation away.

[00:03:34] Frances Frei:
We have a voicemail from Claire. We changed her name for privacy. Let’s listen to her issue.

[00:03:38] Anne Morriss:
Let’s do it.

[00:03:40] Claire:
Hi Anne and Francis. I'm having some issues really around change management and communications with team members who work in various operational aspects in the transportation industry. And I'm competing with leadership to come up with a really comprehensive communications plan that helps allay fears and instill hope in the future but also kind of keeps our day-to-day businesses running as usual without putting anyone over the edge. And I cannot come up with a sole structure to do that.

[00:04:15] Anne Morriss:
That's a lot of goals in, in one communication strategy. What’s—

[00:04:20] Frances Frei:
Wow. There’s fear. There’s hope. There's the past, the future.

[00:04:22] Anne Morriss:
There's like four or five stakeholders.

[00:04:25] Frances Frei:
Yeah.

[00:04:26] Anne Morriss:
What, what's your reaction?

[00:04:28] Frances Frei:
Uh, I think that anytime we want, we have a difficult situation. Our job is to understand it so deeply that we can describe it simply. And so she's right to name all of these things and to really get, go into it. Um, and then we know we'll be done when it can be described super simply.

[00:04:45] Anne Morriss:
Yeah, and on the simplicity front, I, I think we may have to focus her on one stakeholder at a time.

[00:04:51] Frances Frei:
Probably.

[00:04:52] Anne Morriss:
I’m excited to talk to her.

Claire, welcome to Fixable.

[00:05:02] Claire:
Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.

[00:05:05] Anne Morriss:
Awesome. Let's start with a little bit of the context. Tell us about the work you do.

[00:05:10] Claire:
Sure, so I am an internal communications manager for a major transportation company that recently has been going through some different changes, not just within the industry itself, with the challenges around that, but also through a merger.

So we're experiencing change on so many different levels. And of course we have people who work in an office. We have people who are working out in the operation, who aren't in front of a computer, who have a different perspective on things, have a kind of a different mission than people doing the administrative tasks.

And we're really running into a challenge of trying to communicate as much as we can given the situation, but also trying to keep people motivated, trying to maintain this business as usual aspect, but also really comfort people, give them some confidence within this change as well to keep moving.

[00:06:03] Anne Morriss:
Got it. And where are you in the hierarchy, for lack of a better word?

[00:06:08] Claire:
I am right below our senior internal comms manager, and she directly reports to one of our v-VPs.

[00:06:14] Anne Morriss:
And so when you say internal comms, who are the stakeholders whose hearts and minds you think about in your job?

[00:06:21] Claire:
So for me, specifically, I'm really focused on the operation, so I'm looking at, you know, the folks who are out there running things in our field, in our stations, things like that. They're working directly with our customers, and that's kind of who I focus on and who the majority of our real audience is.

[00:06:36] Anne Morriss:
Got it. And what are your core communication tools that, uh, you're currently using in the job?

[00:06:44] Claire:
Mainly through email. We also have our intranet and then we'll share talking points, things like that with their directors, with their VPs to kind of trickle down.

[00:06:51] Anne Morriss:
Got it. So in, is a significant part of your job is creating speech for other people as well? Is that fair to think about?

[00:06:59] Claire:
Yes. Yes.

[00:07:00] Anne Morriss:
Got it. So where's friction showing up in your job right now?

[00:07:05] Claire:
So I think one of the main issues is around this business as usual messaging that we've been putting out there. I think there's a lot of friction there because, you know, we're, we're kind of portraying that in our main company messages, but people are getting a different message when they go to their managers. Not just because of the merger process going through, but kind of this change in, in economics. So that's the number one thing. You know, we also do host some town halls here and there.

[00:07:29] Anne Morriss:
Wait, before, before you go on to the number two thing, what do you mean by change in economics?

[00:07:34] Claire:
Just around our industry and the services that we provide, we're facing more of a challenge than some of the bigger competitors. You know, profits aren't exactly where we expected they would be, things like that.

[00:07:44] Anne Morriss:
Got it. And so where are they hearing other messages, then, from a, like is part of the friction that you're competing with, with the story showing up in the news and word of mouth and anxiety on the ground?

[00:07:58] Claire:
Exactly. So not only are those in the news stories, you know, a lot of people in this industry, in particular, are very plugged into that 'cause it's also a passion and a hobby for them. So not only do they work in this field, they're also living it.

[00:08:11] Frances Frei:
Got it.

[00:08:11] Anne Morriss:
What are you trying to get your constituents—I’m gonna just call them your constituents for now—your constituents to think more of or feel more of?

[00:08:24] Claire:
I think right now we really need to be motivating them and to really keep this family. You know, ah-uh, it’s kind of cliche, but we really do, you know, we call ourselves one big family, and there's a lot of pride in this company because of how it grew. So, I think just kind of getting back to the roots that we came from, being an innovative kind of industry changer, change maker, and reinforcing that to carry forward, no matter the outcome.

[00:08:51] Anne Morriss:
Right. And where is the primary anxiety coming from for your audience right now?

[00:08:56] Claire:
I think it's just really the unknown, and so this is something that really, my team is pretty new. A lot of people are new. The company has experienced a significant amount of growth in the last three or so years, so this is just completely unchartered territory.

And then, you know, they hear earnings calls not just from us, but from different competitors, other people in the industry, and it's just fueling that There's uncertainty about what their jobs are gonna be. What does a new company look like and what's that goal? I think that's another challenge is that, you know, people aren't necessarily getting a common sense of what that goal is and what we should be striving for.

[00:09:32] Anne Morriss:
So you are delivering what you believe to be more accurate information. Is that also fair?

[00:09:40] Claire:
It’s… Exactly. Exactly. Yes. I think we're trying to ensure that people are getting the right information, being as transparent as possible. You know, there are some things that it, there's an ongoing legal process. There's all of these different considerations that we can't always share, but we wanna be that primary source for them.

[00:09:57] Anne Morriss:
And right now you're competing with other sources that may or may not be accurate, but are also delivering a message that's in conflict with your message of “Stay the course, stay focused, it's all gonna be okay.”

[00:10:10] Claire:
Exactly.

[00:10:11] Anne Morriss:
What do you think is getting in the way of them trusting you right now?
[00:10:17] Claire:
Well, I think part of it is that we do have kind of a disparate connection. So for those people who are out in the field, the only real means that we have to reach them directly is through email. So, there's that little bit of disconnect. And they don't, they don't work in a corporate office, so we can't have those face-to-face conversations. And I think that our, our broader message, like I said, has been kind of business as usual with not as much context.

So they're just kind of thinking about, well, where am I gonna be in two years? I can't really make family decisions based on this. They want a little more insight, which isn't always possible for us to give either. For example, you know, we've been asked to kind of… cut back on some things just in preparation for the merger, and people are going to try to go to work conferences and being told they can't go, but we're on this business as usual track.

So there's a shift in kind of what our more corporate mission has been. And so people who are on the front lines are getting a different taste when we're saying, “Hey, business as usual, but no, you can't go to that conference.” Or, “Hey, no, we're gonna do this instead of that thing that we told you to do that's part of the business as usual deal.”

[00:11:26] Anne Morriss:
Is it business as usual?

[00:11:27] Claire:
I don't think so. And so that's kind of the challenge that I've been up against too. It, it, it doesn't feel like it to me. Um, and so that's been a struggle of trying to balance that and, and kind of be, kind of lobby for a change.

[00:11:44] Anne Morriss:
Yeah. And so what have you lobbied for a change? Um, w-what did you do?

[00:11:51] Claire:
It feels like it gets solved.

[00:11:52] Anne Morriss:
What have so you tried?

[00:11:53] Claire:
Yeah, so I mean, generally speaking, I, I go to our senior manager because she has that direct line, you know, connection to our VP. And I think that there's been a lot of popups that come up, so part of our problem may be that we're looking at more short term issues and not necessarily focusing on the longer term.

I think the challenge is kind of working up the ladder and how do we balance that? 'Cause there are, they're, they're focused on a lot of different things. So I think internal comms isn't always a priority. Eh. You know, it is, but it's, it's not top of mind.

[00:12:29] Anne Morriss:
And when you say, “pop up,” so, uh, something, something will happen and it'll show up in the press, and you guys will, from a reactive standpoint, will have to manage that internally.

[00:12:37] Claire:
Yeah.

[00:12:38] Anne Morriss:
And then, so to go back to your previous example, you will provide feedback. I'm projecting. The message isn't landing with my constituents. Here's the feedback I'm seeing and getting. People don't buy it. It's not business as usual. And then your boss will absorb that feedback from you, translate it into trying to manage her boss, who's the main decision maker here, and it gets diluted along this pathway.

[00:13:08] Claire:
Yes. I think it's just being diluted as it moves up the chain. As people's focuses shift, even though this is kind of the, the longer term goal.

[00:13:17] Frances Frei:
What you made mention of the fact that people are really proud of the history, would you just give us the, the elevator pitch on what's so awesome about, in particular, the way that you grew?

[00:13:28] Claire:
Yeah, so I think it's your typical underdog story. You know, it started out as a really scrappy business that, you know, was just doing some transportation here and there and, and it grew to such a huge, real game-changing innovator in the industry because we kind of became the first unbundled carrier to o—to offer many different services for people to really make things accessible for people who couldn't travel before.

So that innovation is what kept us going, and so within our company, there are people who have been here for a few years or brand new, and you can actually say, “I did that.” You actually see the product of your work right away, which is unique. Um, and that's really, I think, what gives this sense of ownership and pride here.

[00:14:17] Anne Morriss:
Yeah. And then what part of this future are your constituents afraid of?

[00:14:25] Claire:
I think it's, it's a loss of that strong connection that we talked about and just fear of the unknown. You know, we kind of are unique and where we're headquartered, people have made lives here. We're not as bureaucratic. So we can walk into… I could walk into the CEO's office if he's sitting in there and, and, and talk to him or any of our exec team, and they're also very available in a sense that when they're in the operation, they're stopping by, they're saying hi to team members at our different stations. And I think that's some of the biggest fears, that… Where’s my job? Where's my family? And then, am I losing that connection to the top?

[00:15:04] Anne Morriss:
Mm-hmm. So some core existential fears and also fears of the culture changing, which has been a, a big part of the draw, uh, to this organization.

[00:15:18] Claire:
Exactly, yes.

[00:15:19] Anne Morriss:
Is that fair?

[00:15:20] Claire:
Yes.

[00:15:22] Anne Morriss:
Awesome. Al right, we're gonna take a quick break and then dive into some solutions.

[BREAK]

[00:15:40] Anne Morriss:
Frances, what are we dealing with here?

[00:15:41] Frances Frei:
Yeah, so I think where we are is we have a trust issue, and we have a communication challenge. So there's two things that are intersecting at the trust level, and what we know is that people are more likely to trust us if they experience our authenticity and our logic and our empathy.

And so there's something wobbling. And then on the communication side, it’s… we’ll get into the solutions, but saying business as usual when it's not is a very challenging hole to dig your way out of. It's like when we say, “Oh, this is gonna be easy,” even if it wasn't gonna be that hard, as soon as you say this is gonna be easy, you reset the reference point.

And so I'm thinking about the trust that needs to be rebuilt and some rebranding of the communication. And so what I think when we get into fixing it, but my head goes to the framing of the communication and that there is a trust breakdown that we need a prescription to overcome.

[00:16:52] Anne Morriss:
Love it. Uh, great. Totally. I'm also thinking about, you know, what is with, directly within Claire's control, and—

[00:16:59] Frances Frei:
That’s the part I've been wrestling with.

[00:17:01] Anne Morriss:
Yeah. And how do you, Claire, influence people who are ahead of you in the, in the game of power and influence and decision rights?

[00:17:10] Frances Frei:
Yeah, and I have a… I wonder, is it to come up with, “Well, here's the right thing to do and equip Claire with trying to be the messenger for it”? Or is it to go after a smaller portion of it that she can influence? Where does your head go for that?

[00:17:23] Anne Morriss:
Well, you know me, I like, I’m gonna take a swing at both.

[00:17:27] Frances Frei:
Yeah. Okay. Alright.

[00:17:29] Anne Morriss:
So I do think there is a trust wobble at the heart of “this is business as usual” when everyone knows this is not business as usual. And so I, I would put that in the category of authenticity wobble.

[00:17:43] Frances Frei:
Well, it's, you know what's interesting is it's an authenticity wobble if you know it's not business as usual. It's a logic wobble if you think it's business as usual and it's not. So, I guess that's my first question, Claire. Is it that people that are saying business as usual, do they know that that's not really right or do they really think it is business as usual?

[00:18:01] Claire:
I think it's a little bit of both. I do. I, I—

[00:18:04] Anne Morriss:
Our listeners can't, can't see that Frances and I are disagreeing on this one.

[00:18:09] Frances Frei:
I want, I’m, I’m, okay, I’m genuine.

[00:18:10] Anne Morriss:
I think there's no chance that they think—

[00:18:11] Frances Frei:
O kay, you think there's no chance. Okay. Yeah, great. I was—

[00:18:12] Anne Morriss:
But I don't, but I don't know if that's true.

[00:18:13] Frances Frei:
Yeah.

[00:18:13] Anne Morriss:
I'm, I'm interested what our, what the team member on this team thinks.

[00:18:19] Claire:
I think at a higher level they absolutely know that's not true. At a higher level, I mean, even in their own behavior, th e, the things that they've had to do, too, in this process as well, certainly not business as usual. And I think the reason the messaging came about was because we still have a business to run as we usually do. And not in the, in the sense that, that all these things are changing.

[00:18:39] Anne Morriss:
Ah, okay. People wanna put their heads down. It's in the company's best interest.

[00:18:43] Claire:
Exactly.

[00:18:44] Anne Morriss:
Um, but it’s, does not a reflection of reality.

[00:18:47] Frances Frei:
Okay. Um, I apologize for the tangent and yes, it's an authenticity wobble. I had to check the other ones. I needed to check.

[00:18:54] Anne Morriss:
No, no, no. I think it's an important clarity actually. I do think there's a, there's a solution thread here that's part of how, with integrity, do you update the message? Your human audience is a very intelligent audience, and so when you say, “Put your heads down, there's nothing to see here,” our reaction is just to use like a, just like a term of art, “Fuck you.”

You know? Like of course there's something to see here. If I were to say, what's the meta challenge at the corporate level is to respect your audience more, and update the message to reflect the reality that, that they are seeing and hearing and experiencing, not just from these nefarious voices in the press.

[00:19:37] Claire:
Right.

[00:19:37] Anne Morriss:
But from their everyday experience. When you're saying you can't go to the conference, you can't, you know, and they're sensing the anxiety around them too, which we're also quite good at sensing. Uh, so to me that would be the core of the message up the chain. And then I'm very curious about what you feel like is within your control, if anything, in terms of the way you communicate with your constituents. Like what's your freedom to operate without the, the approval of the people around you?

[00:20:10] Claire:
Right. I think I have been given lead on a few different things where I can shape the talking points, where I can kind of drive that. Still has to go through the approval level, but generally speaking, I think there is some influence there where I could kind of shift some of the talking points.

We do these different newsletters that have a really strong read rate, so maybe I could start with kind of crafting what that message would be and trying to get that approval beforehand to try to build it into a greater communications plan, which we really haven't done yet. We've almost been operating on a one-off kind of, “Oh, this issue popped up.”

[00:20:48] Anne Morriss:
Reactive.

[00:20:48] Claire:
Let’s, yes, we've been very reactive and I will say, you know, if we have a town hall where there's a direct, you know, our CEO is directly involved, he does a great job of being able to balance some of those things, but people don't see him every day. So, they feel that people have been removed, and then we're trying to reinforce that business as usual message. And it does, it feels like bullshit. Um, so yeah.

[00:21:10] Anne Morriss:
So you, you've said a couple things that I think are really interesting, but I wanna just pick up on the other media that you've re-referenced in the last couple minutes because where my head has been going is in addition to email, which I think can be quite a formal and kind of limited way to communicate some of this stuff, like, we are all in, living in Tik Tok’s world now.

So in this town hall example, just to play, is there an opportunity for a short video from your CEO that could show up on everybody's phone? Because I do think medium is message here in some ways. Can we get the humanity of your CEO who's been crushing this town hall moment, but can't be where your constituents are, who are on the front lines here? Would that be an idea that is intriguing or possible?

[00:22:08] Claire:
I think so. I mean, we, we've tried video, but not with our CEO like that, so I think that is a really good opportunity. Just some short bites to send out to people. My only challenge would be if we don't have something new to talk about, what would the messaging be just to kind of keep that, 'cause I think that is key, right? Like we need to keep that connection with him. But there's not always a new development to talk about. And that's, I think, but this is where we struggle.

[00:22:35] Anne Morriss:
Yeah. This is where we wanna pull you a little bit out of this kind of reactive comms posture to a proactive comms posture. Here's what's going on. A lot. Like huge things are happening at the company, and here's where my head's going, tactically in the spirit of “understand deeply, describe simply, and deploy your biggest communication asset” here.

I'm imagining a two to five minute clip of your CEO talking to the camera saying, “Hey, everyone on the front lines, you know. I imagine you've heard a lot of things from a lot of places about what's going on. I want you to hear directly from me what, why I'm excited about what's happening and what I think is the beautiful upside, not just for the company, but for you, the people who make this company work, who are on the front lines serving our guests. And realizing the mission of this organization, which is why I showed up, why I'm here, and here's the beautiful future we're gonna build together. By the way, thank you. Thank you for your patience as we work out the kinks. We know there have been a couple plot points in this story. We're getting to the end of it, and we're getting to the thing that I'm most excited about, which is that there's a better future tomorrow than there is today.” Cut scene.

Everybody’s, shows up on everybody's phone. Like it's directionally that kind of communication where it's like eye-to-eye, “let's go on this difficult path together because there's an end of the rainbow that's in our shared interests. But I'm not gonna pretend that this isn't a journey.”

[00:24:30] Claire:
I think that that would be great. I really do. I think that would be very effective. And I like that. 'Cause you're right, I, I've gotten into this very reactive mode, um, throughout this process, and that messaging is spot on.

[00:24:43] Frances Frei:
So, I'm craving less formal. I'm not craving a big communication campaign. I, I'm craving, while this is going on, almost a weekly, less formal, not high production value. Him says, and this is the message for everyone who's not in the room. “Thank you,” and all of the beautiful things that Anne said, and it's, and it doesn't even, I mean, TikTok, I don't know what the length is, but it's like 45 seconds. So instead of five minutes, I would much rather a weekly cadence of 45 seconds a week and not huge production value. And I'm sure everybody wants to do huge production value around the CEO. I would do it on an iPhone, do it in vertical mode. And I think you wanna get in the rhythm of, of the CEO talking directly to the frontline. Um, uh, because—

[00:25:39] Anne Morriss:
Which, which also reinforces the authenticity wobble.

[00:25:42] Frances Frei:
It reinforces the authenticity. So what's tragic is that it sounds like your CEO is a great communicator. And there, and yet the organization is losing trust because of authentic communication. And so we just have to get everything else out of the way and just let's go directly to the source. And so what I would think for you, Claire, is I would use all of my political capital to try to get a, a 45 second video and just do it, you know, week after week after week.

People are gonna have to just have faith in you and the idea, because if you run this up the chain too high, it only requires one no to not do it. And that's where this is one where you kind of wanna get forgiveness, not permission. So you have to be the same way that the organization was scrappy in the beginning. You have to channel that scrappiness and find a way. Ha. I could even imagine if you get the approval of your boss, can you schedule a five minute meeting with the CEO, and bring your camera and just… Yeah.

[00:26:55] Anne Morriss:
Yeah. Tell us what you're thinking, Claire.

[00:26:58] Claire:
I, I think.

[00:26:58] Anne Morriss:
Tell us what your reaction to this is. I got, I, I, now, I'm building off of where Francis went and I have a modification, but go.

[00:27:04] Claire:
I, I really love this because I think it does, it gets us outta that reactive mode. It puts this very charismatic… He's well liked, he's a great communicator and gives him that chance to continue to be that because he has been a source of comfort and confidence throughout this process and get in their ear. And you're absolutely right. As scrappy as we are, there is some bureaucracy and one no could totally upend it. I, I do think that, yes, I think that, I think my boss would be on board. And I think we could.

[00:27:34] Frances Frei:
Yeah. Don't go any higher than your boss.

[00:27:36] Claire:
Yeah.

[00:27:36] Frances Frei:
Like that's, because, I promise you you'll get well-intentioned nos, we call it responsible stewardship in our, in our new book.

[00:27:46] Anne Morriss:
The House of No.

[00:27:47] Frances Frei:
The House of No is the colloquial.

[00:27:49] Anne Morriss:
And the modification I would put on to where Francis was going is to lower the burden on the sell. You don't have to sell anyone on the weekly cadence right now.

[00:27:59] Frances Frei:
Yeah. Great.

[00:28:00] Anne Morriss:
You just wanna run one experiment. And see how it goes. Fine. And, and then see what the uptake is, see what the reaction is, have your metrics. But there is a beautiful on-brand supportive message here that is gonna reduce the anxiety of the organization.

And the messenger really is the leader of the org right now when the anxiety like this has hit scale. And so I think you get to hit all of these things. And so doing a little work on the value prop before you go into your, uh, your boss's office and then framing this as a, like, low risk, low-lift experiment, and let's see how it goes.

And if it works here, it can work in other parts of the organization. But the beautiful thing here is, you know, CEO turning to the camera and saying, “I wanna talk to the people on the front lines, because you are, you have built this company, you're keeping it running in this period of uncertainty, and you're gonna benefit on the other side, uh, of this discomfort.”

[00:29:04] Claire:
I, I love it. I love it because my, my brain is now seeing how that can translate to other messaging, to getting those other execs involved as well. The ones who are most familiar with the people in the operation and getting back to the roots of, of being that scrappy company. Of being the innovative game changer. I, I, I like it. Yeah. I'm ready to run with it.

[00:29:24] Frances Frei:
Yeah. Responsive. Low productive. Yeah. Responsive. Low productive value. And here's what I would also say. Do not, I wouldn't recommend you not send out an email saying, “Here's a thing from our CEO.” Rather, when there's already a complaint or an email going out, just have a tag at the bottom saying, “Let's hear directly from the CEO,” just as a email footer, let it propagate. If it's good, it will propagate. And then let's make sure that business as usual is not said in the video.

[00:29:54] Claire:
I really love that idea. And there it is. We're not doing anything special. It's just a little note from our CEO. Nothing big. And I think that really will go a long way because yeah, we've heard from people, it feels like there's spin on things. It feels like this and that. And we're not being transparent and where's our CEO where are our execs. So it's beneficial to them and to the entire employee population here.

[00:30:17] Anne Morriss:
Awesome. So did we achieve the objective of this call?

[00:30:21] Claire:
I think so. I think so. I'm very excited. I love it when I get an idea and I'm immediate, like I just, I just wanna go for a run and get it going.

[00:30:27] Anne Morriss:
Yeah.

[00:30:30] Claire:
So that's how I feel right now. I'm energized.

[00:30:30] Anne Morriss:
That's awesome. Awesome.

[00:30:32] Claire:
I think so too.

[00:30:41] Anne Morriss:
Where’s your head, gorgeous?

[00:30:44] Frances Frei:
I, I very much liked your diagnosis, which is that it's a trust problem, an authenticity wobble, and we say that trust is the foundation of everything, and this is what we mean. If you don't solve that, it doesn't matter what you layer on top of it, all of that stuff is gonna be on an unsteady thing.

And so it became clearer and clearer to me as we were talking that trust is the foundation of everything and that the particular part of authenticity when, and I think this is the roots of gaslighting, when somebody is saying something and they don't believe, but they want us to believe it. It's just, you use the word of respecting, and I think it will go so well to respect our audience, to handle the complexity like we're doing the merger for a good reason.

[00:31:34] Anne Morriss:
Yeah.

[00:31:34] Frances Frei:
So let's not minimize it. Let's honor it. So I—

[00:31:39] Anne Morriss:
Totally.

[00:31:39] Frances Frei:
I very much love it. And you're also, I very much liked the “Let's use modern communication” and TikTok has changed the way in which the world consumes information, and it's less formal. So let's embrace that.

[00:31:55] Anne Morriss:
Yeah. It's an really interesting context here because to your point, this is a situation where all of the elements of a trust building narrative are there. Right? It's a, it's actually a great story.

[00:32:10] Frances Frei:
Yeah, it's a great story. Yeah.

[00:32:12] Anne Morriss:
Um, and there is a beautiful future here, there are all of these fantastic messengers, including the CEO of the organization. And because I think of the way we get kind of stuck in these mindsets and silos, sometimes it's hard to see the beautiful chess board of assets that's available to us.

The, the mantra, and that may be too ambitious a word for what I'm about to say is, is really: “what is it that I want to say to the people in front of me right now instead of speaking to one audience and talking to another?” I think it's really about being present for the audience that's right in front of you.

[00:32:58] Frances Frei:
I, I love that. How are we, how are we most useful? And it's being present to the needs of the people right in front of us.

[00:33:05] Anne Morriss:
Yeah. What do I wanna say to these humans?

[00:33:08] Frances Frei:
And when an organization that says, you know, this is, we, we say we're a big family and it's got this scrappy history. People are definitely the most important part of this organization. Unquestionably, unquestionably, and, and trust is at the foundation of that. And so let's go use our superhero, which is the CEO, and talk directly, uh, directly to them.

[00:33:29] Anne Morriss:
Yeah, I saw her leopard jacket, uh, on the, on the chair. So I'm, I'm, I'm super optimistic that she's the woman for the job.

[00:33:38] Frances Frei:
Yeah.

[00:33:42] Anne Morriss:
Thanks for listening everyone. And hey, we want to hear from you too. If you wanna figure out your workplace problem together, send us a message, email us at fixable@ted.com, and if you're tired of email, give us a call at 234- FIXABLE; that’s 234-349-2253.

Fixable is brought to you by the TED Audio Collective. It's hosted by me, Anne Morriss.

[00:34:09] Frances Frei:
And me, Frances Frei.

[00:34:09] Anne Morriss:
Our team includes Isabel Carter, Constanza Gallardo, Banban Cheng, Michelle Quint, Corey Hajim, Alejandra Salazar, and Roxanne Hai Lash.

[00:34:21] Frances Frei:
This episode was mixed by Louis at StoryYard. If you're enjoying the show, make sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and tell a friend to check us out.

[00:34:30] Anne Morriss:
And one more thing. If you can please take a second to leave us a review. It really helps us make a great show.