Situation (SCQR) XYZ Ltd has increased its employee strength

from 50 to 600 in the last two years.

As a result of this expansion the original

founders have found it difficult having face to
Complication (SCQR) face communications with the new employees
and they are concerned that short term sales
driven decisions are being taken that are not in
line with the ethical values of the company.

Question (SCQR) XYZ has requested Stillwater Consulting to

provide recommendations regarding how the
values of the company can be defined clearly,
communicated effectively through the
organization, as well as how the adherence to
these values can be measured and evaluated.
Recommendation (SCQR) “Our recommendation is that we adopt the
following measures with respect to the culture
dissemination initiative:
1. A two-day facilitated discussion for the
executive committee in which the values are
decided
2. Three leadership + coaching workshops for
the next sixty managers (3 batches of 20)
3. An internal communication campaign to
raise awareness of XYZ values
4. Measurement of progress on key metrics
decided (customer retention, NPS score, etc.)
5. A two-day retreat six months later to review
progress on metrics and finalize next steps

MECE (Mutually exclusive collectively exhaustive)
Sharing
MECE is a way of structuring your thinking and
communication in a way that ensures that all the
issues have been covered (cumulatively
exhaustive) and that there is no repetition
(mutually exclusive). This ensures crispness and
clarity. 
Example of MECE communication: 
We will explore the chances of the teams
competing in this year’s football world cup:
Example of non MECE communication: 
We will explore the chances of the teams
competing in this year’s football world cup: 
Sharing is a way of communicating your
thoughts, feelings, beliefs, points of views,
information
 speaker ‘owns’ their own thoughts and
experience. They are not embarrassed for
thinking or feeling what they do, nor do they
imply that it is the only way to see things and
there are no other legitimate perspectives
Judgement Judgement is when someone assumes that
their subjective experience of something is the
way everyone sees it, or the way everyone
should see it.
Advantage: Decisive
Disadvantage: Closed, arrogant, judgmental
Advice Advice is usually any statement which includes
‘you should’ or ‘you shouldn’t’.
Advice is effective when both the following
conditions are fulfilled:
1. the speaker actually does know more than the
listener
2. when the listener acknowledges that the
speaker has more knowledge

Feedback Feedback is a specific form of Sharing. Sharing

communicates your perspective and Feedback
communicates your perspective specifically
related to what you think is working or not
working from a point of view of effectiveness
of somebody or something.
Example of sharing: ‘I am feeling happy’
Example of feedback: ‘I feel your presentation
would have been better if it had been shorter’
The two important points to note about
feedback are:
1. Feedback is neither positive, nor negative. It
is neutral information.
2. Feedback doesn’t aim to label a person or
thing. It is information regarding its
effectiveness or ineffectiveness in achieving its
targeted results (usually about actions).
Request The format of a request is ‘Would you please do
X for me by time Y?’
Agreement
Holding accountable Pg 34
Leadership
Coaching
Managing
Self-awareness An understanding of how the way we look at
the world influences our results, relationships,
 perceptions people have of us, and our
experience of life itself
Reality Fact can be checked. It’s 28 degrees
Beliefs We form beliefs from our past experiences –
through our direct personal experiences, from
the information we have received or things we
have absorbed from our surroundings
The function of beliefs is to make quick
decisions
disadvantage of relying on them blindly is that
they might, on occasions, lead to suboptimal
results
Interpretation you can’t be right or wrong about
interpretations. (If I feel hot at 28 degrees that’s
my interpretation)
Experience
Results
Clarity What I want to create..
Clarity is about knowing specifically what
you want to do, why you want to do it and
what the prices are that you need to be
willing to pay to make it happen
Honesty Honesty is about looking at a situation in
an unbiased way so you can respond
appropriately - neither overreacting nor
underreacting
The natural strengths I have that I can use…
The areas that I have not been effective…
Ownership Ownership is about focusing on the choices
and decisions within your control. Taking
ownership means relinquishing blaming
circumstances, others or yourself
The ineffective choice I have been making in
these areas…
The distorting belief that tricked me into
making this choice…
A more empowering belief I could adopt is…
What I notice about how I have been
communicating
Commitment Commitment is about your response to
roadblocks. Commitment is defined as
being willing to do whatever it takes.
The strength I’m committed to consciously
developing in this year at ISB is…
The prices I’m willing to pay in the coming
year are…
Win-Win Win-Win is about your approach to
relationships. It is about how you balance
your needs against those of others
The support I would like from you is
Range model
Light
Burn
Shade
Shadow
Simple (sticky communication) To strip an idea down to its core, we must be
masters of exclusion. If you say three things,
you’ve said nothing.
Example: During Bill Clinton’s successful
campaign, his political advisor James Carville
came up with the phrase that would become
the core message – ‘It’s the Economy stupid’.
Every other campaign issue was subordinated
to this one message that was communicated to
the electorate with devastating clarity.
Unexpected (sticky communication) In order to be interesting, an idea must be
counterintuitive. Otherwise it can come across
as clichéd
Concreteness (sticky communication) We must explain our ideas in terms of human
actions, in terms of sensory information. This is
where so much business communication goes
awry.
The vision for NASA was not ‘To be the premier
space exploration agency in the world and to
set the benchmark for excellence in the field of
scientific 58

achievement’. It was ‘Put a man on the moon

Credibility (sticky communication)
by the end of the decade’.
In certain cases, credibility can come from data
and sources of authority. But in other cases the
opposite is true. In 1980 Ronald Reagan asked
voters the question “Before you vote, ask
yourself if you are better off today than you
were four years ago”. The voter’s own
experience in this case was more powerfully
credible than any statistics Reagan could have
presented to them. We need to ask what
would be credible for our audience if we want
our communication to be sticky.
Judgment vs Sharing:
Judgement: You are a terrible listener
Sharing: I feel like you’re not listening to me

Judgement: You don’t spend any time with me

Sharing: I would like to spend more time with you

Judgement: That was a great performance (note: judgement can be positive or negative)
Sharing: I really enjoyed your performance

Advice vs Sharing:

Advice: You should do an MBA

Sharing: I think that an MBA would be the best option for you

Belief vs Reality:

So, the one thing you can do with beliefs that you cannot do with reality is change them. But if you
think your beliefs are reality, you can’t change your beliefs and you end up going in the same cycle
over and over again, even if it’s not working for you. We think it’s the reality that’s causing the
result but actually the way we’re looking at the situation also contributes to it.