Welcome back to the Look and Sound of Leadership, an ongoing series of executive

coaching tips designed to help you be perceived in the workplace the way you

want to be perceived. I'm Tom Henschel, your executive coach, and today

we're talking about owning miscommunications. Kristen is a gifted colleague of mine. We were working together on a large project for a client.

Our contact was the Director of Operations who had a communication style I called, pinballing.

He'd begin a sentence talking about a difficult direct report and end the sentence telling

us about a process in the plant that needed refinement.

Kristen and I would leave our meetings with him feeling we'd run a marathon uphill

in the heat on an empty stomach.

One particular goal setting meeting with Michael, the pinballer, was especially difficult. But then Kristen did something that I often coach others to do and it worked beautifully.

Michael was talking about the services he wanted from us in the coming quarters.

He was, as usual, barely touching

on one item before bouncing to the next. I was scribbling notes as fast as I could in an effort

to follow his thinking when Kristen began to shake her head ever so slightly while Michael was speaking.

When he came to a natural pause, she spoke very slowly.

Michael, I'm sorry, she said, looking down at her notes. I think I missed something when you were talking about the conflict resolution training I completely missed who the participants for that class would be

I didn't dare make eye contact with Kristen. We both knew Michael hadn't said a word about

who the participants for that training would be, but he did now, and it was critically important

information.

In another few minutes, Kristen put her hand out on the table and said,

maybe this is a flaw in my thinking, but I don't think mixing the coaching with the performance

reviews is going to get you the results you want.

...