Smart and Soulful Language
Skills for Leaders
By Kirsteen MacLeod
Queen’s University Industrial Relations Centre
Communications Team
What, you may ask, is a yawp — and what does it have to
do with being able to communicate well as a leader? Senior
managers who participated in a day-long Queen's Industrial
Relations Centre custom program found themselves considering
this recently.
Let's begin with an explanation of “yawp”: it means
“to bark or yelp.” A “barbaric yawp” is featured in a
scene from The Dead Poets Society , in which an
unorthodox English professor (actor Robin Williams) gives an
assignment that terrifies his shyest student. He wants each
person to write a poem and then recite it in front of the
class. When the shy student says he didn't write the assigned
poem, Mr. Keating writes a line from poet Walt Whitman on the
blackboard — “I sound my barbaric yawp.” Then, evoking
the spirit of Whitman, Keating uses leadership coaching skills
to help the boy to “yawp” and move beyond his resistance
to create something original.
Okay, that brings us to the connection between barbaric
yawping and leadership communications. The scene I have just
described was one of four clips that Queen's IRC trainers
played for senior managers who were participating in the
custom communications program. Each clip focused on one of the
four key responsibilities of good leader/communicators: to
ignite peoples' imagination; to invite them to participate in
the enterprise; to inform them of the issues and facts; and to
involve people by soliciting input and breaking imaginary
barriers (the yawp example). In short, the four I's.
In a very dramatic way, the clips clarified the critical
role that leaders play in getting messages across and bringing
about change. Participants were energized, setting the stage
for two afternoon sessions to help them improve their
leadership communications skills — a writing workshop and a
presenting workshop.
During the afternoon writing session, I was surprised to
notice some participants seemed to be back to where had been
at the beginning of the program: with doubts about the
importance of leadership communications. When I began to talk
about ways that good writing skills can support leaders in
each of their four key roles, referring back to the film clips
they'd seen earlier, one participant said: “Yes, that's fine
when you are encouraging someone to yawp, or leading an army,
but what has this really got to do with me in sewage
services?”
We all had a good laugh: it was comical to picture Robin
Williams using his over-the-top coaching technique to help
staff members to find a new way to achieve productivity gains
in municipal waste services. Okay, I said, you may not be
saving the world. But you are doing something important,
something that adds value to our society, and the principles
of good communications are the same for you as they are for
any other leader. If you can say it or write it well –
clearly and in a compelling way – people are more likely to
hear your message, and be influenced. We may not receive
Academy Awards, but we can learn a lot from these leadership
examples, extracting useful ideas about how to communicate
better in everyday life.
Leaders don't always seem to realize that the way they
communicate makes a huge difference: both to their ability to
lead and to the lives of the people who work for them. It is
as though we get so task-focused and pragmatic that we forget
all about the strategic, visionary aspect of leadership
communications. Yet words are capable of influencing change,
and are a potent strategic tool for taking control of
communications, instead of just reacting.
Good leader/communicators have great power to:
- Help to focus people on what's important
- Minimize speculation
- Create a sense of community
- Foster acceptance and ownership, and
- Keep people moving forward toward common goals.
There is a lot of untapped leadership communications
potential out there. That's why in upcoming columns, we plan
to apply the principle of the barbaric yawp to break some
boundaries and help unleash some of it. Just as Mr. Keating
evoked the spirit of Walt Whitman, we plan to summon the
powers of good storytelling, poetry, and figurative language
to help you improve your skill as leader-communicators.
Communications techniques are changing, reflecting today's
greater emphasis on authenticity, self awareness and
relationships in business environments. We want to show you
how the smart and soulful use of language will help you win
your employees' minds and hearts, and make you a leading force
for positive change within your organization.
But for now, we'll sign off with a thought-provoking Yawp
for the Day:
The mass of people, within our society or within our
corporations, are not primarily motivated by what is rational.
It is the emotional, the appeal to self-esteem, the spirit
that is the prime mover.
— Lawrence Miller, American Spirit: Visions of New
Corporate Culture
SIDEBAR: TIMED WRITING EXERCISES :
Let's try a quick “timed writing.” Like exercising or
playing musical scales, timed writings build your abilities
when done regularly: they will help you write more quickly,
and with more ease and focus.
- Get a pen and paper. Make sure you won't be interrupted
for 10 minutes. Now think for a moment about the writing
you do in your job. How do you feel about your writing
skills? Are you comfortable when preparing memos or other
materials, or not particularly? What are some specific
challenges you face relating to written communications in
your job? (Perhaps you felt unable to convey your message
clearly or in an interesting way – or even elated
because you could.) How would you like to improve your
writing skills?
- Now take five minutes to write down how you feel about
writing in your job and what you'd like to be able to do
better — without stopping to think or taking your
pen from the paper to edit. Feel free to go anywhere
you want with this: even if you end up writing about how
you feel as you are doing the exercise, or veer totally
off track – wherever you end up is fine. There is no
right answer. What's important is that you don't stop
writing for the full five minutes.
As an easy way to improve your skills, make timed writings
a habit for writing you do in your job. Here's how:
- Choose whatever length of time you feel is appropriate
to your writing task (perhaps five or ten minutes). For
example, I chose five minutes to write the first draft of
this exercise. You can use timed writings as a way to get
down a first draft of short materials such as memos, or
even to map out a structure for long reports.
- Get a pen and paper, and make sure you won't be
interrupted during your writing time. Close your door;
call forward your phone — whatever it takes.
- Now think a few moments about your topic, and your
audience.
- When you are ready, check the clock, and begin writing.
Put down whatever comes into your mind. Don't take your
pen from the paper, and never stop to edit. This will be
surprisingly hard to do at first, but just keep going. If
need be, even write down negative thoughts that come up
– I can't spell, this is a silly exercise, whatever –
just keep writing until your time is up.
- Now you have something to work with, something creative
and unhindered by thoughts about how the audience might
react, or your atrocious spelling. Invite your inner
editor to join at the next stage: input what you like from
your timed writing into your computer, and revise it from
there.
Copyright
2003 Industrial Relations Centre, Queen’s University,
Canada.
