The innovation process requires a lot of communication. It begins by discussing the problem, then talking through potential solutions, followed by clearly articulating how to implement the selected solution, and finally it involves telling (and selling) the innovationâs story. These different stages of communication involve not just the core design team but also every department of the organization (oh yeah, and the people weâre designing for as well). Because of this, designers and innovators need to be elite communicators. We have to think of ourselves as the Chief Communication Officers (CCO) of our organizations.
In part 1 of this two-part series, we discussed how the best communicators invoke the mindset of a great friend. Theyâre constantly focused on having empathy for others. With empathy as the goal, the previous article discusses the 5 ways to improve your empathic side.
But being empathic isnât the only skill to be a great friend. You also should be candid about difficult topics. This candor is something that comes natural to our closest friends but is difficult for everyone outside of our inner circle. If youâre sitting there wondering how to figure out the level of candor youâre able to have with someone, weâve come up with a great little test. Itâs called the Poppy Seed Test. It works like this: Picture the person youâre talking to and imagine that they just ate a delicious everything bagel, but now theyâve got a poppy seed stuck in their front teeth. Would you tell them? If you arenât that close with them, itâd probably be too awkward to bring up. But if they were a good friend, youâd tell them.
The reason weâre so nervous to tell a stranger that they have poppy seeds in their teeth is because they might feel embarrassed and hurt by our comment. This potentially hurtful comment can make us feel like we donât have empathy for the other person; and thus weâre nervous to be frank with them. This opposition begs the question: Is it more important for designers and innovators to be as candid as possible, or is it better to err on the side of empathy?
After some candid (and empathetic) debates between Ben and me, we were able to come up with three reasons why if you want to be the Chief Communication Officer the benefits of candor outweigh the risks of appearing like a jerk.
Psychological Safety
Many times people are afraid to reveal all parts of themselves to colleagues, often to the point that they actively work to keep certain things hidden. This can start off as simple as an off-handed comment with a teammate such as âYeah I watched the game last nightâ when in reality you were at a poetry reading. This seemingly very small white lie (in order to be empathetic) can balloon over time. Now instead of discussing the poetry you love, youâre constantly talking about sports - all the while worrying about saying something to reveal the fact that you donât watch (or even like) sports.
This all-too-often occurrence brings us to the first benefit of candor. As Chief Communication Officer itâs your job to foster a sense of trust within your team so that everyone can be candid with one another. At Google, they refer to this concept as âpsychological safety.â It essentially means that you feel safe enough to let your guard down and be yourself. Only when everyone on your team trusts each other can everyone feel safe enough to share fully who they really are. If people on your team are expending mental effort holding themselves in check, thatâs time and brainpower theyâre not spending on producing amazing innovations. What a waste.
âPsychological safetyâ does more for creativity than just free up brain power. It also creates space for people to take risks. As weâve discussed before, people donât take risks if theyâre afraid. A team dynamic that lacks âpsychological safetyâ is a dynamic full of fear. A fearful team member does not take risks. Theyâre too afraid that their experiment will fail and their teammates will judge them harshly for failing, rather than praising them for trying something bold. And yet, the best and biggest design breakthroughs often happen when we jump into the uncertain and unknown.
Reality Check
As an aspiring CCO, being candid is also critical to managing expectations throughout the innovation process. Undoubtedly throughout the process, questions about timeline and budgets will arise. It can be tempting in these situations to only give positive answers when in reality itâs better to be candid about the situation. This means saying ânoâ sometimes - something that I personally struggle with a lot. It can be tempting to say âyesâ to every assignment thatâs thrown your way. After all, youâre trying to be as empathetic as possible so of course, you want to help! But by not being candid and telling your teammates youâre too busy, you can end up slowing down the process.
Finally, we have to remember that managing expectations isnât just an internal issue. Oftentimes, we have a tendency to embellish or oversell our innovation to the people weâre designing for. When this happens, we run the risk of setting the bar so high that no matter what we deliver, our users will be disappointed.
Honest Feedback
The third and final reason for candor is also the most important. There are times when an idea just isnât working. As the Chief Communication Officer, you need to have the courage to be candid with your team about whatâs not going well. Without the balance between empathy and candor, youâll be very tempted to avoid the hard conversation about the problems your teammates are having with their project. And itâs easy to see why. You donât want to hurt their feelings. You donât want to embarrass them. But hey, isnât that what friends are for? Weâre joking there, but in all honesty, you trust the people youâre closest to be totally candid with you, even when itâs awkward.
Candid feedback is crucial to the success of the team and ultimately the designs itâs producing. Without that feedback, problems wonât be addressed. People will continue down a bad path. Bad paths lead to bad designs and bad designs lead to bad outcomes â for everyone. Maybe your design will be sort of confusing, and then once itâs released, it will lead to droves of frustrated users. Now youâve got your users and the rest of your organization annoyed with you. Not good.
Your organization should already have lots of feedback loops in place for you to leverage. The key is just to be willing to give the feedback, even the critical stuff. Itâs easy to just avoid any conflict, to keep the negative thoughts to yourself. But really youâre not doing anyone any good. That critical feedback will save your teammates and your organization from wasted time, wasted money, and damaged reputations. To be candid, youâre doing everyone a favor. So make sure your team understands this. Make sure you all trust each other enough to know that you all have each otherâs and your usersâ best interests at heart.
Balance Builds Over Time
Being empathetic comes naturally to most of us. Candor, on the other hand, can be scary. The good news is that it gets easier the more we focus on both of them. If we think back to our stranger with the poppy seeds, the reason we were afraid was because we had never been empathetic to that person before, so any candid comment could make us appear like a rude person. However, the more situations in which we show empathy towards our fellow teammates, the less impact any one specific candid comment will have. This means as we build more and more trust in our organization, the easier it is to be candid.
Becoming the Chief Communication Officer is all about understanding, caring, and communicating. Within your team, itâs vital to form deep bonds so everyone feels safe sharing who they are, their wild ideas, and their candid feedback. Within your organization, fostering the mindset of a friend can help you cultivate ideas and perspectives spread across various teams, who are, in the end, all working towards the same purpose.
Iâd like to end on an inspirational quote from on my favorite books, Creativity, Inc.:
âCandor isnât cruel. It does not destroy. On the contrary, any successful feedback system is build on empathy, on the idea that we are all in this together, that we understand your pain because weâve experienced it ourselves.â - Ed Catmull, President of Pixar
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