Clear and Kind

I'm finding that so much of what I'm reading comes back to this simple (but also something that is SO HARD to do well) idea that in the middle of change, clarity is one of the kindest things a leader can give.

Adam Grant, talking with Adi Ignatius and Alison Beard on the HBR IdeaCast in Why Great Teams Don't Need to Like Each Other, made the case that a shared purpose predicts how a team performs better than whether the team likes one another. In his words, "A great team and a great organization is made up of allies, but being pals or companions is optional." (spoiler alert...a good ol' fashioned corporate pizza party doesn't fix everything) He is not saying skip the connection, he is saying alignment comes first. As he puts it, "I think the goal is to be both clear and kind." Clear and kind. Not clear or kind, which is where most of us default when things get hard.

Brené Brown, in an episode of The Curiosity Shop, answers questions from her LinkedIn community, and two things she covers also double down on this point. One is how "work slop" drains leaders' mental energy, and how to tell polished output from real understanding. The other is Aiko Bethea's idea, which Brené shares, that "transformation requires grief." That is the one I would expand on, because I think it is the missing piece in how we announce and approach change. Let's walk through two ways a leader could open the same conversation around change. The first: "We are moving to a new system next quarter and everyone will be expected to use it. Questions can go in the project channel." Clear, sure. The second: "We are changing how we do this work, and here is why. Here is what is staying the same, here is what is going away, and I know for some of you that is a real loss. Here is what I don't know yet, and here is when I expect to." Same facts. The second one is clear and kind, and it is the one where people can actually hear the rest of what you say. I would argue most of the resistance we label as "change fatigue" is unspoken grief that nobody gave a name to.

In The AI Era Needs Better, Not Fewer Managers, as Leadership Demands Grow, Study Finds, the Fair Play Talks editorial team reports on a Betterworks survey of 521 senior HR and business leaders in the US and UK. More than 80% said managers' responsibilities have grown over the past three years, and only 10% think AI will make managers less important. As the article puts it, "If AI is not giving managers capacity back somewhere, it is adding to their workload." We are asking managers to be the clear and kind voice through all of this change. I would argue you cannot process change and the grief associated, or even begin to have a thoughtful conversation about it in the ten minutes between back-to-back meetings. If we want leaders to say the harder, kinder version, we have to give them the room and tools to do it.

Pause and reflect

As we head into the weekend, take a minute to think about a few things.

1. 01Think of the last change you announced, or the last one announced to you. Did it say what is staying, what is going away, and what nobody knows yet, or just the tool and the date? Try rewriting the first two sentences.
2. 02What is one thing in a change that you're currently navigating that is a real loss for someone, like a routine, a role, or a way of working? Have you said it out loud yet? Pick one person you can say it to next week.
3. 03If you lead managers, what is one meeting, approval, or report you could take off their plate so they have room for the harder conversations? If you are a manager, which one would you ask to cut?

"I think the goal is to be both clear and kind."

Have a great weekend!

Andrea

Full transparency, I’m not the source of these ideas. Every week I pull together what I’m reading, listening to, and learning from some of the smartest voices in leadership and AI, and I tag every one so you can go to the source (please do). What I like to do is connect the dots on what I’m seeing out in the world.