Recently, in email communication with the alumni department of my prestigious alma mater, the London School of Economics & Political Science, I was asked a relevant question, given the reality of the COVID-19 pandemic.
As the selected ‘Alum of the Month’ for May 2020, I was invited to share my insights from a communication perspective on how leaders could motivate their teams. I was asked the question below:
“The COVID-19 pandemic has shaken normal modes of communication to the core. What is your advice for business leaders to communicate, motivate and encourage productivity across their teams during the COVID-19 crisis?”
My overarching advice was simple:
Communicate with empathy, then keep your messaging simple, brief, and clear.
Regarding the new reality where the COVID-19 pandemic has crippled economies and caused human suffering, effective communication has become crucial in tackling misinformation and providing hope.
Moreover, since face-to-face communication is no longer advisable because of recommended social distancing, business leaders must increasingly communicate virtually. This poses an obvious challenge: without the benefit of discerning nonverbal cues of people in interpersonal communication, how can you ensure that your speeches, presentations, workshops, lectures or other activities that you deliver virtually will be effective?
Now it won’t be easy to keep team members motivated when they’re working from home because of numerous distractions (think of families, pets, and devices). Yet, the need to connect with others hasn’t changed. Therefore, showing empathy, especially during crises is imperative if you want your messages to resonate with your virtual audiences to spur collaboration.
Below are five tips business leaders should consider when seeking to motivate teams and keep them productive during the COVID-19 pandemic.
1) Use short video messages to reassure people
In addition to regular emails or official statements, consider releasing occasional videos. These needn’t be professionally produced, but they should be clear with excellent sound. Ideally, videos should be no longer than two minutes.
In the first video, you should acknowledge the unique situation your company is facing due to the pandemic, and briefly state the facts. Then list steps to tackle issues and explain why those measures are necessary.
Subsequent video messages should provide updates to convince people that you care about their concerns. Communicate using simple language and short sentences to ease understanding. Above all, be transparent – admit your limitations but reassure people you’re committed to following through on recommendations. Being ‘exposed’ on video makes you relatable and increases trust. When people trust you, they’re more willing to support your plans.
2) Be mindful of your nonverbal cues in virtual communication
In virtual meetings or conferences, realise that good posture is benefiting of your position – so sit up straight with feet ‘planted’ on the ground. You’d want to project confidence and firmness.
Keep your body in an ‘open’ position: use open arm/hand gestures, especially around the navel region. Nonverbal communication experts believe such gestures boost trust and credibility.
Your tone of voice also matters, so vary your tone to add ‘drama’ to your words, and to signal authority. Nevertheless, use pauses because they accentuate your points and make your listeners pay attention.
Smile reassuringly when appropriate and always end with a positive outlook. This creates a we’re-all-in-this-together bond that inspires people to ‘own’ proposed solutions.
For more tips on using nonverbal cues to communicate effectively during Zoom or other video conferencing calls, this article gives suggestions on using facial expressions, upper body posture, and gestures. Other considerations to note include sound quality and setting up your workspace at home.
3) Engage with teams members in meetings
For scheduled meetings or workshops with Zoom, Microsoft Teams or other video conferencing software, first, ensure that all tech issues are handled. Then train participants to use the systems.
As the host, you should engage attendees early in the process.
One way to keep your team members attentive during a critical meeting is to make it a requirement for their videos to be switched on so that you can observe their actions. Also, let them know at the beginning that you’d call on people to contribute to the discussion or to ask questions. Nevertheless, realise that ‘Zoom fatigue’ is a growing concern. Therefore, before you mandate video meetings for every issue and insist on seeing attendees online, reassess whether those meetings are necessary.
Another technique to coax participation is to ask team members for their opinions by taking polls. Then encourage them to type their questions or comments in the chat section. By monitoring the chat thread, you’d be able to tweak your content to make it more relevant to the issues at stake.
Still, you could go a step further by including a ‘break-out’ session to get attendees to do a brief activity in groups, say for 20 minutes. Afterwards, they would return to the main meeting to list their recommendations.
Finally, for longer sessions, remember to check in with team members after 10 minutes of speaking to ensure that you’re all on the same page.
Engaged team members become valuable collaborators.
4) State clear calls-to-action
To ensure that you achieve the goal of the virtual meeting, ask for specific support or clearly state what you’d like people to do.
For example, you could insist that meetings don’t exceed 45 minutes. You could also state that immediately afterwards, the moderator should email participants their tasks with timelines for completion. Avoid vagueness or ambiguity, and provide details that would help your teams do what you ask.
Always be simple, brief, and clear with your communication, especially during this pandemic where virtual communication has replaced physical interactions.
In an article on how leaders communicate effectively during the COVID-19 crisis, communications coach and bestselling author Carmine Gallo explains the clear messaging used by Governor Cuomo of New York (a city gravely hit by the pandemic). Cuomo’s stance was unambiguous and powerful: “Stay Home. Stop the Spread. Save Lives.”
5) Be understanding
Despite the best of intentions, some work issues might fall through the cracks over time. Be understanding and realise that your team members may have families to care for and children to homeschool during this lockdown.
So, unless there’s a serious concern about productivity, or critical tasks being completed poorly or ignored, be realistic in your expectations. If staff believe you to be fair, they’d willingly communicate their concerns and offer options to get things done. Avoid giving ultimatums as these would breed resistance and distrust, which will diminish the quality of work done – if done at all.
Conclusion
We’re all figuring things out in this unusual situation that’s become the new normal. Consequently, the ‘rules of engagement’ in corporateville have changed.
Thus, how business leaders communicate, and why they do what they do, will determine whether their teams will respond positively for the collective good.
Echoing my response to the London School of Economics, business leaders should note one important point:
In this COVID-19 era, the most effective leader is one who strives to communicate simply, briefly, and clearly in virtual channels, with a dose of empathy. No other skill will be as valuable in motivating people to take the desired action.
Over to you:
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N.B: First image is courtesy of Ar130405 via Pixabay. Second image is courtesy of Renjith Krishnan via Freedigitalphotos.net. Third image is courtesy of Gerd Altmann via Pixabay. Final image is courtesy of Sayyid 96 via Pixabay.