Communicating through change
Communicating through change is hard. And I think that one of the reasons it can feel so hard is that we put pressure on ourselves as leaders to have all the answers all the time.
But what if we didn’t have to have them? What if acknowledging that we don’t have the answers could be the very thing that builds trust and that helps people feel safe, even when facing the unknown?
The last eight weeks since we shared our news has felt like a crash course in communication for me. In addition to facilitating a weekly meeting with our company’s leaders to keep things in motion, every month, I host an all-hands meeting where I communicate updates to our student team members. When I create the agendas for these monthly meetings, I can feel myself getting overwhelmed. Updating the team on what we’ve figured out is the easy part, but sharing the stuff we are still in the middle of—the stuff we are actively trying to figure out? That’s a lot harder. I begin to question myself: What do I share? Do I share? How much do I share? How do I say it? How do I communicate in a way that is honest and clear while also building a feeling of safety? How do I lead others through change when I’m still trying to figure out how to lead myself through it?
When I feel that sense of overwhelm and notice the questions starting to creep in, I center myself on a simple idea that helps me every time: Just be human. That reminder helped me majorly in our team meeting last week.
It was our third all-hands meeting since we announced the transformation, and I was feeling a bit anxious about it. I knew I would need to dive into a difficult, looming question that we haven’t been able to answer with the kind of clarity I’d like: When May 9th gets here, will our students who still want jobs with us have them?
Up until this point, we’ve been very clear that the answer to that question is a question mark. And for the most part, that’s been okay with the team. Many of our students decided back in January that they want to move on in May because they are just as excited about their own next steps as we are about ours. To help them, we’ve implemented regular, one-on-one meetings where we work with each student individually to get their resumes ready, identify organizations to apply to, assist with introductions, and even conduct mock interviews. But even with all of that, there is understandably a small group of team members who really want to come with us into this next chapter. They’ve told us that they are afraid that they will not find another company that will treat them the way we do—and they’re also just really jazzed about our new direction and want to be a part of it.
And so, imagine me as the leader sitting on the other side of this, preparing for this meeting. I don’t know how to take their fears away because I have the same ones. Every one of our team members will have the opportunity to participate in our Student Made curriculum, but as far as working with us behind-the-scenes, that part I don’t know yet. We have to take it one step at a time, and there are a lot of moving parts. So what is a leader to do? How do you communicate when you don’t have the answers?
As I worked on the agenda for this meeting, I found myself overthinking it, trying to force answers that weren’t there and rehearsing what I’d say and how I’d say it. When I recognized myself doing this, I reminded myself to be myself and to create an agenda from my heart. What I ended up saying in the meeting went something like this:
I know there are some of you who want to work with us after May 9th, and I know you are hoping for more clarity on whether that will be possible or not. The short answer is that we still don’t know, and I’m so sorry. I wish we did. I’m going to tell you what I would want someone to tell me if I were in your position, and please know this is coming from a place of caring about you and your future: I do not want you to keep all of your eggs in our basket. Even if we are fully up and running on May 9th, I cannot guarantee that your work hours will look the same as they do now, and I cannot guarantee that your paycheck will be comparable. I think that you should look for another job so that you can have stability, security, and clarity no matter what. If it turns out that we have a job opportunity for you, you will have a choice: You can do both, or you can decide that you like your new opportunity better than the one we have to offer. That’s okay, too. If we don’t have everything figured out by May 9th, that doesn’t mean the door is closed. We will tell you when we have something stable available for you, and you can decide then if you’d like to work with us again.
It was hard to say all of this out loud, but it was the truth. It was real. And what I learned from that experience is that approaching change and communication in a human way is freeing and also leads us to feeling safe. It led us to a discussion about the hard parts of change, one of them being that things sometimes take longer than you might like. And then we got to really unpack the fear of not finding an organization with a similar culture. We talked about how this is a valid fear and reminded our team members that our leaders will do everything possible to help them land in places where they will be treated like they deserve to be. We also talked about the fact that even if they aren’t working with us, they will have our support forever and ever. And even if their next job isn’t anything like Student Maid, they will have an opportunity to take what they learned from their journey with us and make a difference in their next workplace.
Before the meeting, I asked everyone to rate on a scale of 1-10 how they were feeling about the transition. We had mainly 7’s and 8’s. After our discussion, I asked the team to share their scores, and those 7’s and 8’s moved to 9’s and 10’s. For one person, her score remained unchanged, so we stayed after and continued to unpack why that might be. We uncovered that the transition is forcing her to answer a lingering question that she will now have to face: What does she want to do with her life? A big question we can all probably relate to. So we talked about that, validated her feelings, and even helped her identify a really solid potential next step.
This is the kind of stuff I never learned in business school. At the end of the day, leadership is about being human. Humans leading humans. That’s it.
Being human means we don’t have to have all the answers. It means we get to share the things we know right alongside the things we are still trying to figure out. It means we get to say, “I don’t have the answer or plan for that yet.” It means we get to acknowledge fear about the unknown and even say it aloud when we feel afraid, too. Being human means not being filtered. It means speaking from the heart instead of overthinking. It means starting sentences with, “I’m not sure how to best explain this, but I’ll give it a shot.” It means we get to admit that we are learning, too, and that we’ve never done this before, either. Even just typing this is leading me to many deep breaths. What a relief to know that we can always just be ourselves.
The next time you feel overwhelmed, remember that. Just be you. Speak from your heart. Nothing less and nothing more.
Hugs behind the screen,
Kristen
PS: Something that has been huge in helping us navigate this transition and the pandemic is Team Time, a meeting where we come together to connect personally and get to know each other on an even deeper level. We talk about this all the time in our weekly LIVE, and due to popular demand, we’ve created a guide to help you initiate your own Team Time! This resource is pay-what-you-can, and we hope it helps you spark meaningful conversations with those you work with every day.
PPS: Speaking of our LIVE, join us! We have one tomorrow (Wednesday) and every Wednesday at 11 a.m. ET! We share everything from news and stories from behind-the-scenes of our pivot to what we’re learning, what we’re struggling with as leaders, and how we’re meeting this unprecedented moment in our history as a company. You can register here: https://bit.ly/3kWe2kT. It’s the same link each week. Hope to see you there!
PPPS: Have you heard about our new human leadership development program?! It’s a virtual, live program to help you elevate your authenticity and humanity as a leader, and it’s going down on May 5th and 6th. Learn more and get your tickets by clicking here!
PPPPS: Just kidding, don’t you think three is enough?!
