Providing Clarity and Context

Audio: Singing

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Hello, this is Rebecca Fleetwood Hession, host of the Badass Womens Council Podcast, and I'm super glad that you're here. How's it going? We've flipped over to fall, left summer behind. If you follow me on social media, you know I was a big proponent of summer until it's not. Well, it's not. I just think it's important to just get everything we can out of a season if it's one that you love and I love summer, but I also am excited about fall because sweatshirts, leggings, boots, all the things, pumpkins. I don't know. Fall's good. I like it. It's also a very short season, I feel like. We got to jump in there and love it for all it is right now before it turns into that pre- winter season here in the Midwest. Anyway, I digress from the things I want to talk about today. I want to talk about clarity and context. I know it doesn't sound like a very fun podcast topic, but stay with me. I can promise you that these two simple little words can provide a lot of value in your life and your work because clarity and context are part of company story in my book, Write Your OWN Story: Three Keys to Rise and Thrive as a Badass Career Woman. They exist, this company story framework to provide clarity and context exists to help engage your team, to engage you, to bring the humans that live and work together. You can use clarity and context at home, as well as at work as is the case with most of the things that I bring to you. It helps people come together in shared expectations that allow us to live and work better together. It's that simple. No need to overcomplicate it. I prefer things that have a simple message and a simple intent because we're humans and simple feels good. Business tries to overcomplicate things too often and then it just gets wonky. There's all kinds of reasons for that we'll go into another day, ego. We're not going there today. We're going to stay with clarity and context. Here are a few questions that when you use these intentionally to guide you can be really, really, really helpful. Are you ready? The first one is, who is this for? Who is the human or group of humans that whatever you're planning or whatever you're doing or whatever you're creating or whatever you're fixing is for? When we ground ourselves into the human audience, it allows us to build things that are helpful and serve humans, which is really why commerce exist. Our organizations have no inherent, inherent, inherent right to exist. They exist to solve problems for people, to create opportunities for people. They exist to serve humans. Getting really clear, even in the granular things that you're doing for work on who is it for, is the first question that you always want to answer. Let's say that you are having a meeting. You're going to call a meeting about something. You're going to ask yourself, who is this for? Who actually needs to be there? Let's say you're creating an event. I do a lot of events. I always ask myself, who is this event for? And really get into the hearts and minds of who I'm creating it for to make sure I'm adding value to who they are. If you are implementing a new CRM, customer resource management system, you need to answer the question, who is this for? Who is the human or groups of humans that I'm creating this for? Then the next series of questions is, why does it matter? And then you break it down. Why does it matter to them, whoever you're creating it for? Why does it matter to me, my team, the company? Getting really clear on those two categories, who is it for and why does it matter, that's the clarity and context. Clarity, who is it for? Context, Why does it matter? And then answering that question for the variety of people that are involved. The word context actually means to weave together. To create engagement, buzzword of the day, company culture, means bringing humans together into a set of shared expectations. Just answering these very simple questions and then sharing the answers with the team, the company, whoever's involved, helps humans look at the situation and go," Okay, am I going to jump in and participate in this or not?" We don't provide this level of clarity and context, because people's brains are always wanting to know the rest of the story and usually having a negativity bias in how we fill in the blanks to the rest of the story. If we don't provide transparent information about who is it for and why does it matter, people make up stories in their heads and it's usually wrong and negative and prevents them from engaging in a positive, hopeful, beautiful way. Even if there's changes that need to be made in your organization that are difficult and that people aren't going to maybe necessarily love or like, it's going to be inconvenient because change is seen as inconvenient even when it's good change, people can get on board better if they know why it matters, especially why it matters to other humans. It requires us to take the pause to answer these questions, maybe gather a team together to make sure we're all on the same sheet of music, as they say, about why we're doing things, instead of just operating in a vacuum from our email accounts and not having real conversations. That never goes well, does it? You know what I would love? I would love for you to use these questions, who is it for, why does it matter, in some practical way, and then message me and let me know how it went, and then let's talk about it on another episode. Because who doesn't love good stories about this stuff? I am getting ready to plan my daughter's 21st birthday gathering here at the house for our family and friends. I'm asking myself these questions, who's it for? Now, there's a weird one when we're talking about personal stuff, because my daughter's expectations of the party and maybe my parents or aunts and uncles, somebody else, their expectations may be very different. I have to ask myself, who's this for? Well, I could go down the route that says," Well, of course, it's for my daughter." Well, yeah, but my daughter also has another party that she's having with friends on the actual day of her birthday that's probably going to be a little more 21 year old birthday ish. The one I'm planning is also for moms and dads and aunts and stuff. It has a little bit more of the family flavor to it. I'm just thinking through those thing, but I also don't want it to be snoozefest boring for my daughter if she invites some of her friends. I've thought of things that we can do that will be pleasing, fun to all of those people involved. Because why does it matter? Well, the family wants to spend some time with Auburn, Auburn wants to spend some fun time with her friends, and so we can combine those needs and make sure she's getting her birthday needs met. I tell you, it sounds really simple, but there were a lot of years early on when I was trying to make everybody happy and felt like it was my responsibility always to make everybody happy, and it's not my responsibility to make everybody happy. But I can provide an event, an opportunity that people can choose to participate in or not. But thinking through those things helps me create experiences that I'm hopeful will meet a lot of people's needs. Okay, let's do a work example. Let's say that you are implementing a new CRM, customer resource management system, in your organization. Well, who is it for? Well, it's going to be impacting the salespeople. It's going to be impacting whoever it's going to be impacting for you. Who is this for? I could make the case that a CRM is as much for the customer to have a better experience with your company, as well as for the salespeople to be able to keep track of who they're talking to, when they should talk to somebody next, but it's also for the organization to forecast sales and events. For each organization, there's a little different context about who it's for and why it matters. Getting really clear on that and then answering that next question, well, why does it matter to them and to us and to anybody that's impacted, helps you to engage the people that are going to be using this tool because nobody loves major change in the way that they do their work unless you're solving a problem. But oftentimes we need to implement things, new systems and processes, to help grow the company and improve something. But getting really clear on that, who is it for and why does it matter, and communicating it in that way helps people know if they're jumping in or not and why does this matter to other humans. And then if somebody doesn't jump in and get on board and you need to have a conversation, you've provided clarity and front, and then you can have the conversation that says," Hey, I understand you haven't been using the CRM system. What do I need to know? What challenges are you having? How can I help you?" But always best to proactively provide, who's it for and why does it matter? This could apply to so many things. I use this with all of my clients all of the time. In fact, even when there's challenges that we're trying to get to the root cause of, I will say," Well, who did you build that for? Who did you design that for? Who's it for?" And then it helps us think through," Oh, maybe I'm off track. Maybe I didn't choose the right solution because I'd lost track of who it's for." It's just a really good, simple tool that I hope that you will use, and I wanted to share it with you today. There you go. Again, I would love for you to go and use it, try it, tell me what's working, what's not, what questions you have, and then we'll talk about it here on the show. One other thing I wanted to share today that's real time that happened this morning again, and I've talked about this on other episodes and blogs and such, the concept that when somebody pops into your mind, to reach out to them with whatever was on your mind. Because oftentimes, the majority of the time. That person needed to hear it. Today, I got a video message from a person that I had been introduced to and she had reached out to me earlier this summer and just said," Hey, I'd love to get to know you and grab coffee and learn a little bit more about your work," she had done some similar events as the Stand Tall in Your Story event and just wanted to get together. I said," Sure, let's do it." We did and it was great. We've stayed connected. She's considering Rise and Thrive, my seven month experience for next year. It was a great conversation. Today, she messaged me and she said," I just wanted you to know how grateful I am that you responded when I asked to meet, because I've reached out to some other folks and I've not had the same kind of welcoming responses." I'm not saying that to brag on me. I'm saying it because I was in a super duper big time funk this morning yesterday. When she sent me that message, it affirmed in me that my work matters and that I was kind and helpful to somebody. And you all, I needed to hear that this morning. I was in a funky place. It was so good to hear that message. Just think about it, she could have just thought it, but not shared it, but she actually took the time to share it at the moment that it was on her heart. Took her a couple minutes, wasn't a big deal, but it was a big deal for me to receive it. You never know who needs what you're thinking about. I think God does that. He just drops in our hearts things about people at a time when that person probably needs that encouragement or needs to hear from you. If we're listening and paying attention, we can have some pretty significant impact with each other in very simple, simple ways. Like I said, took a couple minutes, but it made a huge difference in my day, in my outlook about my life and my work. And here I am sharing it, so the ripple effect of it is even greater than just the message that I received. I wanted to remind you of that. Tell them. If somebody pops into your mind, take the time to just text them, message them, tell them, tell them what you're thinking. All right. Short little episode today, you all, because Rise and Thrive starts this week. Starts on Thursday for our overnight kickoff retreat. I'm so excited. It's my favorite time is to see these women come together who didn't know each other and just see the relationships start to form and the journey that they're going to be on over the next seven months to write their own story. And then we get to hear their stories on March 8th, International Women's Day 2023 at The Vogue Theater. Mark your calendars. In fact, tickets are up right now on the website, wethrive. live, live tickets, virtual tickets. You know what else I did this year? Because you know I'm always wanting to create something new. That's who I am. I created this thing called Striving to Thriving: A Four Part Empowerment Series. Now that sounds fancy. It's really good, you all. It's meant to help people that are running like DE& I or women groups inside your organization with a really easy to implement for you, but high impact, not but, and high impact for your team or your company. It kicks off, those four parts, it kicks off with the Stand Tall In Your Story event, a virtual invite for your entire organization. I don't care if you have five employees or 5, 000 or 50, 000. Everybody can come. And then we do three more sessions, one on story, one on money, and one on rhythm, which are the three keys from my book, Write Your OWN Story. It's me facilitating virtually. If you want me live, you have to pay for me to come wherever you want me to come. But we spread that out over all of 2023. We start in March, and then I can't remember what the dates are for the other three, but it spans through November. Four total sessions. And then your group has the ability to ask great questions in between the sessions and keep the conversation going. Sometimes when you bring in various speakers from various topics, it's hard to have the thread that ties it all together. I wanted to create something that was easy for you to implement and execute and was really valuable for your company. It's on the website. Check it out or message me and say," Hey, let's talk about that thing." I would love to talk about that thing. I want to spend time getting to know you and your organization and your goals and your culture, so that when I come to facilitate it, I can say, wait for it, clarity and context," Well, who's it for and why will it matter to them and to you?" And then to make sure that I'm tailoring that message for you and your company, because I care a lot about that, making it a tailored message that's going to have impact for your employees and for the money making model of your business. There you go. Check it out. Let's chat about it and see if it's a good fit for you. The very least, I hope that you and your bestie or your work team can come to the event virtual or live. It's the most fun. This group that we have starting this week for Rise and Thrive are amazing women who are excited to dig in to this experience. That's why it's a short episode because I got work to do to get ready for Thursday, but I didn't want to leave out a little chat with you all today. Thanks so much. Make it a great day. Love you. Mean it.

Audio: Singing