Hey,

I hope you are safe and well. It's been pretty hectic here at Lambert Towers - and yes, finally, at last, we have some lovely weather here in the UK. Due to being in the office all week, this newsletter is 4 days late!

Housekeeping

I'm putting the final touches to my Workshop Mastery: ​Design, Teach & Engage Your Audience book - it is due out this weekend!

If you want to pre-register for notifications for when the book launches, then the LeanPub platform will let you do that here.

With the launch of this new book, I have completed my trinity of effective workplace communication advice and training.

  1. Effective workplace communication skills - The revamped and extended online communication guide and workbook
  2. Presentation skills - Zero to Keynote
  3. Running workshops (internal or at conferences) - Workshop Mastery

With these three resources, you have three outstanding ways to grow your own abilities in effective communication, and share what you know with others.

In this post I did about growing your career, the top tier is the ability to communicate effectively and share what you know - these three resources are your guides to this fruitful path.

The unseen power of Tone of Voice

Long time readers will know I focus primarily on communication behaviours and skills when it comes to management, leadership and business improvement.

I often say that 99% of problems in business are related to poor communication - I'm likely not far from the truth.

As such, to advance your career, lead teams and/or change an organisation you need to use effective communication.

And consider two things here:

  1. You don't need to have a leadership or management role to develop influential communication behaviours.
  2. Communication behaviours can be learned.

Sure, you will have your own style, your own flavour, your own motivations and goals - but underpinning successful people is the ability to influence, motivate, inspire and galvanize people around a bright future.

As such, one of the first things I do when I join an organisation in a leadership position (after understanding the business domain and goals - and meeting as many people as possible), is develop a communication plan. After all, power in business comes from distribution of communication.

However, to be truly successful in business communication, even with a solid communication plan, you must develop a strong, consistent and relatable Tone of Voice (ToV).

What is a Tone of Voice?

Tone of Voice is the visible outward manifestation of your brand, you or the business team you are leading / working in.

When people read, see or hear anything from you and your team, it should be obvious, it is from you/your team through the ToV.

In large organisations, where you have central communication teams and branding guidelines, it becomes harder to flex and weave in your own personality, but it's still entirely possible.

In other words, it's harder to sound like YOU because the corporate style makes you sound like nobody. (This is madness if you want people to actually digest what you communicate....but I'll save this for another post)

I outline below my "go to" starting plan for a Tone of Voice. It is mine, and very basic (it doesn't need to be complicated - in fact, it should be simple), but it will be a good starting point for you.

Your Tone of Voice should look, feel and sound like you - so weave this in (whilst also sticking to corporate if you must).

This Tone of Voice (ToV from now on) is the way we communicate with our audience. It's the outward manifestation of our brand, values and ways of working. It should be you (and your team) personified. It should be used in all communication activities allocated on your plan. It should be used in presentations, writing, internal social posts, documents etc etc.

It’s the dimensions of your communication that create the general feeling your audience have about you - everything you say (or choose not to say) is important.

The consistent use of ToV connects people. It builds awareness. It builds trust. And more importantly, it influences, moves and aligns people around what you're doing.

Remember, doing great work isn't about being great at what you do. It's also about telling others about it, garnering support, bringing other leaders and teams on the journey, connecting dots, solving problems collectively, and much of this comes down to effective communication with a consistent ToV.

Work is not done until someone knows about it. Nobody else will blow your trumpet for you. Your team won't always get the recognition they deserve. Others will throw stones if there's radio silence about how you're progressing. People will make up rumours, myths and hearsay in vacuums of communication.

Effective communication is good for you, your team and your success. And good communication has a Tone of Voice.

We all have a ToV - many people don't take the time to define it, understand it and be consistent with it. Every team will have a collective Tone of Voice.

The ToV always needs tweaking, fine tuning and refining. Round off the rough edges, double down on what works - and above all else - let personality and authenticity shine through.

A standard ToV

What follows is my standard "out of the box" ToV that I take with me. You could call this "my ToV". I have not disclosed any specifics, as they are personal to me.

This base levels needs adjusting, building on and tweaking to reflect the team, the business culture and the type of work, but it's a good building block to consider the various elements that may go into a ToV. Or build your own.

There will be elements missing. There will be things you wish to include. I share it here for inspiration and guidance only.

Be Human

Sound like a person. Sound human.

When writing, imagine the person you are writing your content for is stood in front of you. What would you say to them if you were face to face? Write that.

Be friendly. Be positive. Don’t be negative. 

Don’t shy away from bad news or hard times, but don’t drag others down and be negative. Context matters here but try to be positive when possible.

Keep it simple

Reduce tricky concepts and theories down to the simplest principle or guiding idea.

Every complicated topic can be explained easily.

How would you describe something to a child - do that. We're not insulting people's intelligence by clarifying for a child. We are instead aiming for understanding and connection, and simplification.

If we cannot simplify something we don't know it well enough. Or we've not thought hard enough about it. Everything can be simplified - to start with - and then build out once solid foundations are understood.  

Our audience doesn’t have time to unpack complicated nor complex theories - we must not make the audience work harder than they need to to understand us.

Use simple language with short words, short sentences and no jargon.

Explain any complicated terms that we must use. At all times choose the simplest version of a word you can. Construct simple words into simple sentences.

Use Humour

We’re not afraid to use humour throughout our content.

Our humour is never offensive, crass or rude. We are careful with our humour, but light-heartedness has a remarkable ability to drive engagement in our communication. Use it wisely - and contextually.

Don't preach, or brag

We are not preachy. We don't extol our own achievements as a brag but merely as information and acknowledgement of good work.

We respect other teams at all times. We never shoot down others. We are positive and optimistic - we never do this at the expense of other people's ideas, work and thoughts.

Ladder content and theory

We don’t overwhelm, through our content, language and concepts.

We always ladder content in an inductive method - simple to complex, theory to practical application, seed to growth, easy to hard. Start easy, grow in difficulty.

Make it valuable

We don't communicate for the sake of it. We always offer something of use. Our communication is aimed at providing value. Without value we will lose our audience, if we even reach them in the first place.

A nugget of wisdom here, a shining light there, some useful insights here. Always helpful, always useful, always insightful, always adding value.

We ensure we understand our audience and what is valuable to them - then deliver on that value.

​People will read any number of words, listen to long hours of audio and engage in detail, if it's valuable to them. Identify the challenge or problem people face, and ensure you solve it for them.

Break the content apart - appropriate mediums

We don't overwhelm with giant documents and guides that have no summary, no visuals or no explainers.

We always make our writing skimmable with suitable white space, breaks and headings.

We use different mediums to add variety and effectiveness. We experiment and try new things - always learning and seeking feedback.

Use stories

 We use stories where we can.

The Hero’s journey is a good story arc to start with (protagonist > obstacle > compelling/inciting decision > tackle obstacle with colleagues > overcome > learn)

We always tell stories about data. Data has little emotion - stories have bags of it. Use stories to bring facts to life. Stories always go to places of the mind where facts cannot.  

Other story arcs are useful

Define our style

(Here is where we may need to flex to corporate style guides)

We prefer British spellings, but if the corporate style is American, we go with that.

We are consistent. We stick to corporate style guides if they exist. We build our own if they don't. 

We define our approach to capitalising words, and appropriate use of acronyms (which we always explain).

We spell check and grammar check. We are professionals. We must build trust and confidence in our work through accuracy and consistency. This comes through in our communication.

We train everyone in the art of effective communication, presenting and running workshops.

We are clear about who we are

We know who we are - and we are consistent in how we talk about what we do.

In other words, how do we talk about ourselves when we're a team with no external audience? Write that down and stick to it unless feedback tells you it's not landing with people outside our team or department.

We define ourselves, but don't confine.

When we talk about the team (and team name) we are consistent, we use the correct abbreviations, everyone in the team knows how to describe what we do and what value we bring to the business. Soon, everyone else outside our team will too.

Defining how we refer to ourselves is important - we must own the narrative of OUR story and be consistent about what we do, how we work and the value we bring to the business.

Date formats 

Recommendation is:

1 November 2024

Corporate may say otherwise.

Make it easy to find us

We have a home-base location for our content, ways of working, department and internal facing guidance. We own that and we make it look and feel inline with our ToV.

We make it easy for people to find us and we ALWAYS direct people back to our home base. Our URL is easy to find and remember (even if we have to battle IT to get it).

Our outposts (internal social, presentations, emails, people) always direct people to our home base. Our home base is kept up to date - and when people land on it - they know it's us because it looks, feels and sounds like us (ToV).

We have a general email address for the internal business to contact us. It is clear to the wider business who they should speak with regarding our valuable contributions and service. Whether that be the leadership or a generic email - they know.

We explain who is who, and who does what on our home base.

We reduce the friction of finding out more about who we are, what we do and how we work with the wider business. 

Bringing the ToV to life

We have a simple guide to our own ToV - all team members must know where to find it and how to apply it.

Visuals

Our visuals should follow the same styles. We create templates. We push our creativity and improve on this, when feedback tells us our communication is not landing.

Our colours are consistent (of course, we may need to adhere to corporate here)

All visuals should be relevant to the topic, complete (like a treasure map) but not stuffed with detail that does not need to be there.

Our visuals should have three elements:

  • Appealing
  • Comprehension
  • Retention

If we use infographics they are complete and accurate.

Infographics should be whole between words and images. Words alone won't tell the story, images alone won't either. Both together do - test this.

They must be precise.

Everyone knows where to get templates for powerpoint, white papers and other collateral.

Everyone knows about the style guide (we include them in the induction) and everyone knows how to use them. 

Numbers

We are careful with numbers. We use data and evidence where it exists.

We don't truncate time series data to tell a biased story. It's easy to lie with statistics, we don't do that.

We face the truth and deal with it, even if it's not pleasant. 

Tests of our documentation / guides

We always test, check and proof our work - even our presentations. 

  • Is it easy to understand on a single read through?
  • Is it as succinct as possible?
  • Could we remove words and sentences that don't add to the value of the communication? 

Writing is easy, editing is hard. How can we make it shorter and it still make sense?

  • We run our words through a Flesch-Kincaid analysis.
    • We aim for 10 years or younger. We are not insulting intelligence, we are aiming for clarity and understanding.
    • We want everyone to be able to read what we write - and understand it.
  • Is there an obvious call to action (learn more, speak to someone, download)?
    • If not, could you add one?  
  • Does it sound like it was written by a human?
    • Avoid using AI to create the communication.
      • If you use AI, use it to refine, then rewrite what it gives you in your own words.
    • We must sound human.
  • If we use negative words (no, not, never) can we find a replacement with more positive language?
  • Have we used absolutes (never, always, etc)  - remove them. Absolutes always give people a chance to challenge. There is rarely a single way of doing anything.
  • Are we speaking with confidence and being direct?
    • Avoid passive language where possible.
  • Have we limited use of exclamation marks?
    • Choose better words rather THAN USING EXCLAMATION!!!!!!
  • Do we repeat ourselves often? 
    • Repetition is a useful rhetorical device – but use sparingly.
  • Have we done a “read around” of any writing - i.e. read it out aloud.
    • Change anything that sounds odd to read out aloud.
    • We want to write like we speak (unless corporate tell us not to)
  • Are we using data?
    • Have we brought this data to life with stories and a human interpretation.

The above is a very simple ToV but it's a powerful way of driving clarity and consistency. Don't under-estimate the hidden power of having a clear ToV. When people receive any form of communication (presentation, email, document, guide) it should be clear in their mind that it is from you and your team - and it moves them into action, or aligns them, or informs them well - at all times it is valuable for them.

A ToV helps you define the style, tone, pitch and language. Every person in your team should contribute to its creation - and know how to use it.

A ToV will likely not be static either. As feedback comes in, you will need to modify for Tov (and guidelines), and your ToV will naturally grow as you, and your team, grow too.

Owning your own narrative, telling stories, aligning others and being clear in communication is an essential aspect of business. I encounter leaders all the time who do not have the support of their teams, let alone their peers. Their communication is ineffective, sporadic and lacking. Then there are leaders who have a plan. They communicate well. They always sound consistent in emails, on video, in meetings - and their team do too. There is consistency and consistency builds trust.

Until next time.

Rob..

Support Cultivated Management

This newsletter is a labour of love and will always be free, but it's not free to create it - if you’d like to support my work please consider:

  1. Sharing this content with others you feel would get value from it.
  2. Downloading the free ebook 10 Behaviours of effective employees.
  3. Buying a copy of Zero to Keynote
  4. Buying a copy of Take a Day Off
  5. Sitting the online Communication Super Power Workshop to develop your super power in work
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