Articulating the Vision - Role #5 - Part 2

Odd numbers in our episodes always discuss small business or entrepreneur’s leadership. Yes, even if you have no team you are still leading through your presence on social media and have followers whom you influence. In this episode, Martin reflects on his own leadership while Ghadah attempt to facilitate understanding articulation in its six forms as described in the previous episode. The issue of social media and live chat or speaking live is tackled in detail as well as other details like the message structure and context or background. 

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Transcript

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Introducer: 0:03

Welcome to this podcast series on Neocharismatic leadership with author, leadership expert and coach Dr. Ghadah Angawi. And executive leader Martin Hedley, where they will both explore the recently published book, Neo charismatic leadership, and the coaching topics it covers.

Martin Hedley: 0:30

In this episode, we will delve into the implicit message leaders send in small organisations, entrepreneurial or community situations, given messages regarding new vision in organisations, large and small. I can say from my own experience that what I did was really no different. However, the timescales of what I did were very different. For example, when I led the massive change in the major international bank, I mentioned earlier in series one, it took almost nine months from the time I signalled the new goal, to having all the teams and players on board with me and ready to go. The first time I did the same thing in a small organisation. It was an entrepreneurial team of about 10 people. And the time from the first signal to having everybody on board and asking for clarity was about one month. So I found myself behind very quickly, right. However, even though the big team and the bank were ready to go, it still took a lot of persuasion and encouragement to actually get people going.

Ghadah Angawi: 1:35

Yeah, the size of the organisation itself.

Martin Hedley: 1:37

And in the small organisation, that was hardly an issue at all. So clearly, one has to consider the scope of the organisation and you know, how many people are you trying to move with you. So a Neocharismatic leader in a small organisation needs to plan for a very quick transition, and needs to be ready to articulate the details pretty quickly. Yeah, you might even have it ready with you when you first start, just so you're not caught out like I was the first time.

Ghadah Angawi: 2:05

So how do leaders as social change agents articulate their vision? Let's examine this Martin. Let's look at some examples from ourmencounters, from your encounter from our experiences. And hopefully, our listeners will have ideas that they can send to us later, and we can expand on them.

Martin Hedley: 2:27

Okay, here's the main difference in a social organisation. When I say organisation, it could just be a group of people who are trying to agitate for change, it doesn't have to be a formalised group. But in that situation, you know, people are not reliant on making the change to maintain their jobs, which is the typical situation in the corporation. These are people that can come with you, if they choose, or can drop off if they choose to, as well. So not only has the vision got to be very clear, and you have to be very happy that they understand where you're going. That continual engagement is not to get them moving. The continual engagement and articulation is to keep them motivated and stay with you. So, that is quite different. For the smaller organisation. Yes, particularly for social organisations and for change organisations. My best advice here is to articulate segments of the goal and the vision, and just help people get started. Because the methods and the activities that you do to get to the vision may very well change, depending on how your organisation or your group is seen by the outside world. And if you're just fighting constantly, you know, the outside world tends to push back very hard. But if you're integrating into the outside world, that is a much better way of having it adopt your idea.

Ghadah Angawi: 4:05

And this is very much relates to what we spoke last time, that your intention, your passion, how you compelled to go forward personally, is an articulation itself. And I think in this stage of the business, the Small Business we're talking about or the social movement, this plays a really big role that you articulate by yourself, by your intentions by your emotions, regardless of the words.

Martin Hedley: 4:35

Yes, you do. And the first time I started working in small organisations, I thought this was very wasteful. Because and perhaps because I have an engineering background, you know, I try and do things in a very efficient and logical manner. But I thought, okay, so I'm explaining to people, I'm letting them try it. They're coming back and they're asking questions, and it seems like we're constantly going around this cycle, but of course, what I wasn't realising at first was this is very powerful, what is happening is they are getting a much better common understanding of what the goal is and how to get there. And so my encouragement of their discomfort and discovery, if you like, was in fact, what was helping us all get to the same point. And that really took some learning for me.

Ghadah Angawi: 5:26

So there is a mixture here between formulating a shared vision and articulating the vision, you're doing both roles simultaneously. And in a cyclic way, getting feedback from the people and then moving into another step. But in the same time, you're not moving very far, it seems like you're not moving at all, especially for the beginning. It seems like you're just this is your own main job just sitting there and talking to people.

Martin Hedley: 5:57

Yes, and for me, this was one of the very difficult things to learn that, you know, I typically am like a puppy with a new bone when I get a new idea. I mean, there's nothing in the world, but my new bone. And everything has to work towards that. In reality, what happens, as I say is this delay, as people are beginning to fit themselves into the articulation of the vision is, in fact, essential. And patience can be a virtue, it can also be a problem if you let it go too far. So I wish there was a marker where I could say, okay, when you get to this point, you've gone far enough, there isn't one, you have to be smart enough to sense the team. And the way I have done that more successfully in recent years than than when I first started was to start pushing the team and watching what happened. And if the team started to move in the right direction, I let that flow, and then I started to push again. But when the team started to push back, then I immediately stopped, and then got more personally involved, then to see what the discomfort level was, because maybe I had missed something. Or maybe the team is missing something. But if there is a mismatch, that has to be eliminated before the team can successfully move on towards the vision.

Ghadah Angawi: 7:13

Yeah, the picture that comes to my mind is a group dance, where there is a person, or they're all holding hands, and there is the leader at the front of the line who kind of leads the dance. But then they sense if someone is tripping or someone is slower, so they can slow their movement, and they're watching constantly other people behind them and around them, so that they make sure that it doesn't falter or, you know, goes wrong. That's amazing.

Martin Hedley: 7:42

And it's interesting, you use that example because that's a very physical example, that's people being physically connected through holding hands, the leader, the new charismatic leader is going to be engaged, they're going to be a person who is walking the same walk as the followers and the others. Once people know that you're willing to walk with them, and to talk with them as you go, then you can get away over time with more text and perhaps audio conversations where you're not present. But initially you really got to build this, when in doubt, always use person to person communication.

Ghadah Angawi: 8:23

So here comes the spoken words which is the articulation that happens through words and the way you speak your emotions, the way you speak your commands if I want to say commands or what you want them to do, it has to be mixed with empathetic listening, which is what we spoke about in the prerequisites of the Neocharismatic leader. These are all important things to factor so where does the space go in this area? Remember we spoke about space physical space does that happen when we are in this kind of leadership?

Martin Hedley: 9:00

Oh yes, it does. And it happens in a very

Ghadah Angawi: 9:02

A library, for instance, a local library, yeah? different way from large corporations as the smaller corporations just don't have the money and small groups may have no assets whatsoever, they may just meet in a park, or they may be meeting in a coffee shop it doesn't really matter. Let's say for example this is becoming quite common in the Western world isn't it, that a group will meet in a coffee shop and they'll discuss their plans and then they go off and work on them? It's good to find a location I mean, the leader should be considering Okay, to what kind of coffee shop should we go to, do we go to one where there is a sort of collaborative layout to the furniture, maybe a few large tables, a few breakout group areas near things so if the team can get in there, they can use that space quite effectively. Other things are for example, if you're going to discuss things that are secret, you know, commercial secrets that you don't want too many people to, to understand. Do you have this nice area, but In a place located where others can't really hear or see what's going on.

Martin Hedley: 10:08

That would be great, especially when they have meeting rooms that you can talk in, right. But you know that outside, it's going to be quiet and everybody is going to be busy with other things, and certainly not interested in you. Now, when it comes to activities in the open air, you know, when it's summertime, and you can get out into into the parks and things like that, I tend to use the change from a building to nature, as a way to signal we want to look at something a little bit more differently, a little bit more organically, if you like. So there's a subliminal message when you go out into the field, or into a park or something like that, is it you're in back in a natural environment. And I find people tend to be more creative there. Not everyone, but but most people tend to think of that as a physical space. That was not created by man, it was created, and is there for enjoyment.

Ghadah Angawi: 11:13

That's interesting. Yeah, that's very interesting. I want to take you to another area. Okay. A lot of people in the social media and in, you know, small businesses, they have to come on camera, and talk to the audience who they don't know, would you consider this a kind of articulation? And how can we help people if it is, understand that Neocharismatic leaders, especially those who are not used to it, let's say they want to start a business, but they're from an old school, they don't believe in going on camera and then talking to the camera.

Martin Hedley: 11:57

That's a very important point. Because to some extent, you've got to think, who is your audience, who is listening to you who is likely to be following you? So if you're very old school, and that sort of implies, you have some age, like myself, right? If I'm just talking with other people of my age, then, you know, being on the camera, and using social media, etc, is not so important. But you know, especially with what I'm doing currently, I'm working with youngsters who are coming out of the education environment and going into work for the first time. So their life is completely different to what my life was when I was in my late teens and early 20s. If I need to communicate to them, and I do then I have to learn how to do things, I have to learn to be sometimes a bit silly on social media, I have sometimes to learn new ways of getting messages across. And I have to learn to do it in very short, sharp segments. Yeah, because they used to the sound bite they used to the sound bite, they don't want a volume horror novel.

Ghadah Angawi: 13:07

Or on Instagram, now you have 15 seconds on reels, to deliver a message in 15 seconds. Yes, 15 seconds, 240 characters, all of these things are just forcing us In that 15 second, you have to say something. The space says something where you exist on camera, your pews, your your body language says something. And your emotion says something, you're actually gathering four means of articulation in 15 seconds. How challenging can that be?

Martin Hedley: 13:41

It's very challenging, and what I recommend to anybody who does have a little more experience, shall we say is that there are lots of training videos that are mainly unofficial. But you go onto YouTube and you can find training videos on everything, and use these training videos to learn some of the techniques and then just start playing with your social sites. For example, we all understand email these days, but Instagram, Tik Tok, you name it, these may be the ways that you're going to get to your people and just try it out. I don't think the followers care whether you're perfect at it, in fact, they wouldn't expect you to be perfect at it. They might even laugh at you and say, oh look the dinosaurs using Instagram, but and let them have their fun, but they do recognise the fact that wow, the dinosaurs actually trying to use Instagram. That's impressive. Right? And that is a perfect example of how a Neocharismatic leader fits in with the crowd and helps articulate the vision.

Ghadah Angawi: 14:46

Yeah, I personally found that going live on Instagram or Facebook is one of the easiest way to crack that confidence barrier. You can experiment try it doesn't get recorded. You don't have to publish it. You can just go and there is no one, there is one or two people, or you can invite your friends from, people you know, and experiment with it and play with it. Or you can just record yourself on your phone, get a tripod, find a spot in your office or your home office, where you can record yourself, you can put some background music, play with those video programmes, and as time passes, you will gain confidence, it's not necessarily something you have to do every day. But if you do that once in a while and have few of these up and running, or you have a YouTube channel, that is really helpful for your presence for who you are, because people want to see you in action, especially the young generation, the millennials, in the coming, Generation Z is going to be like this. And they want to see, if you want to be an influential leader, for your organisation, whether it's social or corporate, you really have to talk to everyone in that organisation

Martin Hedley: 16:00

You do and you have to do a lot of learning very, very quickly. So you by way of example, Ghadah, this is the first podcast that I've actually co produced this one with you. And I've been interviewed on a number of podcasts before but you know, the co-producing is a totally different experience, isn't it. And it's not natural to somebody who has done traditional business for years and years. But here I am doing it and really after the first and second episodes and everything, it becomes very, very straightforward.

Ghadah Angawi: 16:30

I like to share as well that for me, it's the first time I do an episode in English because my original episode is in Arabic. And it's easier for me to do it in Arabic, because I didn't have to prepare anything. But here, I have to prepare and sometimes I stutter or stumble. And as you know, this is fine. And we're here talking about articulation and we're telling people, your listeners about how we feel our stories. And how we made this podcast work.

Martin Hedley: 16:58

Yes, the message here is, it doesn't matter, you don't have to be a trained actor or actress. You don't have to have voice. Well, they have voice trainers, don't they? You don't need that. What you do need to do is be genuine and get that message out to people and get it out and get it out and get it out. That's what articulated vision.

Ghadah Angawi: 17:20

Yeah, true. Thank you so much for for saying that. I think we are getting too close to the end of our episode. But is there anything else Martin, you would like to add regarding articulating the vision?

Martin Hedley: 17:34

Yeah, I just like to close by saying if you are uncomfortable when you're in a position of leadership, with using some of these new techniques of getting the message out, and not to be worried about it, because you're giving a new message, which hopefully has some level of hope and aspiration in it. And the other people who are listening to you do not have that yet, they don't have that knowledge. So in fact, you're still going to look quite credible, when you're explaining this to them. And that's important to recognise. But the greatest artists throughout history have always used stories and comparisons in little segments to make sure people start to build an understanding of the topic. So when you're articulating and frankly, this is true for people in large corporations as well. Use stories, use parables, use similes, and these are the things that people talk about. And when they talk about it, they remember. And so when you come back, they now have a more broad understanding of where you're going. And then you can add more.

Ghadah Angawi: 18:40

Very true. Thank you.

Martin Hedley: 18:43

So indeed, that is all we have time for this episode. Guys.

Ghadah Angawi: 18:47

That was great. Wonderful.

Martin Hedley: 18:49

Yes, we've given our listeners a lot to think about already, I think in these first two episodes, so we'll get back with every one and two more weeks.

Ghadah Angawi: 18:58

Yes, thank you very much for listening goodbye.

Martin Hedley: 19:01

Consider what we have brought to you and don't forget to engage with us on social platforms, or on the website. Goodbye

Introducer: 19:09

Ghadah and Martin, hope you enjoyed this episode. There is more information available at Neocharismaticleadership.org. And if you would like to discuss coaching or training for yourself or your team, you can contact Ghadah and Martin through the website. We look forward to your participation next week. Until then, goodbye