Honor the Obvious
Keynotes and board presentations tend to focus on the positive and minimize the negative. With a goal to excite, and to focus on the positive while minimizing the negative, a speaker usually plays to strength rather than weakness. After all, isn’t this the way to promote power, control, leadership, and trust? Actually, no. While the instinct is reasonable, the result of delivering the goods without recognizing the bads undercuts rather than enhances authority. Acknowledging errors is a sign of strength.
Lay your cards on the table
It's likely everyone in the room already knows all about the most recent concern or crisis; they're just waiting to hear from us what happened, why, and what's to be done about it. When a speaker ignores or discounts the issue at hand – the elephant in the room everyone sees but no one wants to discuss – it reads as fear, ego, or a lethal combination of both.
Only by pointing directly to the elephant, honoring the obvious, can we assume responsibility and demonstrate control of both the crisis at hand and the unwavering commitment to deal with it head-on.
The top question in a listener's mind is what's about to change for them thanks to their time with us. They know where things stand on the way into the session or meeting; what they hope to discover is how we can assure they'll be better off tomorrow. What didn't happen that should have? What mistakes were made that won’t be made again? Why is this talk different rather than just another unsupported or unwarranted attempt at sunshine in a continuing rain storm?
Excuses never work
Honoring the obvious begins with creating a culture of accountability. When a leader is unflinchingly honest in admitting weakness, they cultivate an environment where directors, managers, and employees are equally comfortable with honesty, transparency, and commitment to continuous improvement. This is a top-down effort and must be demonstrated in order to be reflected.
Actively addressing mistakes includes apologizing for them, then sharing the solutions revealed as a result of failure. Excuses never work; we want to embrace errors – whether they're ours or others' – and expose our collective pain as a connection point the audience can recognize and respect.
As leaders, our prime directive is to create meaningful change for our audience. In order to change their lives for the better, we have to acknowledge why we didn't already do it before now. “Yes, deadlines were missed, but now we know how to assure we'll never miss them again.” “I'm truly sorry and take full responsibility for our weak time to market; but it taught us how to increase our process flow, so we’re in perfect position to win the next opportunity.” “The embarrassing truth is that we failed to scale, and because of that valuable experience we've added flexibility protocols to emerge better and more responsive than ever before.”
Bottom Line
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become an unfortunate political hot button of late, but its underlying intent remains unavoidably important. Part of CSR is to guide ethical behavior and consistent follow-through on commitments to the core business strategy and operations. Owning up to missteps is paramount in winning #CorporateStorytelling.
Novelist James Lane Allen said, "Adversity does not build character—it reveals it." A speaker can Lead With VALUE™ by sharing the value in disappointment, then assuring renewed clarity and commitment to a better future based on its lessons. We already recognize the obvious; it’s when we honor it, own it, and conquer it for the benefit of all that we reveal our true ability to lead.
Acknowledge the elephant in the room. Do it early and aggressively. The longer it takes us to state the obvious, the more doubt we sow in our listener, and the less confidence they’ll have in our ability to guide them to a stronger outcome.
