Communication That Scales: Andrew Oxley on The 5-Step Framework for Strategic Clarity and Trust

We explore how purpose turns into measurable results by designing communication that is simple, repeatable and trusted. Andrew Oxley shares a practical framework for clarity, passion, and habit change that scales across teams and ties directly to business metrics.

Takeaways

• Communication is essential for effective leadership.
• Clarity in communication helps avoid confusion among team members.
• Growth often requires stepping out of comfort zones.
• Authenticity cannot be faked; it must be genuine.
• Self-awareness is crucial for personal and professional development.
• Trust is built through consistent and clear communication.
• Leaders should seek diverse perspectives to challenge their thinking.
• Simplicity in messaging is harder but more impactful.
• Focus on controllable aspects of challenges to drive progress.
• Investing in communication clarity yields tangible business results.

Chapters

• 0:00 Purpose Into Measurable Results
• 2:37 The Cost Of Fuzzy Communication
• 4:53 Passion, Growth, And Authentic Leadership
• 9:56 The Four Faces Of Frustration
• 15:42 Building Predictable Clarity And Trust
• 18:28 Step One: Craft A Local Vision
• 24:41 Cascade Messages With Simplicity
• 30:20 Habit Change Beats Microwaved Training
• 34:45 Proving ROI With Operational Metrics
• 39:20 Final Challenges For Leaders And Teams
• 40:05 Closing And Core Takeaway

Transcript

Dr. Leah OH: 0:00

Hi, welcome to another episode of The Communicative Leader. I'm your host, Dr. Leah Ohm. Today we're focusing on how leaders translate that internal purpose into real, measurable results. And we're doing that by talking about building communication systems that actually work. In a world where we demand more from our leaders than ever before, the greatest challenge isn't navigating a complex strategy. My friends, it is ensuring that that strategy is communicated with clarity and structure needed to drive action and to sustain success. Today, Andrew Oxley is joining us. He is a nationally recognized author, speaker, and executive coach, and also the founder of the Oxley Group. Andrew helps leaders navigate complex challenges while driving real results. And he's worked with powerhouse organizations. We're talking Coca-Cola, CNN, Turner Broadcasting. Andrew's work is all about going beyond managing day-to-day complexities to really looking at how do you unlock your potential. He's developed a five-step framework that helps executive teams transform their communication and leadership practices. And it is practical, my friends. It's going to help you focus on creating clarity, fostering trust, and building systems that will actually scale. In today's episode, we're going to dive into his five-step framework and discuss how to move past confusion and misalignment so that you're leading with strategic intent. Let's dive in and have some fun. Hello and welcome to the communicative leader, hosted by me, Dr. Leo Emilian Hodges. My friends call me Dr. Oak. I'm a professor of communication and a leadership communication expert. On The Communicative Leader, we're working to make your work life what you want it to be. So Andrew, thank you for joining us on The Communicative Leader. And I'm really excited to learn more about you and your work. And I know that your work helps executive teams, you're driving real results by transforming their communication. So, in your experience, I mean, you've worked with companies like CNN and Coca-Cola. What is the single greatest, if you had to put your finger on it, what is the greatest communication failure that you observe when a six successful strategy starts to stall or it can't scale? You know, what is that cost then that's related to these communication failures?

Andrew Oxley: 2:36

Yeah, you know, it's so funny because you you're absolutely right. You know, communication is the key to leadership. Uh, and and when we say leadership, we don't just mean you're leading like necessarily employees. You can you lead in your personal life. If you're if you're seeking to influence another person, of course, you're a leader. So, you know, clarity is the key. And you know, I go into organizations and they they'll say, Yeah, we're we're perfectly clear about what our objectives are, what our goals are, what our strategy is. And I'll go ask like five, ten people, and they're like, we have no idea. Absolutely no idea. And I think part of the problem is what well, actually, let me back up. What they typically say is not just that they have no idea, it's that it depends on the day. Like, because what happens for most employees, and and some of your listeners probably can identify with this, is that what becomes the most important issue is the last thing they received an email about. And sometimes that's not related to what they really their boss perhaps would really like them to be investing time on. So I I see this being a massive problem that we we think more com well, we're told more can make communication is better, right? Which is true if it's well designed. The problem is it's not normally well designed, it's very diffuse. And so we're we're peppering people with issues, and they're they're just thoroughly confused after a little while. They're just doing the best that they can.

Dr. Leah OH: 3:59

Yeah, yeah. And I I feel like it becomes a lot of triage rather than that working towards that large overarching goal.

Andrew Oxley: 4:08

Yeah, you know, I I well we have this little test that we uh we uh we ask leaders, I say, Do you ever hear from your people? I'll do my best when you ask them to do something. And I I'm like, they're like, Yeah, and I'm like, well, you know what that means, right? It that means they've given up. Emotionally, they've given up because they know they can't ever meet the expectations that you have for them. So they're just gonna do the best that they can, which means that the marginal effort that they could put forth is not gonna probably be there. So I'll do my best should make your spine curl as a leader when people say that. It's like, oh wait a minute.

Dr. Leah OH: 4:44

Yeah, yeah, it's the white flag.

Andrew Oxley: 4:46

Yeah, exactly.

Dr. Leah OH: 4:47

Yeah. Gosh. Well, Andrew, let's talk about your purpose-driven system and the work that you do. You help leaders move beyond just managing this complexity, you know, which is a lot of a titled leader's job, really, but you help them to unlock their full potential. So I was hoping you could help us understand like how do you define purpose and potential? And, you know, what does that framework look like to helping these people kind of get unstuck and be able to thrive then?

Andrew Oxley: 5:18

Yeah, and this came from a question I was asked actually at some work I was doing down in Atlanta many, many years ago. And the wonderful thing, I'm sure it's true for you as well. I get asked questions all the time. And, you know, I'll always have an answer, but sometimes I'm left with a feeling like that wasn't a great answer. I mean, it was an answer, but it wasn't a great answer. And this particular manager said to me, What happens if you've lost your passion? And this happens to a lot of people in the midpoint of their career. They're just like, you know, wow, is this all there is? And I hit that. I I was very, very lucky to hit that point very early in my career, uh, and what I affectionately refer to as my midlife crisis at 28, which I'm hoping was not the actual midpoint.

Speaker 3: 5:57

Yeah.

Andrew Oxley: 5:58

Um, but is that all there is? Is uh just coming in and slogging every single day. And I gave him an answer, but I I got thinking about it. I got thinking, you know what? It wasn't a great answer. So I went back, and as I always do, and I I kept thinking about that. Okay, so so what is it that differentiates great leaders from mediocre leaders or good leaders? And I think it it has to do with the passion they bring to their work. I mean, you cannot get someone to have passion if you don't have passion. Yeah, you can't fabricate passion, you can fake it for a little while, but you can't fabricate it. So the question I always ask leaders is, you know, what are you passionate about? And they're like, Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 3: 6:39

I'm like, well, that's a problem, right?

Andrew Oxley: 6:41

So yeah, I take them through a little exercise, and I've, you know, just a couple of quick questions. I'll say, When were you the most passionate in your life? And they're like, Well, what do you mean? I'm like, Well, when did you feel the most alive? And they're like, What when do you tell stories about? And you know what people tell stories about? High school, college, first job, promotion, when they got married, when they had kids, when they got their first half. You know what all these things have in common? They were not that, you know, they were not that comfortable when we were going through their highly uncomfortable point. Yeah, growth only happens when we're uncomfortable. Now it's like like anybody who's got you know older kids that though and somebody's having their first child, they're like, Oh, you know, just enjoy it. Well, it's hard to enjoy it when you're but but we those are the times we look back on. So so stitching this together, what we always tell leaders is growth, although uncomfortable, is what spurs passion. So, where are you growing? Because when you're not passionate, it's because you're not growing anywhere. There's no growth. And unfortunately, as adults, we like to pursue comfort. We don't want to be uncomfortable, we want to be comfortable. But when you become comfortable, you're not growing. And when you're not growing, all the passion goes out of your life. And so I'm not saying go throw everything out in your life and get new stuff. That's not my point. My point is, where are you growing? Are you growing at work? Are you growing, you know, in your relationships? Are you growing in the hobbies that you have? It doesn't have to be everywhere, but it has to be somewhere.

Dr. Leah OH: 8:18

Yeah, yeah. That's that's so insightful. And you're right. And I think for so many adults, it's like, well, I've grown up. I I get to be comfortable now, but that comes at a cost many times. And the other thing I was thinking when you were talking about the leader without passion, we might be able to fake it for a moment, but we can't inspire others. And I think even worse, we can actually actively drain others of their passion when we are just showing up and slogging through it.

Andrew Oxley: 8:47

Yeah, yeah. And people, you can't fake it. Like we talk about being an authentic leader. I'm sure you've got authenticity, it can't be faked. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I I love, I don't know if you remember the show Growing Pains, Michael J. Fox. Yeah, and he's in this interview. I can't remember if it was Stanford or Harvard or somewhere, and and they said, You seem like a very authentic young man. And he said, I've tried to put a lot of authenticity into my answers. And you know, and of course, yeah, you can't put authenticity in leaders, theirs, not right. So, you know, every leader's got what we call a leadership DNA. They have a DNA of their leadership style. So trying to copy another leader is a is a false sort of objective. But what we can do is we I can look at a leader and say, I really admire that about them. And I feel like that that resonates with me. And I admire this about this leader. And you weave that together into a tapestry of who you can be authentically as a leader, but you can't copy someone else. And when you try to copy someone else, it just doesn't come off right.

Dr. Leah OH: 9:47

Exactly. Because it's a performance rather than you as a person. So, Andrew, let's talk about your program, the four faces of frustration. I'm so interested in this. And you know, it speaks to a leader's internal state that can ultimately derail that execution. So, from a communicative perspective, how does that unchecked internal frustration, those feelings of being overwhelmed, you know, the very, you know, the challenges your audience faces, how does that then all of a sudden become externalized and derail your messaging, send those mixed messages and break down team trust? Can you kind of show us how those are linked?

Andrew Oxley: 10:29

Yeah, you know, well, the there's a famous study, psychological study, that was done. It's about left-hand columns and right-hand columns. And, you know, left-hand columns are the things we say, and the right-hand columns are the same things we think, but we don't say. And what we know is that all emotion, you know, that which is not expressed is impressed through our actions, right? So if we don't talk it out, we act it out. And some people are easier at hiding their emotions in the short term, but then eventually it just comes out. But some people aren't even good at hiding them in the in the short term, right? So one of the things that leaders need to recognize is if they are frustrated. You know, years ago, my my wife asked me, she said, Why are you so angry? And I remember getting angry that she thought I was angry. Uh and she's like, You realize what you're doing right now, right? And I was like, Oh man, and I'm like, and I had to recognize that that there are like little red flags that I flow throw off when I'm angry, and I don't necessarily pick up on them, but other people might. So, how do we respond when we're stressed and frustrated, first of all, as leaders? And so we say there are four sort of atypical ways or typical ways that people respond. And the first one is anger. You know, some you probably know people like this, uh, you know, that it's never fast enough, it's never good enough, you know, when they want something, it's yesterday, you know. And they're good people, and in fairness, they're not really angry, they're passionate, their passion overflows in terms of urgency and stuff. Yeah, but it does come across as anger to other people, and it tends to shut people down from an engagement standpoint. So that's the first one. The second one is the optimist. Now they get angry too, but they transition through anger into their face of frustration, which is optimism. So they get actually frustrated with you, angry with you, but then they feel bad that they did, and so they start telling you everything's gonna be okay, don't worry. And I didn't really mean what I said. So there's so the person's left with yeah confusion of like, well, you said this, but now you're saying you didn't mean it. But I'm I don't know if so that's the optimist. And with the red for the angry people, we use the red face thing I was saying.

Speaker 3: 12:42

Yeah, yeah.

Andrew Oxley: 12:43

The optimists, we use the yellow face, which is the color of the sun. If they've never met a problem, they can't put lipstick on and tell you it's a good thing. Yeah. So the third one is very hard to discern, actually. And and it's the biggest group in society. So if you don't understand this group, you're gonna miss a huge chunk. Uh this group are what we call the greens or the no-emotion people. Oh so when they get frustrated, they stop talking. Now, this is confusing as heck to the other three sort of communication styles, because they're like, What everything must be fine. They're not talking. We no, they're actually plotting your demise. Yeah, you know, but they they they are thinking surely they know I'm not okay with what's happening, and they're processing internally. So we use the green face because this is the greens are the are after peace and tranquility. They'll almost do anything to keep peace and tranquility.

Speaker 3: 13:40

Yeah.

Andrew Oxley: 13:40

They if you have very long-term employees, uh, there's a high degree of likelihood they are greens, uh because greens are very loyal.

unknown: 13:49

Okay.

Andrew Oxley: 13:50

So so you know, and then the final one is is the blue face, and we use blue because it's the color of the deep blue ocean, and these people are so hard to read, but they start asking questions when they're frustrated, and they start come across as the pessimist.

Speaker 3: 14:03

Okay.

Andrew Oxley: 14:04

So, first of all, as a leader or as a communicator, you have to understand what happens to me when I get frustrated and how am I coming across to other people? Years ago, I I had a leader say to me, he said, What's it like to be on the other side of you? So think about what's it like to be on the other side of you? Because it's hard to see yourself from another perspective. And I, because I'm like a jokester, I said, Well, it's wonderful.

Dr. Leah OH: 14:30

Yeah, he said, uh sunshine, roses.

Andrew Oxley: 14:33

Yeah, he said, uh, I know you think it is.

Dr. Leah OH: 14:36

Yes. Oh, geez. Yeah.

Andrew Oxley: 14:39

Oh, so anyway, so that that's what I was saying.

Dr. Leah OH: 14:42

Think about this.

Andrew Oxley: 14:43

You you have to understand how you come across to people.

Dr. Leah OH: 14:46

Yeah.

Andrew Oxley: 14:47

Uh, when you're frustrated, first of all, and self-awareness precedes change, and uh most of us are not very self-aware. Um, so you gotta know, well, like which one do I come across as? Now, the interesting thing about this is if you go home and ask someone who knows you well, they know. They know they they know what happens when you get frustrated. Not angry, because uh you you know everybody gets angry, but but yeah, you know, when that the anger sort of cools off, do you stay hot or do you start sort of trying to gloss over everything and make sure, make it seem like everything's fine, or do you get quiet, or do you start asking questions?

Dr. Leah OH: 15:22

Yeah, yeah, that that is really helpful and really a nice system for people to start to understand those they're they're interacting with, right?

Speaker 3: 15:32

Yeah.

Dr. Leah OH: 15:33

And I think this is a nice segue. I was, you know, you you work a lot of your work is all about trust and emphasizing trust. And so, Andrew, I'm wondering, you know, in these high stakes, these fast moving corporate environments, what specific communication behaviors should a leader adopt to establish you talk about this predictable clarity, which I love. So, what are those communication behaviors that leaders can do in order to foster this predictable, trusting environment?

Andrew Oxley: 16:05

Yeah, and and I guess the first thing you have to ask is, or you have to recognize is everybody thinks they're trustworthy, right? Yeah, and yet we know we don't trust everyone. So this is this is not necessarily a judgment of character, this is a judgment of perception, perhaps, or reality, but but it's somebody else's perception of reality, not necessarily what we feel. I I know when I make mistakes and I I have excellent reasons for my mistakes. So yes, right, yeah, and I think weird. Yeah, yeah, but when other people make mistakes, I'm like, yeah, anyway, that was all so trust is not a black and white issue, it's not a you trust someone or you don't trust them. I could trust you with you know my phone, but I might not trust you with my wife. I might trust you with I have a I have a client actually who he says I I can boy I trust him with a million dollars, but I wouldn't trust him with a secret, you know, because he loves to talk to people, yeah, right? So yeah, so but I trust him with a million dollars. So so the question is not do you trust people or do your people trust you? It's it's like what is the trust? And in an organization, what you the trust you need most is you need the trust where people will speak truth, be candid without fear of retribution. And as leaders, it's hard to get people to be truthful to us. Yeah, because they there's this, you know, I always say when when the leader walks in the room, the the room shifts. And I have leaders say, no, no, my people love me, they trust me, they they're just they don't change when I'm around. I'm like, yeah, they do, they do. And and the higher up you go in an organization, the more the room shifts when you walk in.

Dr. Leah OH: 17:48

Yes, yeah, exactly.

Andrew Oxley: 17:50

Trust is something that you can't uh manufacture. You have to actually look at it and say, okay, so if uh nobody ever tells me what I'm doing wrong, or nobody, if I ask for advice, insight, what could I do, and nobody will tell me, they don't trust me. Um because I'm probably not that good. You know, yeah, yeah, I can improve on.

Dr. Leah OH: 18:15

Yeah, those are really, really important insights, hard insights, but really essential ones.

Andrew Oxley: 18:20

Yes, yeah.

Dr. Leah OH: 18:22

So let's dive more into another one of your frameworks, the five-step framework. And you know, this is a core methodology. And I was hoping you could just start us off with that first critical step. So for we have leaders out there, they're feeling overwhelmed. What is this initial phase and you know, this idea of decluttering their message and transitioning from reactive to proactive? Can you help us kind of understand that and walk us through it?

Andrew Oxley: 18:48

And we, you know, we touched on a minute ago about passion, but it's the first step is vision. Where what are you trying to create? And you know, I work with leaders all the time, and they're like, well, you know, our the vision of our organization is I'm like, I don't care about that. They're they're like, they're like, well, but that's the vision. I'm like, well, yeah, I get it. But if you work six layers down in an organization, that vision is relevant directionally, but not relevant personally for your team, probably.

Dr. Leah OH: 19:13

Yeah, that's a great way of saying that.

Andrew Oxley: 19:15

You you've got to ask yourself, well, if you go back to the question of passion, what is it that would what is the wrong we're trying to write in our in our group? What's the thing that we you know would be an ideal we could strive for that would align with the vision of the organization, but it's probably not like going to encompass all of it, right? So so I was working with a customer service group years ago, and they had this vision. The vision originally was to be the highest quality customer service group and serve people and and you know, make you know, ecstatic customers. And and I'm like, so my question for the person it was about a three in a person team. My question for the director is are your people passionate about that? He said, I'm sure they want. Make it happen. I said, but are they passionate about it? Because I'm asking, what's in it for them? Like well, they get to keep their job. That is not inspirational to anybody. So I said, Well, what do they want? He said, Well, I think what they want is to grow and they they want to get new skills and be more employable. I said, Well, let's write the vision around that, and that if we do that, we'll have high quality employees who will great get great customer service. And so we started with that vision, and that vision then meant, okay, so if that's what we're trying to create, what do we need to do differently in the organization? Because having a vision that is detached from what's happening like every day is irrelevant. And I I love Andy Stanley has this great saying, he says, What what what happens down the hall will beat what's hanging on the wall? So you can you can hang the vision on the wall, but what what's happening every day, if that's our vision, what do we need to, how does that in you know inform our strategy and how our values and what we should be doing differently as an organization? It starts with that. So as a leader, you have to ask yourself, what am I passionate about? What's the right, what's the sorry, the wrong that we could, the ideal. By the way, this is not a goal, this is not something you can ever achieve. I mean, think about creating you know a growth-oriented organization. Well, because what happens as soon as you do that, people leave, right? So you gotta you're constantly working on this. So a vision is an ideal that is hard to realize that allows you to set goals. Goals are the milestones on the way to ideals.

Dr. Leah OH: 21:41

Oh, I love that. Yeah. Very um, I'm very visual, so we can keep seeing how this scaffolds on one another. Um, and I love that idea too of when we're getting clear in that vision and kind of stripping it away from that beautiful wordsmith item that we have on our website and all of our social media. But bringing in the people, right? Because so many organizations are guilty. Everything is external. External, it's all about the stakeholders. And certainly we need that. I understand profit and return on investment, but without good people, people who aren't passionate, people who are just there for that paycheck, who like you're gonna be running for a long time, buddy, to try and meet that that goal that you set. Because it's gonna be just about impossible.

Andrew Oxley: 22:30

Yeah, and the the great thing about this is that you know, I leaders complain to me every all the time about young people today, you know. It's not usually said in a glowing way, right? And I'm like, you know what? First of all, I think every generation has complained about young people today. Now, there's some unique things about this generation, without question. Um really positive if you look for them. But here's the problem with that young people today will work harder for a mission than they will a paycheck. Yeah, so as a leader, this is not a nice to have. This if you want to engage people and they complain, well, they're just not that motivated. I'm like, well, why should they be? They're like, well, it's their job. I'm like, you do realize how bad that sounds, and it might have been okay for you and me when we were starting, but I don't think it's unhealthy for people to be asking, you know, like, but what does it matter? Like, because when we hit this goal, aren't we just gonna set a bigger goal? So it's just a shell game, right? You're just yeah, no matter how hard I work, it'll you're always gonna want more. So I'll just do my I'll try.

Dr. Leah OH: 23:38

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, really insightful to bring that in and to be thinking about those differences. And and that kind of brings us to scale. And I know that your work, it focuses on building systems that actually scale. And this is so so essential because so many people can kind of come in and do band-aids, but when we're trying to grow, it it falls apart. So when a leader is communicating change or a new initiative, how should their messaging shift from that one-on-one or those like small team department specifics to being system proof, meaning it holds up and it remains clear as it kind of cascades across departments and maybe even geographies.

Andrew Oxley: 24:21

Right. And yeah, we we one of the things we work with on our with our clients is what we call cascading messages. So no more than three. Most people can't remember more than three things at a time. There's a reason why if you look at great communicators, they usually communicate it in threes. One would be better, by the way. Yeah, but three is three is probably practical, right? Three things when we talk about values of an organization, we like them not to have more than three. Because usually you can nest stuff underneath other ones anyway. So, yeah, uh, first of all, you complexity is easy, simplicity is hard. When I'm communicating one-on-one with a person, I can see whether I'm connecting. But when I'm communicating to many people, I can't. And I had this experience the first time when I, you know, speak to a lot of different audiences, but typically I used to speak to audiences of about a hundred to two hundred, and then this one time I got on stage and it was a big audience, it was almost a thousand people, and there was TV cameras, and there was light to my face, and I couldn't see the audience. And it was the first time I was like, I can't see whether I'm connecting, I could hear them, but I couldn't see whether I was emotionally moving them. Yeah, and so as leaders, that's the visual you need to have is I need to be so clear in my message that, and it needs to be so simple, which takes time, right? That I can I know that I've had clarity. Yeah, I had a I did a message one time, it was about 12 minutes, and uh somebody asked me, they said, How long did you practice? And I said, Three days. And they're like, three days? I'm like, you know, Steve Steve Jobs, probably one of the most he used to practice 60 minutes for every minute he was on stage. Now just think about that. That is not what we do as leaders, right? We pop up and we're like, I I can talk and I can well, yeah, you probably can, but you're not gonna be clear. You'll you'll move people emotionally, and they'll but you won't they won't have clarity about what they're supposed to do when they leave. So you start with what do I want people to take away from this? What are the actions I want? And then how do I only talk about those three things at max? I can give examples, but I'm only really talking about three things, and that's not what we do. Well, I I was working with a client years ago, and I said, What is the one thing that needs to change? And they gave me a list of 20. And I'm like, okay, so what you understand what you have to understand about that that's like playing whack-a-mole at the fair. Yeah, your people are just gonna be trying to what is the one thing you want to change, and they're like, But it all has to change. I'm like, if you can't change one, 20 won't change. So let's start with one, yeah, let's get momentum, and then we can start focusing on other things. So it's it's it's that simplicity and clarity and focus. It's by the way, it's not that it's not important one-on-one, but when you get to a group, you'll lose people so fast. And and just so if you're a leader and you give a message to a group, go out and ask people, what did you take from what I just said? And you'll hear 50 different messages from people. Well, that wasn't a clear, you know, and his leaders would say, Well, it's their fault, they weren't listening. I'm like, no, that's your fault. Yep. Yep. They're not listening, that's your fault.

Dr. Leah OH: 27:55

And it I love too, I even wrote it down that idea that simplicity takes time, because I think that's counterintuitive, right? It should be like, oh no, this is easy. Let me just give me the stage, give me the boardroom, and I can talk about this. But until you can, like you said, distill that down. And that that takes time. That takes mental clarity, it takes the lift to figure out how what do I strip away? What do they need to know? What's nice to have? So I I really appreciate you acknowledging that. Cause I think that really gets overlooked, the amount of effort that goes into that process.

Andrew Oxley: 28:31

Yeah. Lots of effort. It I don't know if it was Mark Twain said, if I'd had more time, I would have written a shorter letter, right?

Dr. Leah OH: 28:39

Yes. Yeah.

Andrew Oxley: 28:40

Long is easy.

Dr. Leah OH: 28:41

Exactly. Yes. So, Andrew, let's talk about this leadership and how we sustain it. So you developed the leadership program, and and what you've seen and what we've probably experienced or seen others do, they have these do these exciting bursts of clarity. But then it can be hard. We can struggle with sustaining these new habits. So, how does your framework does it build, how does it build in communication resilience into that system so that leaders can kind of stay rooted in that purpose-driven clarity rather than kind of backsliding into that complexity and confusion?

Andrew Oxley: 29:19

Yeah, I think we've uh we've we've bought into this notion that you can microwave leadership. You know, you can you can go send someone off to a two-day program, a three-day program, they're gonna come back and they will be energized when they come back. They'll have all sorts of ideas. The problem is they're gonna take the book and they're gonna put it on the shelf or put it over here because they've got all this stuff to do because they've been gone for three days. And then three months later, they're gonna find the book and they're gonna go, you know, I had all this ideas. Yeah, I'll get to it when I have time. So, what we do is a little bit different, and this comes from the fact I'm not from a training and development background. I was an operational leader before I started this company. And so what we said, well, what's the impediment to change for most people? And it's habits, it's the habits they have, right? Habits die hard and they are hard to change, right? So when you pack someone into a room for three days, it might not be very expensive, relatively, but uh you're presuming that the problem is knowledge, that they just don't know what to do. I have found that it rarely is knowledge, sometimes, but rarely. It's usually application. How do how do I actually do that? Yeah, so what we do is we take the content and we divide it up over nine modules, and every two weeks we meet with the client and we talk about what's working and what's not working. What did they do with the material? Did they do anything with it? Um and the butt there, these are little bite-sized chunks that are well designed to synthesis. And so, you know, there's accountability for change, there's support for change, and there's clarity of what they're supposed to be changing because their boss and them have to agree on what success looks like when they come out of the program. So we don't pretend you can microwave it. We believe you got a slow.

Dr. Leah OH: 31:06

Yeah. I I love, I love those, those metaphors. And you're right, because it is that accountability, the support and clarity that really provide kind of those guardrails to keep you going in that direction that that you want to be in.

Andrew Oxley: 31:22

Right. Absolutely. Without question.

Dr. Leah OH: 31:25

Yeah. So, Andrew, now, and this is something that, you know, my work is leadership communication, especially as a as a professor and scholar, you know, this myth of practical versus soft. So I know that shifting executive teams communications habit that can face internal pushback. Some people will say it's taking away from quote unquote real work. So, how do you help, you know, those those leaders who are saying, no, we really need to get clear in our communication? So, how do we help them then articulate this immediate tangible ROI of investing in communication clarity and trust building to those who are skeptical?

Andrew Oxley: 32:04

Yeah, and we do we do things a little bit differently because the problem is that most leaders do look at any kind of training, leadership training, communication training, and leadership is all about communication as soft skills. So it's so dismissive.

Dr. Leah OH: 32:21

Right. Yep, yep.

Andrew Oxley: 32:23

So, and then what they do is they put the HR group in charge of it, which is an untenable position for the HR team because they cannot drive that program. All they can do is hope the people come in. And if an operational leader has to choose between what's happening in the operation and what's happening for this, he's gonna choose this over here. He's gonna say, I, you know, I got I gotta I don't have time for that. I've got to work on this over here. So we start with a different methodology. We start with what the business problem is. Like, what's the business problem we're trying to solve? So years ago, we had a client, progressive insurance, they had they want to do some leadership skills training, and I said, why? And they're like, because our leaders need to grow. I'm like, why? I said, because the organization's growing so fast, we're having to promote people. I said, well, what's that creating? And uh after we asked why about seven times, we identified that there were some metrics that were not where they needed to be. And and and progressive measures more stuff than NASA. I mean, they measure everything. And so I took a long time to get them to choose one metric. And I said, and it would end up being timeliness in this particular case. And I said, okay, so if your leader is more effective, this would be happening, this would be happening, this would be happening, and your timeliness metric would improve. And they were like, Yeah, I said, well, let's measure the timeless metric as we implement the leadership development process. And I I said, it should improve. But let's make sure everybody knows that the purpose of this program is not to make them kinder, gentler leaders, it's to improve this timeliness metric, which we will expect will happen when they look at different skills. So, what we do is we start with the business problem and we make it by doing so, we make it an operational problem or an operational program, not an HL program.

Dr. Leah OH: 34:07

Yeah, excellent. I mean, kudos to that is so so strategic and forward thinking. And that's the way that one, we get habits, right? Because they recognize this is tied to metrics for their job. They're building it in, and then we have those other supports we've talked about with the accountability and the clarity. So I I really, really appreciate that approach that you and your organization are taking. That's great.

Andrew Oxley: 34:35

Yeah, it's it's worked well for us, and I think what happens is operational leaders we we partner with HR groups. Yeah. And we love we love our HR partners. But you know, I always say, no, no, no, do not delegate the implementation of this to the HR team. You are you're putting them in an untenable position of being responsible for something that they cannot be responsible for. This must be an operational initiative which they can support you in.

Dr. Leah OH: 35:01

Yeah, exactly. And I love what that communicates to to the employees. This is really important. This is essential, this is foundational for our work, not, oh, this is this is nice to have, or this is another training to check off that list of many trainings and compliance, you know, initiatives that we have to do.

Andrew Oxley: 35:20

Yeah. So we have this little trick we do when someone has to miss one of our sessions. We say, you can miss. And if it's vacation, that's fine. If you pre-plan vacation, that's fine.

Speaker 3: 35:30

Yep.

Andrew Oxley: 35:30

But if you're missing because there's an operational need, you must clear it with your boss's boss.

Dr. Leah OH: 35:36

Oh, not your boss. Yeah.

Andrew Oxley: 35:38

Your boss will probably say yes, but your boss's boss has a longer view, and they're like, No, no, no, no, no, no.

Dr. Leah OH: 35:43

No, yeah, we need you here.

Andrew Oxley: 35:44

You need you need to do this the time. Yeah. And you know what? Since we initiated that, uh, hardly anyone ever misses the session because they do not want to go to their boss's boss and ask that question.

Dr. Leah OH: 35:56

Yeah.

Andrew Oxley: 35:56

They know what the answer is going to be.

Dr. Leah OH: 35:58

Exactly, exactly. And just that messaging of like, this is this is important. We we care about this development, we care about your ability to do this well. What a gift to give people.

Andrew Oxley: 36:11

Yeah.

Dr. Leah OH: 36:11

Right. I mean, you know, once your communication improves and you can speak to each audience in a way they understand, like problems just disappear in in all areas of your life, or they they become manageable because they don't all disappear. But right. So, Andrew, I have two final questions for you. And these go hand in hand. It's the way we end all episodes of the communicative leader. And so it's kind of looking for leadership or leadership communication advice tip challenge. The first part is for our titled leaders, our managers, our directors. And then the second part is our employees of all ranks. So, what do you want to leave them with?

Andrew Oxley: 36:52

Yeah, I guess the the first thing that I would say is for your people who are actually in leadership authority positions, is find people who will speak the truth to you, who will be candid with you. Go find people who see the world differently than you do. Don't go find somebody who sees the world the way that you do, and you're like, I'm having trouble with Mary, and they're like, Yeah, me too. Mary just is not engaged, she's not motivated. They can't help you. Go find somebody who who sees the world differently and challenges you because when you're challenged, then you are not going to be comfortable. It's going to force you to grow. We call we call uh what often leaders do is they they seek the cold comfort of validation.

Speaker 3: 37:40

Yeah.

Andrew Oxley: 37:40

They get validated. If all you get is validation, you're comfortable. If you're comfortable, you're not comfortable.

unknown: 37:48

Yeah.

Dr. Leah OH: 37:49

And then what about our employees, all ranks across all industries? What do you want to leave them with?

Andrew Oxley: 37:55

Yeah, it's a it's a slightly different variation of what I just told the leaders. And that is, and this is something that was told to me by one of my mentors early in life. He said that to me that the amount of progress you make in your life will be directly proportional to the amount of honesty you can accept about yourself. The amount of progress you make in your life will be directly proportional to the amount of honesty you can accept about yourself. He went on to say that he did not think I was into honesty. And I was like, Well, that's hurtful. And he's like, you know, on you know, the truth of the matter is that you can never change another person directly. You can never change your circumstances directly. It's an inside job. You've got to work on yourself. And the when you can that doesn't mean that other people don't need to change and that you don't need to change your butt, but you have to change you. You must focus on the part of the problem that you have control or influence over and be honest about what you need to do differently. And the any amount of energy you focus on, the part of the problem that you have no control or influence over, is not it's not just wasted, it actually marginalizes every amount of energy you could be putting forth to what you could do differently. Because whatever you focus on in your life gets bigger. If you focus on the parts of the problem you can't do anything about, that's all you get. Yeah. And you're a victim. And when you're a victim, it's not a good place to live your life.

Dr. Leah OH: 39:26

Exactly. And like you said earlier, it's that self-awareness precedes action.

unknown: 39:31

Yes.

Dr. Leah OH: 39:31

So when we're starting there, then at least we know we're positioned to move in a way we want. Right. Yeah. Oh, excellent. So, Andrew, I've really enjoyed our conversation. I have so many notes here. I'm going to return to this. So I thank you for sharing your time and expertise. And I know this is going to be really helpful for our listeners.

Andrew Oxley: 39:53

Thank you very much. I appreciate you having me on.

Dr. Leah OH: 39:57

All right, my friends, that wraps up our conversation. Today. Until next time, communicate with intention and lead with purpose. I'm looking forward to chatting with you again soon on the Communicative Leader.