See the show notes for this episode: S 01 | Ep 52 Breaking Barriers: Tailoring Communication for Inclusive Engagement | Show notes.
0:00:00 - Alex Shevelenko
Welcome to Experience-focused Leaders! I am delighted to chat with JD Schramm. He has over 20 years of experience teaching graduate-level courses on communications at Stanford, USC, Columbia, and NYU. And he's written the book that allows you to really quickly capture all of the tuition fees that all those folks were paying. It's called “Communicate with mastery: Speak with conviction and write for impact”. And why should you be focusing on this episode? Because JD helps clients prepare for little-known venues like Davos or TED Talks. He helps you secure your next round of funding. He helps you nail a job interview or win a pitch. JD, welcome to the pod!
0:00:56 - JD Schramm
Alex, I am delighted to be here and look forward to this conversation today!
0:01:00 - Alex Shevelenko
Look, I have the misfortune that I missed you by a few years at Stanford and didn't get a chance to take your class, but I heard rave reviews. I actually have a secret question that came from somebody who just picked up ahead of the pod. I'm delighted to have you here because what you're focusing on is fundamental to our audience at Experience-focused Leaders and really fundamental to any leader that wants to be effective. I think one of the topics that you brought up in the book and in your communications is that you're equating some of the issues related to leadership and communications. Do you want to deep dive into that a little bit?
0:01:40 - JD Schramm
Absolutely, Alex! I have often found that when I'm brought into an organization or I'm working with an individual and I'm told they have a communication issue, almost always they also have a leadership issue. Or, more likely, I'm brought in by a board or by HR or somebody. This individual has a leadership issue right beside that or right underneath. That is a communication issue. If you're not able to communicate in a way that people will follow you, you're not able to lead effectively. So they are different disciplines, they're different distinctions, but boy, they are meshed with each other.
0:02:18 - Alex Shevelenko
Great! When you think of a leader that historically has looked at communications as some PR department, something almost administrative, and in your book you describe the history that it was not seen as a must-have capability. But then, you have lived in the Valley and taught at Stanford some of the most innovative companies, be it Google, be it Apple. Even when I was at Salesforce, the bar for communicating and engaging with your audience was set very high and some people were just literally being like, “Hey, you got to work on your delivery! We can't have you on Dreamforce on the central stage if you're not captivating!” We were literally using the best practices, reading books on how you could improve communication. So some of these companies that are game changers whether it's an enterprise, software or even consumer things like Google, they dedicate a lot of attention to this topic. Why do you think it's not as prevalent? Or maybe I'm wrong, maybe it is prevalent outside of the Valley.
0:03:52 - JD Schramm
Oh, I think even here in the Valley there are firms and individuals that do it really well, and there are those who still feel that effective communication is something I can delegate to others or it will happen as long as I build a great product. And then, when we get wider outside the Valley, there really is a variety of beliefs and respect for the field of being able to write and speak in a way that people follow you. I think it's a holdover from top-down management where you know if I say we're going this direction, we go that direction. And yet that's not how our organizations and certainly not how our employees, coming in their 20s and 30s, want to interact with an organization. They want to feel a sense of confidence in their leader, clarity, understanding of the vision, direction, and where they're going to take the firm.
0:04:53 - Alex Shevelenko
Great! Actually, I want to use this opportunity to quote one of your speeches that stuck with me. This is from one of your Stanford addresses where you said, “If you want to influence the direction of an organization or the output of your employees and your team members, the best tool in your toolkit as a leader is effective and clear communications.” So that's a bold claim, right? Some people could say it's strategy, some people could say it's know-how. Let's make a case for clear and powerful communications. Why that's the one that will help you succeed?
0:05:35 - JD Schramm
Let's assume a very technical, scientific, or other discipline. Underneath that communication, there has got to be some very clear and compelling content. So I don't want to diminish strategy, scientific endeavor, or research. All of those are valuable for creating the content. But if, as a leader, I can't then take that content and communicate it in a way that my audience wants to take the action that I need them to take, I have failed.
It's almost as if we take it out of the field of business. It's almost like a novelist who has a remarkable novel but it's buried in their drawer. They've not shared it with anybody and they've not gotten anybody to read it and engage with it. Have they really made a difference by just writing that for themselves? And so, as leaders, we need to be sure we can take a ton of information, more today than ever before, and deliver it in a way that people will take action based on it.
0:06:39 - Alex Shevelenko
So, to that quote about mobilizing the English language and putting it to war, what you're saying is you're mobilizing all that knowledge, all the information. You hopefully come up with insights, right? Because it's just effectively communicating bad ideas.
0:06:56 - JD Schramm
A great God's gift to the world — a word. But ideally, you have this great substance and you're then translating that into a behavioral change for your audience. If I can jump back and re-answer the question from a few minutes ago, part of the reason why it may not be as fully respected as it could be in the field is we all have experienced people who were flashy, compelling communicators but there were no substance under it, and I think that's what people are scared about. If you start training them in storytelling and executive presence, am I going to lose that content? No, I actually have to start with that content and then make sure that's clear to the audiences I'm interacting with.
0:07:47 - Alex Shevelenko
So, I think one of the bad things that happened to all of us is light communications — I would say, the fluff, the headline, the clickbait thing where people are taking the art and science of communications and overstimulating us, distracting us, but not necessarily delivering the substance underneath.
In parallel, there's this almost alignment that the more evidence-driven you are, the more scientific you are, the deeper you are, the more important are your ideas, the worse you are at communicating. And I'm really curious if you've observed that. You were at these great academic institutions. I would say the average MBA student probably is okay, they needed to write an essay to get in there. But I'm wondering about the average scientists or folks who are maybe just not as expected to be effective. Are they struggling? And if so, how do you get them beyond? Of course, if my idea doesn't get understood, it's a tragedy. Are there some other ways that you help them prioritize time to communicate their notion, ideas and insights?
0:09:14 - JD Schramm
Well, there's a couple of things in there to unpack, Alex. First of all, I don't believe there are fields that the leaders in are necessarily worse at communication than others. I don't think it's a God-given gift. Some people have more talents than others. But I think it's something all of us can work on and all of us can build. Whether we're an introvert, whether we're technically inclined, whether we're scientifically inclined, all of us can build that skill.
I think what happens is that often, in training and education, the demands to communicate to a wider audience aren't there, and so many of our physicians, scientists, and great engineers haven't been expected to do that. And so they haven't built that muscle while they have been building their ability to research, innovate, or code.
And so when I'm brought in, often there is some low-hanging fruit. With just a couple of sessions or a couple of conversations, if they begin to see the results of communicating in a way that people will engage with their ideas and take action, then they want to do more. They're like, “Okay, this is working, what else can I do? Where can I focus?” Initially, with a client or with a team that I'm working with, let's just do the basics better, and let's be sure that we're getting our message across to the people we're engaging with. And then I can work on more nuanced elements of communication. If a speaker begins seeing results in what they're doing, if they start getting funded or getting second-round or third-round interviews, then they're willing to do more.
0:11:06 - Alex Shevelenko
Then they're willing to do more, but they need to see that it's working for them, got it. So there's just, talent is generally evenly spread, although we could probably see some industries draw people that care about communication more than others, but it's evenly spread. And what you're saying is, the gaps generally tend to be just due to lack of experience and lack of exposure to best practices.
0:11:30 - JD Schramm
Exactly and I think we can all see inside of organizations where somebody is promoted and they're very talented at their technical skill, but when they get to a certain level that they need to be able to lead and inspire a team. Some of my clients have hundreds of people that are reporting to them. That takes a different level of communication than getting a team of six people to agree on the priority of adding features to the site.
0:11:59 - Alex Shevelenko
Got it. One of the tools that I really love that you bring up in your book and the framework that's easy to adapt and we're starting to use it in our organization is AIM, so let's discuss that, because that feels like this is one of those things that's obvious once you hear it, but yet so few people, like you said, actually go do it. So I'm going to pull up an example of AIM here that we pulled together in your speaker hub and you could see it right. Here are some of the ideas from the book. Maybe I didn't, oh, maybe it's in the webinar. Just a second. So we're going to go into your speaker center and, yes, live podcasting, and screen sharing are on demand here. Here you go, there you go. So we have some. This is the framework, audience intent, and message, and let's discover, let's dive into a little bit of what we think about that.
0:13:00 - JD Schramm
Absolutely. And there's, first of all, I love what you have done with my materials to make them accessible to the people who will interact with it through your site and through your products. This is really nicely done by Lynn Russell and Mary Munter. Lynn was at Columbia's Business School, and Mary was at the Tuck School at Dartmouth, but it is so effective because of its simplicity. I have to know who my audience is, what inspires them, what motivates them, what irritates them, and what's going to get them to take action and lean in and listen or lean out and go into their phones. Knowing my audience and knowing my intent as a result of this communication, what's the action I want them to take? Do I want them to fund or authorize or eliminate or hire like what? Who am I?
0:14:03 - JD Schramm
I'm clear on my audience, my intent, like what, who am I talking to? Like a book called Exactly. And when I'm clear on my audience, my intent, then, and only then, can I create the message. If I create the message without tailoring it to the audience or tying it to the intent, that's where we have emails that we get and go. Why was I copied on that? Well, I didn't need to see that information. Or you see a speaker that just doesn't resonate with the audience because he didn't do the research ahead of time to really understand who was in the room. So anybody that I work with and you can map this out on a whiteboard, you can spend a half-day session or you can do it on the back of an envelope. And just who am I talking to, what's my intent and what's the key message I want to leave them with? And it is a starting point and it is so simple but it is so effective to develop a strategy for anything you're going to write or speak.
0:14:56 - Alex Shevelenko
Let's apply it a little bit. Some of our audience is familiar with what we're doing at RELAYTO. Let's dive into the message part in particular. Where does the channel of how you communicate come in? There are many channels available to us, right? Like you mentioned, email. More than ever before. It's a lot of complexity, and sometimes we create something and think of it as if it was done for one channel. But it often ends up being used across many channels, and people don't necessarily feel like they're leaving some of that optimization out there. So tell us, where does the channel come in? Is it part of the message, and how do you get that message out?
0:15:39 - JD Schramm
In this framework, for example, under the message is both the structure of the message, the content I'm going to deliver, and the channel I'm going to use to deliver it.
I saw some great research on this from Ben Leff at Verisight, where they analyzed different audiences and the channels they preferred for interacting with customer service agents. Overwhelmingly, the audience over the age of 65 wanted to talk live with a person over the phone, whereas those in their 20s preferred to text and didn't mind texting with a bot. I can deliver the same information to different audiences based on demographics like age, education, and a variety of other areas by choosing the channel that is most resonant and effective for them. For instance, I will text a lot with my 25-year-old son, but I know he'll never see emails, so why bother sending him one? Why choose a channel he doesn't interact with?
0:16:56 - Alex Shevelenko
Great. So if we dive into that, you're basically supporting that famous book and quote, "The medium is the message," right? The channel does influence the message, and vice versa. The message, the audio, and everything that comes before it, like the audience intent, influence the channel you're going to use to deliver it. We believe that the next step is the experience of that medium and the message. We like to use the expression, "Experience is the message."
If you're telling me that you're innovative but you're sending me a fax or a PDF, it's the equivalent of that, and I'm expecting something innovative, right? You're talking about digital transformation, but analog or early digital mediums are not signaling innovation; they're incongruent. Especially in the digital realm, creating compelling one-to-one interactions that are more complex and one-to-many interactions in a virtual setting can't just be delivered in person. There's often a misalignment in how many B2B folks communicate today and the impression they want to leave. Have you seen something similar in your world, and how does this framework help you spot these incongruencies?
0:18:38 - JD Schramm
I love your phrase “The experience is the message”. I think that is really insightful and I really believe COVID did a great deal to reinforce that. Our experience of communication is a part of our experience of the message. For example, my husband is a minister, and his church not only made it through COVID but also thrived because they figured out how to make the experience work for people, whether they were in the building six feet apart with masks on, at home on Zoom, or watching it later on YouTube.
You want to think about each of those experiences. How do I make this the best for the people who step into the room? How do I make this the best for the people who are with me but live via a medium? How do I make the digital record later useful? Part of what you're already doing is chunking those videos, guiding people to the exact place where they'll receive the information they want. Some organizations are being innovative about the digital experience, making it as valuable as the in-person experience.
I'm thinking of a team meeting where one person is on Zoom and they're huge at the end of the conference room, with an eight-foot or six-foot head, overwhelming the room. Or, everyone in the room is having a conversation, and the people dialing in by phone or Zoom can't join in because they're second-class citizens. You have to think through how to make the experience as effective as possible for everyone joining. Sometimes, you may choose to eliminate a method. You may decide this is only available by logging into Zoom, or this is an in-person-only event, not recorded. The only way to get the information is to show up. Or, you create multiple media and channels, but that's more complicated for you as a leader.
0:20:59 - Alex Shevelenko
Yes, and I think this is where we see the importance of communication channels and preferences. Learning styles have been discussed in the past, and every copywriter knows you need to use visual language for visual people. You need to use words like "picture," and speakers do that too, with phrases like "listen here" for auditory learners and "touch this" for kinesthetic learners. We're trying to engage all learning styles because we rarely control all styles in mid to large audiences. This approach is good for speechwriters and copywriters, but in terms of visual digital communications, we haven't reached that level of sophistication yet. I don't know what you've been observing, but I think it's done really well in some contexts.
Maybe on a corporate website, you hire an agency to think about all this, but for some of the more important ideas, people don't think it through. For example, I might receive one big document or presentation about who I am. I could be a very technical person who needs to find one particular component and have to go through 200 pages on my phone to find it. Or, I could be the CEO who just needs a high-level introduction from a fellow CEO, either on a one-pager or as an audio/video snippet, and then drill into the areas I'm interested in. Big content typically has multiple audiences, but we often create monolithic experiences that don't address multiple audiences.
How do you deal with this? Your framework mentions an audience, but we usually think of just one. How do we combine everything for everybody?
0:23:23 - JD Schramm
And you’ve got to measure this against the size of your team, the amount of time you have, and the stakes of the presentation. What I often do is have a group think through who are the key decision-makers who will drive the action you need, then who are the influencers for those decision-makers, and finally, who else needs to be informed.
I want to have a TikTok version, a PDF version, or a printed book, because that’s great. But let's think about that decision-maker. How does she need to see the information to make that decision? Really think through that person as the audience. Who is she going to listen to? Who are the influencers around her, and how do they need to receive the information?
Maybe the influencers around her need a 20-slide deck with all the background and research, while she needs a three-slide executive summary but should be able to ask people about the other parts. It’s worth spending the time to create multiple versions or two or three different channels to ensure you get the decision you need. However, be careful not to go overboard. We have many tools available, but you don’t need to make 20 versions of your slide deck on changes in travel and expense policy. Maybe just one or two ways to get that information to the people who need to see it.
0:25:12 - Alex Shevelenko
Yeah, so you bring up changes in the policy or travel and expenses or something like that. Let's stick to the high-stakes use cases because I think if you care about experience, it's probably high stakes, basic collaboration is not like with one other person. You could get that done multiple ways. So high stakes, we divide them into two worlds. One is large audience and frequency maybe of that right Like, of that communication. And then I would put the high value right Like our corporate strategy, our annual report, our like sales presentation that gets pitched in every first meeting, interactive demo we want people to capture from website, et cetera. These are things that we think are high value, high volume type of things, generally some combination of that. It's a two, it's almost a multiplier effect and so for those you typically there are different audiences right, like a sales pitch.
You just can't control, like if you have already two people in the meeting, they already may ask different questions and sometimes you have a lot more and sometimes the yes, you're right, this person is more important, but you don't know who is the influencer. And you want to show that you're prepared, you want to show that you've thought this through, you want to show that there is evidence behind this scientific paper, but, at the same time, you can't overload everybody with all that at once, right? And there are ways to personalize this, right? So people are taking an approach and say, okay, I'm going to put this thing in the AI and it's going to give me an answer like that I have a question and right, this is interesting and I think it's there's some value to this, but it doesn't give you the context. It doesn't give you all right, here's a structure, because our brains, some people's brains, are still like need to know the like, where does the supply?
And so I could maybe, as you saw, I had like navigation. I could jump around and go to the things that I'm used to, some kind of a decision tree that's really easy for people, um, to navigate. So my question to you is what are you seeing there to the best communicators are doing to create the sense of we are complete and we have thought about everything. But we're not going to overwhelm you with everything. We're not going to put you in the monologue of a document or monologue of a 15-hour event of speeches. We're going to help you pick your own adventures, get to the snippets that you care about, and then you can dive in and build trust that way. This is core to our DNA and what our clients are discovering. But I'm curious, almost like why haven't more people thought about this and tried to do it? Because it just makes sense to allow both the credibility and the discover your own adventure mode as a way of engaging people.
0:28:09 - JD Schramm
I think, first of all, I think you're absolutely right. That is the goal we should all have with our communication. I think the necessary first step is to have done that complete prep, to have that business model fully evolved or have that strategy document buttoned up that these are the four priorities for the next year and you've got alignment around that before you start trying to communicate. You're not taking something half-baked out there, but because we get very invested in the creating of that strategy or that business plan when we're asked to present on it, we want to show everything that we have done and that's more about me and the work that I've done to be ready rather than my audience and what it is that they need to hear. And it takes a shift. So it's an ego.
0:29:06 - Alex Shevelenko
Well, you're saying it's an ego. Look at all the work that I've done, or if we're a consulting firm and I need the analysts that slaved themselves away in that PowerPoint to feel that their slide is somewhere in there.
0:29:22 - JD Schramm
That definitely plays into it. But if I can just shift from what's the information they need to hear, that's where I will be more successful. That one slide may not get shown or it may be in the appendix and the handout that doesn't get the spotlight because that wasn't necessary for that particular audience. And being flexible and comfortable with that rather than overwhelming your audience with everything that you've done, your audience will be more appreciative and you'll end up being more successful with the asks that you have done. Your audience will be more appreciative and you'll end up being more successful with the asks that you have of people.
0:30:04 - Alex Shevelenko
So I think what you're describing is easier to accomplish if you're having a conversation because you can't just really have a conversation. That's total one way, especially like one-to-one right, like we can go. You ask questions, we reclarify. It's easy to get trapped in a monologue. A monologue could be verbal speech, or here's a document monologue, or even we're both fans of the slide docs. But even the slide doc without an easy way to get to the parts that you care about is it could be a monologue, just a little bit visual.
So the worry that I have is that this clarity of communication that you're describing, sometimes it happens in conversations, sometimes it happens in really one-to-many things. But the bulk of these high-value documents and speeches and whatnot, they're still a little bit linear and so sometimes you get it right and you really nail the linear thing. But in my experience, if you're a client, like if you have a complex product portfolio or if your solution has multiple value propositions for multiple personas, you just can't guess. You can try, and you can hope the AI does it for you, but nine times out of ten I think you could have a good hypothesis and then let the other person choose.
Where do you want to go? Here are three ways we help somebody like you. Does this sound resonate? Let's double-click here. It feels like people don't get it. They still operate in a little bit of a one-time bespoke thing and less double-clicking. Or are you seeing a change in this? We'll give you some choices, and we'll take this conversation down the path that we like.
0:32:05 - JD Schramm
I think that there's a range, but I think some of the most effective communicators are used to this flexibility. In terms of what I need to cover with this particular audience, I'm prepared for A through Z, but in this audience, it's really just J and L and Q and M that I need to spend time on, and I don't hate the fact that I prepared 22 other things. I'm delighted that I was prepared for what it was that we needed to have the conversation about. There's a tactic here that we haven't talked about, and that's the power of the meeting before the meeting and the meeting after the meeting. In the meeting itself, I may have 10 minutes to run through a few slides and answer questions, but in the prep for that, if my gatekeeper, my advocate, my ally, has given me these are the things you need to be ready for, this is what you've got to be in tune to. If you hear this, you need to know this is what it means. And so the prep that I do audience analysis, going back to aim and then it's what I do after the meeting, if I can very quickly get a short email back to the person and say you asked about this point, this blog talks about this or this video goes into that.
I sent something to my students from USC last night. I sent them this morning, said here's the TED talk I referenced at eight minutes is the analogy that I used in class if you want more depth on it. So I not only gave them the video, I gave them the timestamp in the video they needed to go to to make it easy for them to take the next step. If I take a week to get that follow-up email done, or I do a follow-up email with 23 attachments and links to it, I'm not going to have the same impact as I do something quick, tailored and specific to what you asked about, and that's hard for me. But that's where I see my most effectiveness is when I show that I was listening and I get you the information that you need.
0:34:04 - Alex Shevelenko
Yeah, I think the way we're seeing AI work is that it reads you and I think what you're describing is still, I would say, manual meeting process. I think in the B2B world we're seeing that, unfortunately, you don't have a chance for pre-meeting, you don't have a chance for a meeting and you don't have a chance for post-meeting. By the time people will already have a very strong perception of what your solution does and what it could do for them, just based on going through your site or hearing your solution described. And so, if you're ready for that, with what you're describing as these sort of best practices of best communicators that allow you to address different stakeholders, right, have an intent.
What's an intent? Like booking a meeting with a sales rep. Let's not wait for that call to action to be on the last page of an 80-page ebook, unclickable which is, or like a presentation that people put up there and say thank you on the last slide and then right there, something or other, like in a very way that's not scannable, not clickable, not something, and then you see this. They're like the point of this presentation was for people to connect with you, why is this intent? All the way back? We're not even there.
It feels like a tragedy that as we move into this virtual post, especially post-COVID world, where more and more is happening, where you're not in the room, you're not in the Zoom. You're like there towards the end of something that they're trying to do. We're we're missing the chances to inspire and engage our audience to move forward and I think both can exist.
0:35:50 - JD Schramm
I completely agree with you that my example has a level of manual task to it, but I think the best AI-produced solution will only be made better if I'm able, as a leader, to put my imprint on it, personalize it, and tailor for my audience the pieces that they need to know. And so I wouldn't, wherever possible, I wouldn't rely just on that. I would look and see okay, that's a great starter soup. Now what's the seasoning that only JD or only Alex could bring to the mix?
0:36:33 - Alex Shevelenko
And that's where we establish connections with people. Yeah, and I really like your metaphor as well, just to build on that connection and the easy follow-up. So, given that there's so much noise, then this last step of the message needs to be competitive in a very noisy market, and that's where I feel like I still have a thesis that the scientific, they kind of they're not that competitive because their world is heavy, substantive, et cetera, but then, at the same time, their audience is maybe partially lives in this world but partially lives in the world of Instagram and like very visual, very easy, very snackable frankly, let's call it fast food type of content at times, and it's hard to compete.
So what you described as sending 20 attachments is a great example. We see this as a kind of real problem because I want to be following up with you and I want to make sure that you've heard. But if my method is to say, here's a PDF number one and you can go to page 24 there, and here's PDF number two and you could go to page 50 there and here's a video let's file, or YouTube, let's say let's hope it's YouTube, and then you try to like there's a spot here and spot there and so you're creating. This is a lot of work, right? I have to go download this thing, and get to that page.
Imagine the world where you have a thumbnail, it's all in one place already and you could scan through these things and they're self-evident and you immediately get to that page that they're referring to, so you don't need to go download, scroll, etc. And it just seems so obvious, on the one hand, that we should all be moving there, but at the same time I feel like it's a combination of technology, but I also think it's a human oversight. So at RELAYTO, we're obsessed with technology and we like doing that. But let's not talk about us, let's talk about like why humans work so hard on building, and writing that 80-pager but spend relatively little time. How's the audience going to consume it in a less friction way? And when I'm not talking just overall, like the big speech, but that care about the recipient seems somehow to be missing, even in very people that may have prepared the overall communication.
0:39:21 - JD Schramm
It really comes down to that awareness and sensitivity to what it is that the audience needs and listening to what it is they're requesting and they're asking for. You mentioned a couple of times scientists and I work with a lot of scientists and physicians, and when I do, I say I do not want to dumb down your science, I don't want to reduce the power of the innovation that you're putting out into the world. I just want to make it accessible to other people, and maybe that accessibility is an analogy or a patient story or a website where I can really see what the experience of somebody with a visual disability is. But I want to look at ways to make your science accessible without dumbing it down, without reducing it. Once a leader begins to see that the goal of communication is to make what they've been working on for so long accessible to others, it's easier to have them look at it.
What other channels should I be going through? Or how should I phrase this in a way that an educated layperson, that a prospective donor or funder who doesn't know the science can understand it and then want to engage with it more? So I think, if we look at accessibility to our audience more than reduction of the nuance or dumbing things down, we will have more success with the people who are doing some really remarkable, innovative things. Some people would say that simplifying a complex idea is the hardest part about it.
0:41:06 - Alex Shevelenko
What's your take and where are the resources? And I know we've talked about sharing some authors that we love. Obviously, I enjoy your book and the frameworks that you're promoting yourself and others in a very simple interface, but what are some of the best ways in which people can get that complex message across? I love Chip Heath and making ideas stick. Is there a book in particular that you think is great for people with complex and lots of information? Because I think the ones that have shallow information, I'm not worried about those folks, they're actually reading those books anyway and they're filling us with a lot of things that maybe are not very healthy for the society as a whole. But the folks that have substantive ideas, like where would they turn to?
0:41:59 - JD Schramm
There are two that immediately come to mind Storytelling with Data by Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic. She's got a series of books now, she has a website, and she has a podcast that is all by that same name. I think this is the most valuable way to look at accessibility, making data available to an audience in a way that again drives action. I don't just want to inform you, I want to persuade you, I want you to take action based on the data analysis that we've done. So she is who I would put at the very top. And then there's a book. The title of it is Brief, I want to say. The author is McMaster.
I'm struggling. We can put in the show notes exactly what it is. But really good work about writing in a way that's concise and accessible, that I don't have to read a five-page email. I can read a three-paragraph or a five-paragraph email and understand what it is that you're writing about. So those are the two one in visual communication, one in written communication that are very contemporary and that I would guide people who want to really, as you say, double-click and dive into this topic. Those would be the two places I'd recommend.
0:43:17 - Alex Shevelenko
Let's say I didn't get a chance to be a student at Annenberg in USC or one of your lectures at Stanford, and I wanted to get that pithy. Three brief takeaways about what I can do tomorrow to be better, let's say, in visual communications, like stuff that's probably becoming increasingly important in our modern post-COVID environment.
0:43:51 - JD Schramm
So the three pithy items that I would offer first, know your aim. Go back to the audience's intent and message. Really map that out before you create slides or a memo or presentation. Know your aim. Second, from a visual communication point of view, eliminate clutter. Anything that I can take off of the slide or off of the website so that my core message is clear and understandable is going to be a great step in the right direction. Coco Chanel is reported to have said, “When you get yourself dressed and you have everything, then remove one accessory so that you become the essential element of yourself that you want to be out in the world.” The same thing with anything that we design visually for communication: every time I eliminate something, I make what remains more powerful and compelling.
0:44:48 - Alex Shevelenko
And then the third piece was Saint-Exupéry quote perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take.
0:44:59 - JD Schramm
But when there is nothing left to take away, is that kind of the spirit? Oh my gosh, you pulled that up beautifully.
And then the third piece would be own the headline. So many times I look at somebody's PowerPoint slides and the header is a topic, not a headline Financials, market cap outlook. That's a category, that's a topic, but that's not a headline. That says financials are amazing outlooks terrifies us. Put a verb up there and use the headline. So those would be my three. Know your aim reduce clutter and maximize your use of the headline great, very applicable, and you don't have to send me $90,000.
0:45:42 - Alex Shevelenko
This is fantastic. Now, one of the things that we've talked about is that you have a diverse audience, and we're recording this during a pride month, and you've mentioned here and in public about your family and your partner and your kids. So tell us a little bit and whatever the angle is of the diverse audience that you feel is appropriate, what does that mean today to be respectful of a diverse audience? And I'll tell you my particular challenges.
I'm Silicon Valley like, similar to yourself, but I also come from Ukraine originally, and so when it came to building our team, we were like building it in the let's be scrappy and virtual world.
We have some sensitivity of having folks from California like that live in that milieu, but then we have folks from the Philippines, Ukraine, folks that left Ukraine and now moving to escape that. You have Brazil. Right, the language nuances of English vary. Maybe developers don't need to have the full control that the marketers do, and it's an amazingly diverse environment, but it also creates challenges in terms of how to define diversity, is everybody going to have the same value set and how do you bring everybody together and create a welcoming environment for everyone, and so I think about it a lot. A lot of it is easier to say if there's a central cultural milieu that defines what it is, and so we're struggling in a good way to define it on our own, given our diverse environment. But any advice here for global organizations what does it mean to create inclusive communication for all the members of the community?
0:47:37 - JD Schramm
Yeah, it's a great question and, Alex, I'm really glad you asked whether it's June or not June. I think it's an important element for us to think through, and I guess I look at it on two sides of the coin. First, as a communicator, as a leader, I want to bring my full self to the conversation, outing myself 20 minutes ago, when I said my husband's a minister, I wanted to tell a story about his church and that was the best way to get there, but I didn't have to edit myself, I didn't have to slow down and think, ooh, can I say this in this moment? I am more authentic and effective if I'm able to fully bring myself to the conversation. So, as a leader, that's what I encourage people to do, to the level at which they're comfortable, and different people have different choices there.
Now, reversing the lens, thinking of the audience, I then also want to do what I can within reason to be sure that the audience sees themselves represented in the content that I'm sharing, and so when we talk about a global audience and diverse audience, I want to recognize that there are people who worship in different ways, there are people who use multiple languages. There are people who will experience the content in a different way because of their worldview, and I want to do what I can to be sure that my content is as accessible to them in Ukraine, as it is in Mexico City, as it is here in downtown San Francisco. And the reason I kept adding within reason, is if I go too far down this pathway and I try too much to be all things to all people, I'm going to neutralize and ruin the content that I have to share. But if I do none of this and I deliver all of it from a white male, mid-50s perspective, I'm going to also lose people. So you need to be thoughtful about it.
Use examples, language, and images that show that you are accepting that your audience is coming from multiple places and then, depending on what your content is, how it needs to be tailored to be received in those different places. But when we go too far, when we overindex on trying to appear diverse, I think we end up hurting ourselves in the long run.
0:50:12 - Alex Shevelenko
Because we can't be authentic, we can't be a.
0:50:14 - JD Schramm
Yeah, because then you're no longer authentic and you're really pandering to people rather than speaking authentically.
0:50:22 - Alex Shevelenko
Yeah, I really like that distinction and I think I'll just illustrate an example that, just when you were talking, it reminded me of when I was at SuccessFactors, we had the sales leader who I supported, Jay Larson, and on one call he said something very simple it was the holiday season. We were like everybody was working, but obviously Christmas was coming up season. We were like everybody was working, but obviously Christmas was coming up. And he said something like hey, and of course, Merry Christmas to all those celebrating, and that little addition to all those celebrating would have been inclusive to somebody who's Jewish or somebody who is an atheist, and it wasn't like saying, oh, we can't say Merry Christmas because like that also, that is extreme. And hey, if you're like, in many countries that actually is the only thing you would say.
But this was actually a very kind of good way to acknowledge thoughtful, without making it feel somebody feels bad. Oh, I'm a Muslim and I am not celebrating this particular holiday, and then we could do the same thing for around all the holidays, celebrating the diversity that we have, and so that was really interesting for me, that you can still be authentic without making people feel marginalized. Another one, unless, I would say, drops into the sensitive times, and it's actually from a friend of yours, Daniel Markovits, who I just saw earlier today and I asked him, Daniel, what question would you like JD to respond to our audience?
And he asked you when you're communicating, how do you challenge a lie? And I think it's a great question, because we live in a world that has many narratives thrown at you at once and thrown at all of us at once. What would be your answer?
0:52:22 - JD Schramm
I appreciate that Dan sent in such a softball question for us to answer in the last minutes of the podcast. Election season is coming up in the United States, and it comes down to the relationship between the liar and the lie.
So if the lie is so strongly contrary to my experience, people I care about, companies I've started then I will do everything I can to address it directly and make clear what my position is, without being adversarial, like I don't want to make it worse. I don't want to ratchet it up by screaming and yelling and all of a sudden I have made it worse by my response so directly and clearly. And I also look at my relationship to the liar, to the person who has shared this. If I have a huge commitment to that person and their development, I may want to really take some time, maybe individually, maybe in front of a group, to work through this topic.
They may be uninformed, they may not have the same experience or worldview that I have. They may be somebody I'm not that invested in. Or if I do that, I'm actually just going to make it difficult on both of us and not change their mind. If it's a belief system, rather than they said, a company was founded in 1909, no, it was actually founded in 1919. I'll decide. Is that something I need to go to work on or something I can let go? I want to be sure that, as I respond to the lie, people know where I stand, and I've preserved the relationships in the room and the relationships that matter most to me, so I pay attention to both of those items as I respond to the lie.
0:54:39 - Alex Shevelenko
And it sounds like what you implied in there is also the magnitude of the lie. Right, because it could be a lie. You could think it's a lie, but it may actually not be a lie. And so what you're saying is this is how close is it on the sort of spectrum of debatable lie? Misunderstanding Is that kind of what I'm hearing, like that nuance around this? And then the relationship is another layer that you add to that.
0:55:06 - JD Schramm
Absolutely. I think both of those are important, and I'll add the medium to the conversation we had a few minutes ago. I choose not to interact with people on social media about things that I see one way and they see another way. I'm not going to convert them, I'm not going to bring them around to my opinion, and I'm just going to either break the relationship or annoy other people by engaging there.
And so I have a whole lot of people that are Facebook friends, that are politically different than me, spiritually different than me, sexual orientation different than me, and I don't use Facebook to debate any of those topics with them. I share about my family, I will share this podcast with them, I will put things out there that I care about, but I won't engage as a place to have an argument or a debate. If they really matter to me, I'll pick up the phone and say, hey, you know what, Brian, you posted this the other day and, as somebody in recovery, here's my experience of that and here's how it landed for me. But I'm not going to do that on a Facebook post or on an X reply, because I'm not going to change any minds that way and I want to preserve those relationships.
0:56:20 - Alex Shevelenko
This is a fantastic insight into how to live a healthy life in a society that is getting easily polarized and I think one of the things that I love is that again back to your TED speeches, you're not afraid of tackling very sensitive topics, including self-harm and this is something that you're still getting the messages out there. But I think one of the things that I love is that you said that the message that you do on social media is about extending care. That's less about promoting you and it's more about helping the audience with the message or people that the audience may know. So let's wrap up on that note. What kind of advice do you have for communicators to be bolder around sharing the things that are important to them and potentially to their audiences Because you're modeling that yourself.
0:57:26 - JD Schramm
Obviously, I think it's very much an inside job. I think you, as a leader, have to know where you stand and what is my intent in sharing this position with this audience. At this point in time, I may choose to share a struggle with drugs and alcohol that I overcame many years ago, a struggle with depression that I also overcame, and the journey that I had as a gay man coming out in a small town in western Kansas. Those are all parts of my identity and parts of my journey and I may choose to share those in a conversation, a talk or a meeting. But I want to be clear what's my motive in doing that. Am I doing it to make an opening, to point people to resources, to allow people to share something they have struggled with? Or am I doing it to win points, to gain attention, to make somebody else look bad?
I really want to know what is my motive in sharing this and is this the place for me to step forward and do that. And if my motive's unclear, I remain silent, or if I'm not ready to share that information with this group of people, I trust that inner voice and I wait and maybe I go back a week later or a month later or five years later and say, I didn't feel comfortable telling you this at that moment. But I want you to know this part of me. Just because I choose to stay silent on an aspect of my journey in a given moment doesn't mean I can't ever go there. It just means that that moment didn't feel right, didn't feel safe, chose not to do it. And all of that's an inside job. What's my motive? How comfortable am I? All of those before I put something out there that may be out there for a long period of time?
0:59:18 - Alex Shevelenko
This is so much appreciated that you gave us a bunch of really practical playbooks and a lot of heart. How can our audience continue to get wisdom from you? I just want to pull this back up here.
0:59:34 - JD Schramm
I love what you've done with my stuff. There's a great photo of a slightly younger JD Schramm. But yeah, the easiest way is my website, jdschramm.com. I do a regular newsletter every two to three weeks. It's full of tips and information about communication. I don't sell to my audience and I don't sell the names of my audience and I don't charge for my newsletter. So that's one of the best ways to create a sense of dialogue and connection and I would love to have people check out my site, check out my newsletter and, if I can be a resource, happy to do so. If I'm not the right resource, I've got a pretty good Rolodex and I can put you in touch with somebody who can help with a particular issue or topic in communication that any of your listeners or viewers are facing.