Witting Partners

🤢 You may not have soaked your audience in human waste today...but there's a good chance your words & actions have unwittingly made a few of your stakeholders nauseous in the last 24 hours.

So take a moment to dive into this conversation about the "Dave Matthews Band Chicago River incident" of August 8, 2004 and apply 5 tips from today's vomit-inducing anniversary that will help you shift from nauseating to energizing:

1) 𝐀𝐯𝐨𝐢𝐝 𝐓𝐨𝐱𝐢𝐜 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐃𝐮𝐦𝐩𝐬: From late-night, non-urgent email requests to evasive-sounding conversations filled with hollow "corporate-sounding" clichés, the easiest way to mitigate the impact of toxic communication releases is to avoid them in the first place

2) 𝐋𝐚𝐲 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐫 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭: If you don't stop the ripple effect of toxic rumors among your gossiping front-line leaders, it can cause far more damage than a leaking pipeline or an overflowing tank

3) 𝐅𝐢𝐥𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐑𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬: Revisit your recent emails, meetings, phone calls, etc. and give them an emoji-based "nausea rating" from 1 to 5, where 1 nauseated face (🤢) represents minimal vomit-inducing language; and 5 nauseated faces (🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢) is on par with dumping 800 pounds of human waste on an unsuspecting group of tourists

4) 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐓𝐨𝐱𝐢𝐜 𝐌𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐬: transform corporate fluff into relevant and actionable messages BEFORE your audience starts coming up with their own (mis-)translations

5) 𝐂𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐧 𝐔𝐩 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐌𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐬: Whether it's a band who dumps human waste into a river, an company who has an inadvertent release, or a manager who suffers a flare-up of foot-in-mouth disease, owning up to mishaps and rectifying them swiftly gives you a chance to avoid leaving a permanently bad taste in stakeholders' mouths.

All that being said, you can get a taste of other (less nauseating) episodes of 'The Energy Detox' and watch/hear/read/share today's episode by visiting this link: https://www.wittingpartners.com/the-energy-detox/nauseating-leadership

Is your adherence to the ‘Golden Rule’ tarnishing your reputation?

If so, you’re likely committing these 2 common mistakes:

1) Assuming that what others want "done unto them" is the same thing you want "done unto you"

2) Equating what your stakeholders WANT with what your stakeholders NEED

Keep making those mistakes and your reputation will inevitably shift from that of a “kind and caring” leader to that of an “out-of-touch and ineffective” (and perhaps “former”) manager.