The Power of Communication: Skills to Build Trust, Inspire Loyalty and Lead Effectively

Citation

(2013), "The Power of Communication: Skills to Build Trust, Inspire Loyalty and Lead Effectively", Human Resource Management International Digest, Vol. 21 No. 7. https://doi.org/10.1108/HRMID.04421gaa.002

The Power of Communication: Skills to Build Trust, Inspire Loyalty and Lead Effectively

Article Type: Suggested reading From: Human Resource Management International Digest, Volume 21, Issue 7

Helio Fred Garcia,
FT Press, 2012, ISBN: 9780132888841

The Power of Communication, by Helio Fred Garcia, offers lessons in crisis management and communication, not only for C-suite incumbents but also for all stakeholders who have an interest in the success of the organization. When crisis looms, this book guides on how to pre-empt it. When prevention is not possible, the text counsels on how to mitigate a disastrous aftermath.

The book also underscores the importance of defining a strategic goal and determining how to use communication to achieve it. The book’s three-part framework clarifies and codifies how to do so: through leadership and communication, leadership and strategy and building skills.

Drawing on extensive behavioral knowledge, the chapters are replete with insights to guide speakers who can succeed strategically only by enlisting support for their values and vision. The author depicts communication as an essential skill for enacting organizational strategy. By heeding Helio Fred Garcia’s counsel, the reader can become an “habitually strategic” communicator and a successful change facilitator.

One leitmotif revolves around using empathy so that audiences will internalize a speaker’s goals. Communicators must appreciate an audience’s perspective before they can be persuasive about the worth of their own strategy. The author reminds readers that an obsessive focus on desired outcomes can blind policymakers to the means of getting there. The premise is simple but powerful: success depends on what others think of the leader’s message. A related point of emphasis is the notion of communication as a bilateral process. It behoves speakers to remember that minds cannot be commanded; they must be persuaded.

Another recurrent theme is the importance of adaptive leadership. While the goal must be clear and constant, the path to its attainment is nimble and nuanced. For example, lowering expectations can result in better reception of a speech by preventing the disconnection of rhetoric from reality.

The variety of the author’s many examples is evidence of the reach of his message. They include Senator McCain’s botched assessment of the US economy, Bill Gates’ description of his home, Netflix’s flawed customer dialog, Home Depot’s truncated shareholder meeting, the shooting by a marine in a Fallujah mosque, David Letterman’s admission of his indiscretions and the failure to explain the virtues of Obamacare. For the most part these timely vignettes are effective as are the personal anecdotes interspersed throughout the text.

While the book’s observations are useful, anyone versed in the leadership literature will be familiar with the importance of role reversal to understand how the audience sees itself, the burning-building/promised-land platform to galvanize change and the concept of trust as a function of the interaction between character and competence.

In fairness, though, there are also areas where the author’s elucidation is clearly valuable. One example is his discussion of first-mover advantage. He explains how companies and individuals who might otherwise be branded “perps” can use first-mover advantage to define the context. By pre-empting the argument and skilfully presenting the facts, leaders can mitigate the likelihood of being wholly blamed for something that is only partly or not at all their fault. The author prudently underscores the necessity of prompt shaping of public perceptions; people will not empathize with what they do not comprehend.

In some respects the level of how-to detail of the final section seems a bit incongruous with the weighty and lofty concepts of the sections that precede it. Nonetheless, the final section gives excellent guidelines for audience engagement. The author covers visual cues, the importance of first impressions, the conveyance of presence and gravitas through physical gesture, the supportive role of “props” and a host of other valuable suggestions. Here he sounds like a one-on-one leadership communications coach – a role he has played for many major US corporations.

Reviewed by David P. Boyd, professor of management and organizational development at North-Eastern University Business School.

A longer version of this review was originally published in Strategy & Leadership, Vol. 41 No. 1, 2013.