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Welcome back to Communication Breakdown, a weekly podcast from the Observatory on Corporate

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Reputation.

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Thanks for joining us.

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I'm Steve Dowling in Silicon Valley.

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And I'm Craig Carroll in New York City.

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Each week, Steve and I take a look at strategies companies are using the shape headlines and

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sometimes save their skins.

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Supposed game show for PR pros.

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This week, while you might be working twice as hard in July, just to avoid the discomfort

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of waiting, renaming the behaviors, killing the fake urgency and finding real ways to make

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next quarter easier on ourselves.

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Break out the sunscreen.

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Turn on the air conditioner.

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Summer is here.

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Conventional wisdom says executives are on vacation and consumer audiences are reading

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books at the beach rather than newspapers or blogs.

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Your next major comms activities are probably in the fall, which feels over the horizon

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right now.

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And sometimes the quiet can be unnerving.

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Craig, we were talking earlier this week and you coined the term strategic fidgeting, which

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really resonated with me.

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Explain what it is and why it's important.

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Well, first of all, for all disclosure, I'm not sure I can take credit for quining it.

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I think I might have stolen it either from my subconscious or possibly from a group chat

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I was kicked out of.

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But yeah, strategic fidgeting is the name I gave to that moment when senior leaders can't

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sit still.

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There's no fire to put out.

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There's no urgent deliverable, but the engine is still running.

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So you end up start tinkering.

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You're rethinking your org charts.

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You're reframing narratives.

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You're initiating projects that maybe don't need to happen yet.

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And it's not always unproductive.

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Sometimes it surfaces something useful, but it's important to recognize impulse.

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You're not doing it because the business demands it.

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You're doing it because you can't tolerate stillness.

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The trick is knowing when you're thinking ahead and when you're just rearranging the furniture

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to feel like you're moving.

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So fidgeting isn't just nervous energy.

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It could also be a strategic asset if you know how to channel it.

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But first let's name where it starts because before we can turn restlessness into strategy,

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you have to admit what this moment actually feels like.

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So let's just talk about the moment we're in.

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It's June, schools out, kids are home, where everyone else is kids are home.

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The inbox is quieter, the calendar isn't quite as brutal and yet somehow everything still

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feels heavy.

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You know, you don't have the major campaign this week.

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You're not facing a crisis, but that doesn't mean that you're at peace.

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You know, you're just carrying a different kind of pressure, the ambient weight of everything

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that still matters, but you can't be forward on it right now.

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You know, the CEOs out, your general counsel somewhere between Tuscany and a signal dead zone

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and your team is half on, half out and you know, in between being in Savannah for the seminar

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or being at can, you're left holding all the important but not urgent things.

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The brand narrative rewrite, the DEI narrative, the stakeholder engagement plan, so the Q4 campaign

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reset.

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None of it's on fire, but all of it matters.

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And if we're being honest, you're tired, you're tired of carrying the way to things that

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won't move without the people who aren't here to help you and you know, you're just tired

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of feeling like you should be doing more, but also wishing you could do less.

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Sort of the summer slowdown paradox, no pressure, no drama to deadlines and yet still no peace.

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Yeah, I've never been to Savannah or Cann, but I can relate because once you've worked

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and once you're used to working in a fast paced high pressure environment and then suddenly

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there's nothing on fire, I think there's this instinct that kicks in and you say, I should

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be doing something right now.

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If nothing seems urgent, if my phone isn't ringing off the hook, I must be missing something.

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And this is an especially heightened response if you've ever over the course of your career,

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like missed something, which of course everybody has.

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So someone like me anyway, you never, ever want to miss something.

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Again, your instinct is to smother every issue.

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And so this phenomenon that you're describing, I think a lighter way of looking at it might

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be is that you're the dog who caught the car.

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You've reached the end of your to-do list.

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This is a goal that we never really expect to achieve, but here you are and it feels weird.

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A solution or at least one way to try to think about this as I found is to set goals.

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Set goals for yourself.

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Set deadlines if you need to.

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If that's what's going to motivate you, if you can zoom out and really take the opportunity

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to assess the challenges that your org or your company faces, you can find the urgency.

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Trust me, like if you're the type who thrives in that environment, you can find some urgency

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to motivate yourself.

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It's a different pace and maybe it's a different mindset because of the slower pace, but I think

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once you start putting effort into it and maybe when you have other people from your team,

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then invested in it, the exercise of setting those priorities, having the space as you say

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to really achieve some things you've been wanting to do, that can be really healthy.

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Yeah.

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Sometimes that discomfort doesn't show up as panic, it shows up as activity.

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You're not in crisis mode, but you're not exactly still either.

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You start tweaking things, revisiting plans, poking it projects that aren't broken, just

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to prove to yourself that you're moving.

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That's where this idea of strategic visioning comes in.

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It's I.K.O.S. It's not drift, it's something else entirely, and I think we all do it to some

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degree.

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Let's talk about what happens when you're a senior executive in the middle of slowdown.

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There's no external pressure, there's no urgent deliverables, just that steady hum of the

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important but stalled work.

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You don't disengage, you don't rest, you fidget.

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Again, you revisit the team structure.

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Again, you reframe the brain narrative.

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Again, you start mapping out that re-orick that no one's asking for, no one's ready for.

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You don't need to do any event now, but it's the quiet, I think, that makes everybody restless.

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So that's where the idea of strategic visioning came in.

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At a certain level, such as common, it's inevitable.

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It's sort of your brain-to-wave saying, "I need to move, but I don't know where yet."

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It might be subconscious pattern recognition, might be the residue of months in crisis mode,

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or might just be boredom disguised as vision.

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Sometimes visioning helps.

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It serves as tension, you haven't fully named yet, but left unchecked.

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It can also send your team spending on things that they don't need to be fixing, or

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creating work with no business case, or a road in clarity in a moment that calls for restraint.

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I think the challenge is knowing when you're steering and when you're just shifting the

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wheel so that you don't feel still.

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Yeah, I think that dynamic that you're talking about, the urge to always be busy.

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In a way, it's kind of a crutch, right?

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A lot of times, reactive issues are an easy and, let's admit it, an appealing distraction.

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They're a shiny object.

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And psychologically, they offer you this promise of, hopefully, instant gratification, right?

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The task is laid out for you.

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And I think of it as like the old carnival game Wacomole.

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Remember that one?

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That's the appeal, right?

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You spot the rodent.

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It pops up and you know what to do with the mallet, right?

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So I think that that's the sort of reward system that we get trained on when you're

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used to dealing with crises or urgent deadlines and things like that.

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And I think also you know or you tell yourself you'd like to think that we do our best work

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under pressure, right?

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There's some glory to that.

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And so if you find yourself creating pressure artificially to motivate yourself, I think that's

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the time when you need to step back and get some better perspectives.

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And I believe over the very long term, like over the arc of a career, the longer campaigns

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are where you can feel a bigger, maybe deeper sense of accomplishment.

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It's just that it takes longer.

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And I say that as someone who has spent probably the majority of his career playing Wacomole.

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So here's a question for you.

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What's the signal that you've learned to watch for yourself that says this isn't clarity,

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it's just restlessness?

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For me, whether it's myself or some other, you know, team member or organization, for

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me, the red flag is complexity.

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When we feel we need to be busy or if someone else, you know, needs us to know that they're

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busy, I think that there's an instinct to like just start adding stuff, right?

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Even if it's just like it's sort of like a math problem where you have to show your work.

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But there's this really, really valuable work in making things simple.

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And I think that's especially true in storytelling.

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And especially in setting strategy.

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And focus takes work in the end.

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If you're successful, you get something simple and clear, but that may not look like a lot

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of work, right?

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Oh my God.

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Simple does not mean easy for sure.

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Right.

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But I think that when you think about deliverables and you think about a team member that really wants,

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you know, their manager, their superior, whatever, to know that they've done the work, I think

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that that's when I look for the complexity.

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And like, so I try to separate volume from the value of simple, clear, confident message

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that's going to resonate like that's a lot more valuable than noise and complexity.

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And again, the like showing your work aspect of it, you know, even though people think that

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reflects a lot of work.

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That's one to remember value, not volume.

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Okay.

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So, you know, what you're describing here is the discipline to resist the performance of

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work, you know, that instinct that we all have to equate effort with impact, especially when

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things are slow, which brings us to another form of strategic fidgeting, you know, not adding

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complexity, but cycling through it.

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And you know, the habit of checking dashboards, scrolling slack threads, bouncing between platforms,

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checking news reports one more time, just to feel connected to something.

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Or maybe we should say checking linked in one more time.

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You know.

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It's not just the complexity for others to see, it's the complexity that we keep feeding

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ourselves, you know, it looks like vigilance, it feels like leadership, but we're often

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not.

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It's just what we're calling room scrolling.

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And so let's talk about that.

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What room scrolling looks like and white so hard to stop.

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Yeah.

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I equate this to, this is an analogy that's going to become harder and harder as we all

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hopefully are driving electric cars, but you think of the old combustion engine and if you're

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in third gear on the highway, if you're in second gear on the freeway, like you are doing

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a ton of cycles and you are really over working.

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And I think that the skill building here is to get into fourth and fifth gear.

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So you feel more like you are cruising and you can perform at the level that you want

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to without so many cycles.

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One way that I like to think of it is to pull back before you reach an extreme, it's really

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hard and you might not even want to let anybody know that you're doing it, but the advice

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that I've given people is when you're full throttle or heading towards full throttle, you

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increase your chances of making mistakes.

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So creating those cycles is not a good strategy and I think you could burn yourself out, you

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can push somebody else too hard.

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And you lose perspective.

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And so I think that just at the other same thing at the other end of the spectrum, that's

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when you miss things or you let them slip.

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I think the healthier state, and this is not always achievable, but it's like not the middle,

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but 90% instead of 100% because I think if we're honest and like for a lot of us, 100%

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to us is like 110% in any other situation.

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And so 90% to you might feel like 100% to us.

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And at the other end of the spectrum, 25 or 30% effort to us probably feels like zero.

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And so I think of it as like holding back at the high end of the, continue the metaphor

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of the techometer, like before you hit the red, back off a little because you're doing

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yourself and your team a service by maintaining a manageable level of strain.

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Yeah.

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What's the saying?

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Sometimes good is good enough.

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I know we sometimes carry it too far, the other extreme.

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I don't look at it just honestly.

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I don't look at it as compromising on the outcome or the quality.

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Oh, absolutely right.

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Yeah.

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I think it's just about how hard you push to get there and recognizing that your instinct

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may be, as you talk about room scrolling, your instinct, maybe to just keep going over

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it more and more and more.

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And you really don't need to, if you're good enough, and if you're in that role, I think

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that you probably are.

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We have around our house, we have the saying that we've adapted from the safety announcement

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on the airplane.

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You know, they say in case of an emergency, when you know the oxygen mask, they say put your

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own mask on first and you the first time you hear that, you're like, oh my god.

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Why would you?

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But then you think like, if you don't have your own mask on, like you're not doing anybody

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any good.

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So I think that training yourself to not overdo it, looking at a problem and going, I've

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spent enough time on this.

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Like, you know, time to move on to something else is a really critical time management principle.

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I think part of it also is that we've all been taught to separate performance from outcomes

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and for good reason.

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You know, it keeps us focused on what we can control, especially when the outcome is uncertain.

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But here's where it gets tricky.

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We treat that separation like it's a straight line.

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You know, the more performance, the better the outcome and that's not always true.

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Sometimes we hit the result at 40 or 60% performance and pushing it to 80, 90 or 100% performance

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I can actually get in the way.

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That's something a Marshall Goldsmith would talk about that, you know, more performance

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doesn't always mean better outcomes.

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Sometimes the wind comes from backing off, simplifying, creating space and not from turning

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every dial up to the max.

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So I think the challenges that just staying in motion, it's knowing when to stop pushing

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and let the outcome land.

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Well, this may be tangential to, you know, what you've been thinking about here, but I think

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that sometimes when we think about coming at a problem, we have in mind the way we want

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to achieve it, right?

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Whereas you're looking for an outcome.

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And I think that if you get locked into that, that that it becomes problematic.

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It becomes problematic for you, but in more cases, it probably becomes problematic for your

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team because really you should be open to, you know, other ways of achieving it.

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And I'm trying now to apply this to what, you know, what you've been talking about, but

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the broader point here I think is it's about breaking out of habits, like habits in time

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management, habits in how we, you know, what our expectations are for productivity.

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Again, not lowering anybody's standards or expectations, but really just about how you

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come at it.

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And I think ideally if you change the way you come at work during the high pressure times,

250
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if you can, then that makes these low pressure times seem a little less anxiety inducing.

251
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Okay.

252
00:15:40,340 --> 00:15:45,420
Well, let's talk about a subtle leadership reflex that shows up during these slow cycles,

253
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especially times like now during the summer.

254
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It's another type of strategic fidgeting, which I'm calling urgentsifying, urgentsifying meaning,

255
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making it urgent.

256
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Yes, that's it, right?

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Making it urgent, it's, you know, it's when we manufacture urgency around tasks that aren't

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truly urgent just to avoid the discomfort of stillness.

259
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Now, we don't call it that.

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What we do call it is getting ahead or showing momentum, but for honest, right, we're just

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really just filling the quiet, you know, you know, we've all done it.

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You know, drafted a strategy memo from, from meetings that don't need to exist or we push

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a narrative refresh while half your team is on vacation or we launch prep work for a cross-functional

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project that no one's ready for.

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And out of it's wrong is just, you know, mis-timed, you know, the urgency isn't coming from

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the business that's coming from us.

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And here's a catch, urgentsifying looks like good leadership.

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It's structured, it's proactive, it gets praised, but at the same time, it drains resources

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that creates confusion.

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It fills the runway with motion that doesn't lead to movement.

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And sometimes what this is already saying you can do is match the moment, not by doing

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more, but by resisting the urge to create problems just so you can solve them.

273
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Yeah.

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I think somehow what you're describing, I think, is somehow people think of as a motivator.

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And, you know, this is akin to, you know, whether things are urgent or not, the, his

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phrase, like, "Oh, light a fire under them."

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Or, like, somebody needs a kick in the pants or whatever.

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Peter Drucker used to say, you know, part of being a good leader is not just being firefighter,

279
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it's also being part arsonist.

280
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And I'm thinking, "Hmm, maybe, maybe there's a little bit here."

281
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Maybe when the time's demanded, but we're talking about a period when it doesn't.

282
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I think that, that fake urgency that you're describing, yeah.

283
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First off, it's easy to spot for people at all levels.

284
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And it undermines your credibility as a leader.

285
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So I think you've got to recognize the signs in yourself and avoid doing that.

286
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It's just, it's not, especially over the long term, it's not a motivator for people.

287
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They just look at you and they go, "This person's just creating more cycles."

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And that's not a good use of my time.

289
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So you can still motivate people while acknowledging that, like, we're in good shape.

290
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And now's a good time to get some things done that we've had on our list.

291
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We didn't have the bandwidth for.

292
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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And I also think that it's a great time to provide opportunities for your team, you

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know, when we're under pressure, we delegate things we don't have time for.

295
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When you've got room to breathe, you can create, as I said, these opportunities for

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somebody that might have been really waiting for their chance to shine, but because of

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all the crazy pressure that you're normally under, they don't get the chance.

298
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So I would try to look at a period of relative quiet or a slower pace to say, look around

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and go, who might be ready to step up?

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And that's not, you know, step up because we're going to create some fake urgency, but like,

301
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here's something that maybe you can stay close to and be a mentor in that process.

302
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But I think that that's a healthier motivator, right, to say, here's something that we need.

303
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Here's something that's going to be valuable.

304
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And here's your chance to run it.

305
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Actually, that was pretty good.

306
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I was not thinking about, you know, empowering your team that way, but that's a really good

307
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solution for how to handle the moment.

308
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Some of the things that I was thinking about here were certainly, you know, we don't want

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to force momentum.

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And, you know, we should be thinking about like how to create just enough structure to

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keep things moving on your own terms.

312
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But you know, it's not about over correcting.

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It's really about choosing where to apply your energy lightly, but deliberately.

314
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So some that I've been thinking about separate from the one you mentioned is like, dang,

315
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that was good about team empowerment.

316
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It's like, where's my team?

317
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I'm not saying that's a good solution.

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But that's good.

319
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You're team deserves vacation.

320
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And you need to recharge.

321
00:19:47,140 --> 00:19:48,140
Yeah, absolutely.

322
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Okay.

323
00:19:49,140 --> 00:19:52,940
So, but the way I've been thinking about it here is that during this moment, we kind of

324
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need, I like thinking about it as using forcing functions, right?

325
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So it could be that, you know, we take, we use this time to pick a stalled initiative and

326
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we give it a quiet finish line.

327
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So fanfare, just to date, just to wrap it up or we can reframe the review, right?

328
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Or the, you know, don't say let's assess what's broken, say, let's make, here's my answer

329
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to it.

330
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Let's make next quarter easier on ourselves.

331
00:20:21,500 --> 00:20:23,740
And that is like a way of reframe.

332
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So we're using this month to learn, let's do the work now to make next quarter early easier

333
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on ourselves.

334
00:20:29,580 --> 00:20:30,580
Oh, there we go.

335
00:20:30,580 --> 00:20:31,580
Yeah.

336
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Do the work now to make it easier on ourselves.

337
00:20:33,380 --> 00:20:39,460
And of course, the, the power question, what are we afraid will happen if we stop doing

338
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this?

339
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And if no one has a good answer, you probably have permission to pause.

340
00:20:44,700 --> 00:20:45,700
Yeah.

341
00:20:45,700 --> 00:20:49,540
I think that's the dynamic I was trying to describe earlier, which is like your instinct

342
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is to look around and go like, well, I must be missing something.

343
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Like if it's not on fire, I don't, I may not know how to identify it, right?

344
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And so if I'm looking around and not seeing anything that I'm used to, then, you know,

345
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I must be doing something wrong.

346
00:21:04,180 --> 00:21:08,940
And that's, yeah, that's something where you need to get perspective and frankly, confidence

347
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that you're on top of stuff and that your team is on top of stuff.

348
00:21:11,900 --> 00:21:12,900
Absolutely.

349
00:21:12,900 --> 00:21:18,740
And the more constructive way to handle that is to, you know, start with that question

350
00:21:18,740 --> 00:21:21,020
that we often end with, which is, what am I missing?

351
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Right?

352
00:21:22,020 --> 00:21:24,020
But it's not a, I must be missing something.

353
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It's, are we missing anything here?

354
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And, you know, at this time, you'd be okay with, if you're confident in it, like, no,

355
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I don't think we are.

356
00:21:31,380 --> 00:21:34,540
I think, you know, this is just a quiet time.

357
00:21:34,540 --> 00:21:36,180
I have one last one to mention.

358
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I know everyone's going to hate it.

359
00:21:38,340 --> 00:21:41,940
And it's actually where I think it's just, you know, for people who are not willing to

360
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stick with it, they're going to revert back to strategic fidgeting and it's, it's taking

361
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time, blocking one hour of stillness, you know, not the meeting, not the brainstorm, just

362
00:21:55,620 --> 00:22:00,780
space to notice and pay attention to what matters.

363
00:22:00,780 --> 00:22:02,220
So it's not about doing more.

364
00:22:02,220 --> 00:22:07,860
It's about being selective in a season that tempts us to either over engineer or to check

365
00:22:07,860 --> 00:22:08,860
out entirely.

366
00:22:08,860 --> 00:22:11,620
So, you know, look, some are in the problem.

367
00:22:11,620 --> 00:22:15,160
The problem is mistaking silence for irrelevance.

368
00:22:15,160 --> 00:22:19,900
And, you know, the reality is we can look at this just as much as a strategic opening.

369
00:22:19,900 --> 00:22:20,900
Yeah.

370
00:22:20,900 --> 00:22:25,780
I would say also just sort of in the final thoughts category for folks who are earlier in

371
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their career, folks who are not at the top of the org chart, the quiet time, assuming

372
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you have a, you know, a leader who is open to it.

373
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And I hope you do.

374
00:22:33,540 --> 00:22:40,660
Like, the great time to show initiative by identifying some place, you know, in the organization

375
00:22:40,660 --> 00:22:45,540
or in the practices that could be improved and even just to bring it up and say, hey,

376
00:22:45,540 --> 00:22:47,580
you know what, like, we've got a little time here.

377
00:22:47,580 --> 00:22:51,100
Here's something that I've noticed we could be doing better or here's something that

378
00:22:51,100 --> 00:22:53,700
we could spend a little time on.

379
00:22:53,700 --> 00:22:57,580
You don't want to, you know, a deluge of random ideas.

380
00:22:57,580 --> 00:22:58,580
Yeah.

381
00:22:58,580 --> 00:23:04,940
You think it's a good opportunity to again show initiative if you think that it's going

382
00:23:04,940 --> 00:23:06,500
to be well received.

383
00:23:06,500 --> 00:23:12,700
But I think it's, it's just again about showing that you can do things at different places,

384
00:23:12,700 --> 00:23:15,940
show some versatility in your, in your like mode.

385
00:23:15,940 --> 00:23:20,740
Like sometimes I think we have two speeds, which is like either again, full throttle or

386
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complete idle.

387
00:23:21,740 --> 00:23:22,740
Yeah.

388
00:23:22,740 --> 00:23:27,140
And the showing strength in the middle there is, I think, something that you want to,

389
00:23:27,140 --> 00:23:27,940
you want to do is healthy.

390
00:23:28,620 --> 00:23:29,620
Yeah.

391
00:23:29,620 --> 00:23:33,700
I can think of a couple others I think that are easier and important here to do.

392
00:23:33,700 --> 00:23:38,700
One is using the time here for relationship building, you know, with members of your team

393
00:23:38,700 --> 00:23:42,380
as you're talking about empowering your team.

394
00:23:42,380 --> 00:23:46,380
I'm gritting my tea thinking about a team member coming to me with a project that we can

395
00:23:46,380 --> 00:23:47,380
do this summer.

396
00:23:47,380 --> 00:23:50,300
It's like, why don't we just focus on the relationship right now?

397
00:23:50,300 --> 00:23:51,300
I'm just getting it.

398
00:23:51,300 --> 00:23:52,300
It's a serious one.

399
00:23:52,300 --> 00:23:53,300
Yeah.

400
00:23:53,300 --> 00:23:57,060
No, I think from a, from a leadership point of view, it's a great time to say, okay, well,

401
00:23:57,060 --> 00:23:59,980
it's we have our weekly staff meeting and nothing's on fire.

402
00:23:59,980 --> 00:24:04,220
Maybe it's a really good time to just do a recap and communicate things that you have seen

403
00:24:04,220 --> 00:24:05,220
the team do well.

404
00:24:05,220 --> 00:24:10,420
Maybe something is for improvement, but I think the current term is gratitude, right?

405
00:24:10,420 --> 00:24:12,460
Which may feel a little squishy.

406
00:24:12,460 --> 00:24:13,460
Yeah.

407
00:24:13,460 --> 00:24:14,460
Oh, that's great.

408
00:24:14,460 --> 00:24:15,460
We did not work that in yet.

409
00:24:15,460 --> 00:24:16,460
But yeah, I think it's, I think it's good.

410
00:24:16,460 --> 00:24:20,980
I think it's just like if you know that your brain works better when, when you've got,

411
00:24:20,980 --> 00:24:22,820
you know, a solid agenda, right?

412
00:24:22,820 --> 00:24:27,020
And no one's putting stuff at the top of that agenda for you right now in the summertime.

413
00:24:27,020 --> 00:24:31,300
Moving up things that feel healthy, that feel team building.

414
00:24:31,300 --> 00:24:33,340
Again, we talked about empowering.

415
00:24:33,340 --> 00:24:34,340
Yep.

416
00:24:34,340 --> 00:24:38,820
I think those are things that can, that you can prioritize and scratch that, scratch that

417
00:24:38,820 --> 00:24:41,460
urge, gentzification itch.

418
00:24:41,460 --> 00:24:47,460
But make them longer term or sort of more soft skills impactful if that makes sense.

419
00:24:47,460 --> 00:24:48,460
That is awesome.

420
00:24:48,460 --> 00:24:50,220
Excellent point to end on.

421
00:24:50,220 --> 00:24:52,460
Well, that's our show for this week.

422
00:24:52,460 --> 00:24:56,020
We want to thank Shawn P Neal and the team at Advocast as well as the people forward

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00:24:56,020 --> 00:24:58,380
network for making our podcast possible.

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If you have comments or suggestions for the podcast, we'd love to hear from you.

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00:25:03,380 --> 00:25:07,980
Our email address is podcast@ocrnetwork.com.

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00:25:07,980 --> 00:25:11,940
Communication breakdown is some production of the Observatory and Corporate Reputation.

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00:25:11,940 --> 00:25:13,180
I'm Craig Carroll.

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And I'm Steve Dowling.

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Thanks for listening.

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00:25:15,180 --> 00:25:15,820
We'll see you next week.

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[MUSIC]

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#StrategicLeadership #CorporateCommunications #CrisisPrevention #TimeManagement #TeamEmpowerment #WorkplaceWellbeing #ShawnPNeal #AdvoCast #OCRNetwork

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