Pick and mix

Some things I've loved recently

I grew up with the Saturday tradition of getting pocket money and walking to the local shop (we called it the tearoom) to buy sweets. One of my kids is travelling in Sweden and told me that pick and mix, as well as a Saturday tradition of ‘lördagsgodis’ or Saturday sweets, is alive and well. Despite being very healthy, Swedes apparently eat more candy than most other countries, at 16 kilograms per person per year - and the Saturday tradition has grown thanks to the wide range of candy available in grocery stores as pick and mix.

Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

While I still love sugar as much as I did on my tearoom trips, I try to eat a lot less of it as a grown-up. I’m enjoying some mental candy instead.

Here are some of my recent pick and mix favourites.

Advita Patel on the internal communications conundrum

Advita writes that when done well, internal communications is seamless and invisible (the ghostwriting for executives, getting the reviews and the sign-offs in the background, preparing to send). But because it’s invisible and leaders get the credit, it can be undervalued.

Advita says, ‘But invisible doesn’t mean insignificant. The messages we shape are often the difference between chaos and clarity, and employees staying or leaving.’

She advises communicators to tell the stories that show the value they bring, and share outcomes not just outputs.

This speaks to effective telling, which is something I talk about in We Need New Leaders and advise leaders from diverse backgrounds and identities to practice. It’s equally important for internal comms. PR gets the media headlines, if they’re lucky, executive comms gets to write the keynotes, so their work is obvious and out loud, but internal comms can’t really claim, ‘I wrote that email.’ They need to find other ways to claim their work - out loud so that they are valued.

Listen to my interview with Advita here.

Yamini Rangan on the importance of context

Providing context is vital in leadership communications. Everybody wants to know why. Hubspot CEO Yamini Rangan posted recently about the value of context.

She said, ‘Your success as a leader comes down to how well you set others up to succeed. And I’ve gotten this wrong more than once. When onboarding new leaders, I would give them a stack of docs, send them on a listening tour, and check in often. I assumed that was enough.

It wasn’t.’

Rangan goes on to describe how, when onboarding two new leaders, she spent an entire week sharing all the information she believed they needed - and her judgment on why it was important. Rangan compares this to AI agents, saying they too need to understand what good looks like.

She concludes: ‘Context isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s the difference between getting started and getting results.’

Brene Brown says clarity is kindness, but in the workplace it’s even more than that: it’s about getting people engaged and moving towards joint goals. Smart leaders know this.

Yamini Rangan is a dream Speech Bubbles guest, so if anyone wants to introduce us, I’d be delighted.

Kerrie Finch on finding your voice

Kerrie Finch is a highly accomplished keynote speaker, moderator and panelist. She has interviewed Her Majesty Queen Maxima of the Netherlands, amongst many other notables.

In her interview with me on Speech Bubbles last week, Kerrie described how it’s taken her a long time to own her own voice.

She says, ‘so when it comes to my own clients, I think it's clear, you know, I work in a particular way and always have done that's my that's my job. When it comes to myself, it really it sounds so stupid, but it really was a slow learn for me, that my own voice has impact. And maybe that's about imposter syndrome, maybe that's about just not focusing on myself enough. And, you know, I'm in my 50s now, and I think I have a different attitude to what responsibility is to leadership, to reputation, and to how you can personally make a difference, you know, in the world. And I think I'm less worried about what people think of me now. And I think I used to be a lot more concerned by that. And I believe that that's quite a positive thing, you know, that it frees me, I think.’

Enjoy the episode. It’s a gem.

Amelia Miller on living your brand out loud

Amelia is the co-founder with her sister Lydia of the return-to-work platform ivee. She talks about living their brand out loud in several different ways - from recording much of her day as a founder on video to running the name of their company in an epic 23km run on Strava.

Amelia and Lydia are going to be on Speech Bubbles in October - subscribe so you don’t miss it.

Jorunn Aamodt on why AI is a smooth talker

Jorunn is a super-smart global communicator at IKEA. She is well worth a follow. I loved her recent post that compares ‘clever talkers’ - those people who talk constantly in meetings but don’t actually say anything - to the current status of AI.

She writes, ‘Tech bros have essentially built the world’s most sophisticated clever talker: confident, articulate, completely convincing… and often completely wrong.

It’s like they took every smooth-talking colleague who ever BS’d their way through a presentation and gave them infinite knowledge and perfect grammar.

AI has perfected what too many of us do: sound authoritative while knowing nothing.’

(I’ve just reminded myself that Jorunn is another dream guest.)

Rupert Younger’s new book

Subscribers to this newsletter or those who’ve read We Need New Leaders know that I refer to Rupert Younger’s The Reputation Game a lot. I’m excited to read his new book Forked Tongues in which he identifies and explores the Dark Triad of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy - and how people exhibiting these traits go about undermining the reputations of others. Due out 11 September.

The Meg & Amy Show Newsletter

In the newsletter that’s tied to her podcast with Amy Wilson, Meg Bear writes: ‘I do not believe technology will save us. I believe we will save ourselves. To do that we need to be well rested and in good health to be open to the hard work and creativity required to invent the future. With that in mind, my strong advice is the same as your mothers. Eat better food. Prioritize rest and movement. Read more fiction. Invest time and energy helping others and building real relationships. Be a good citizen and a great human. Do more things that bring you joy.’

In the podcast, and in their mission as business advisors, they aim to help us invent a future that ‘doesn’t suck.’ Subscribe to the podcast and the newsletter - you’ll be so glad you did.

Meg was my first guest on Speech Bubbles, and the interview with Amy drops next week. Keep your eyes out for the pick and mix!