Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown was lambasted for his slow communication on the night of the 27 January 2023 floods. His initial reaction was defensive and attempting to blame others[i]. Eight days later he apologised. Communication skills are not just a necessary part of leadership, communication is leadership. What can we learn and apply to our business?

Channels to Communicate

Do you have multiple ways to communicate with your team and customers, and know when and how to use them? Mayor Brown is well-known for his disdain of news media, so when he needed television to communicate with constituents, he found it an unfamiliar and unforgiving method.

In JDW, we use multiple channels and they each have different purposes.

·        For immediacy – pop-by-and-chat, phone call, WhatsApp, text.

·        For visual clarity – whiteboard discussion, charts, Zoom or Teams video call.

·        For less urgent, asymmetric communication – email, Teams Chat, FYI task manager.

·        For progress updates – team stand-ups, FYI task manager, weekly Teams post.

·        For building understanding and connection – coffee chats, team meetings.

·        For sharing to a wider group – website, newsletter, Facebook/Instagram, Linkedin/Twitter, Vimeo and now Tiktok.

Team meetings are topical and purposeful, with a chairman and agenda. Our workflow stand-ups are brief and held in smaller teams. We don’t have a meeting if an email or Teams message will do. We use FYI to tag appropriate people into documents for sharing information, collaboration, review or approval. It reduces traffic in their email inbox, everyone is reading or editing the same version, and saves time because the documents are accessible from anywhere with internet access.

Before a crisis happens, plan how you will communicate with your management and wider team. We have chosen WhatsApp as our main channel for the team, with text as alternative, as few team members have landlines. This will be a challenge for us, if the mobile and internet networks both go down. If you need more reliable channels, consider satellite telephones or radio telephones.

Communicating in a Crisis

Step up, show empathy and empower your team in a crisis.

Step Up as a Leader

When a crisis happens in business, your team will be looking to you for guidance and reassurance. You need to be more visible and communicate clearly what is expected of the team. It doesn’t mean that you have all the answers, but you do need to act decisively in a timely manner to safeguard your people and the business.

Show Empathy

Don’t blame-shift! If your business has let down its customers, it is on you to own up, apologise and remediate as quickly as possible. You are the face and voice of your organisation. You will want to investigate the problem, so it doesn’t happen again, but your customers firstly want to know that you will take on the responsibility for making it right.

Acknowledge the feelings of people who have been impacted. The Mayor made an off-hand comment that perhaps some houses had been built in the wrong place. As an engineer he has more knowledge about the issues than most. That’s not encouraging for the people who were just displaced by the storm. In the first 24 hours, they wanted to know that there was somewhere safe and dry for them and their families.

Empower Your Team

If you are uncontactable because you have no cellphone coverage, or if you have a personal or family emergency, will the business be able to continue without you? If your team is clear about their responsibilities, the organisation’s values and purpose, then maybe so.

You will need to empower them before you need them in a crisis. Do you regularly ask them for inputs, ideas and insights? Do you mentor other leaders and managers, give regular feedback and stretch their capabilities? Do you demonstrate trust, by giving them the freedom to make decisions and make mistakes?

What Aren’t You Saying

If you want your team to be calm, then you need to model that calm behaviour. Before you even open your mouth, they will be able to sense your worry, concern, anger from your demeanour and behaviour. If it is appropriate to feel those things, then it is fine to acknowledge them, but refocus your team on what’s going to get them through the immediate crisis.

Your actions need to match your words and values, or you will be called out for inconsistency and lacking integrity. In April 2020, then Health Minister David Clark was photographed at a mountain bike trail, just a week after forcing the country into its first Covid-19 lockdown[ii]. At best it was a confusing message to the public, at worst it showed poor judgment at a time when the Prime Minister was calling us the “Team of Five Million.” David Clark resigned his Health portfolio soon after this incident.

If you need the team to put in extra hours to resolve a major issue, then you should roll up your sleeves too. If you can’t directly support the team with expertise and advice, then show it in other ways, like bringing coffee and takeaways, or allocating more resources to them.

When Dr Shane Reti wrote to Air New Zealand and Auckland Airport to complain about piles of unsorted airline luggage, Air New Zealand CEO Greg Foran replied within an hour and set out the steps the airline had taken to start resolving the issue. Greg Foran was even spotted at the airport, sorting luggage himself the following week. [iii]

Conclusion

Communication is not just speaking and writing, it is listening and behaviour too. Your team needs guidance and reassurance from you, when it is business as usual, but more so in a crisis.

-         Serena Irving

Serena Irving is a director in JDW Chartered Accountants Limited, Ellerslie, Auckland and a Distinguished Toastmaster. JDW is a professional team of qualified accountants, auditors, business consultants, tax advisors, trust and business valuation specialists.

An article like this, which is general in nature, is no substitute for specific accounting, business and tax advice. If you want more information about the issues in this article, please contact your adviser or the author.

Download a PDF version here or contact the author by email. Like our Facebook page for regular tips.

  [i] https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/04-02-2023/the-communications-machine-broke-down-in-the-floods-how-can-we-fix-it?

[ii] https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/120780372/health-minister-drives-to-local-park-to-ride-his-mountain-bike-amid-coronavirus-lockdown

[iii] https://www.nzherald.co.nz/travel/air-new-zealand-boss-greg-foran-seen-clearing-baggage-backlog-at-auckland-airport