Communicating with More Empathy

There’s a common thread throughout everything you’ve been talking about, which is you have to communicate with a lot of different people. Tell them about the why, also communicate with various people across multiple teams as you do your marketing campaigns, do you vary the ways that you interact with different people based on their social styles? And how do you maintain your authenticity while doing so?

Yeah, I mean, I think…And this is something that I’ve worked on and practiced for years. So I think from when I think about when I was first a manager, first managing people, and it was kind of like, okay, you just sort of start managing and then you have that real…It’s different when you’re working with people and there’s the different interaction styles, so when you’re managing, and it’s really about understanding—and again, it’s kind of understanding what motivates someone. For certain individuals, do they need more time to say what they’re going to say?
And especially when you’re working across a creative team versus working with the sales organization, you have very different profiles as well as developers. So we span the gamut. And so I think it’s just really understanding and also talking with people about it and being in understanding if someone has a preference in the communication style, honoring that. Because I think as a leader it’s important to do that.
And I think that doesn’t mean taking away from your authentic self. It’s still you showing up in that communication. It’s just flexing to make sure that someone is feeling heard and they’re also able to have a voice in the communication. I think is really important.

I think it shows great recognition on your part, especially the part when you said about some people just need more time, for example, to express thought than others, as one example. How do you maintain your own authenticity though, while acknowledging that you do have to adapt the way you communicate with different people?

Yeah, I maintain my authenticity by I’m just very transparent and I’m who I am. And I think, again, adapting like the communication style for me isn’t about then changing the message that I’m delivering or what I’m saying or how that comes out.
And I think I’m also just very in the, you know, as I’m getting to know people, like part of it is just being very open about like, this is who I am and this is how I operate, and I think staying true to that and recognizing that again, you don’t have to…Like, I’m painfully introverted. So for me…

You are, as a marketing person? Most marketing people are extroverts.

Almost everyone in marketing, not everyone, but most marketing leaders are extroverts. So I am extremely introverted. So I think there’s also part of it that comes from having empathy, right? And it’s just like as a leader, when you have that empathy and again, having been sort of at a different profile than most of what my peer said is, right?
I think I just experienced that personally too, at a certain point in time and just reflect on that. And so I’m able to still be authentic to who I am because, again, it’s not like I’m changing what the actual content is or the meat of the conversation.
And I talk quickly and people, I prepare them for that going into the conversation. But I think it’s honoring how the other person needs to communicate.