[00:00:00] Introduction

[00:00:00]
Pat Sweet:
This is the Engineering & Leadership Podcast with Pat Sweet, Episode 46.

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[00:00:15] Show Teaser over Music

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Pat Sweet:
Today, I speak with Dolores Hirschmann on why clarity of message is key for effective leadership and how to improve your communications as a leader. And welcome back to the show. I, of course, in pat sweet. And I'm thrilled to have you along here again today for another episode and an interesting conversation today, I'll be speaking with Dolores Hertz.

[00:00:50]
About communication skills for leaders. And I think you're really going to like Delores she's full of energy. She brings some really great ideas to the table and her whole persona is just wonderful and infectious. It's great. It's great. So very excited to be sharing that with you. But as usual, I've got a few things that I wanted to share with you before getting to the interview.

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First thing I wanted to mention is an upcoming webinar, which is going to be on February 23rd. Where I'll be partnering again with my friend, Jeff Perry, and we'll be talking about providing a path for growth for employees. We're going to be touching on employee engagement. The great resignation and a number of other related ideas, which obviously is a big, big concern for engineering managers and engineering staff everywhere.

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We're still working out the details. So stay tuned for that. And next, I wanted to mention a video that I just released. I mentioned last week that I was going to be starting a new video series focused on helping engineering managers with their productivity. So I'm very happy to mention that the first of three videos was published just today.

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And it's there to help engineering managers who are feeling overwhelmed, stressed, feeling like they're running around like chickens with their heads cut off. If this is how you feel, if this is what work looks like for you right now, this video is absolutely for you. And. I introduce a productivity system that I've developed for my own use over the years as an engineering manager.

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And I even teach the most important element of that system as well. I will share a link to that video in the show notes. So please do go check that out. You can find the link@engineeringandleadership.com slash episode 46.

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All right on with the show.

[00:02:49] Guest Introduction

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Pat Sweet:
When I speak with leaders in engineering, many tell me that their number one issue is communications within their organization. Research by the Grossmann group, a communications consultancy estimated in 2011, that for large companies, poor communications cost an average of $62.4 million per company per year.

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That's not dimension the frustration, confusion, and stress that parked medications can cause employees and managers alike. Needless to say poor communications are a real issue. Perhaps now more than ever with projects, growing more complex companies, growing leaner and the introduction of remote and hybrid work on a grand scale.

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My guest today is here to help us understand the importance of great communication. Show us how it influences our leadership and provides concrete examples of ways we can improve our communication skills. Delores Hershman is an investor, speaker and author, and a communications and business strategist along with being a TEDx organizer.

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She's an ICF accredited coach and holds a bachelor's of business from Universidad de San Andres. Here's my conversation with Dolores.

[00:04:11] Interview

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Pat Sweet:
Delores Hirschmann. Thank you very, very much for joining me today on the podcast. It's an absolute pleasure to.

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Dolores Hirschmann:
Thank you so much, pat, for having me.

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Pat Sweet:
I'm going to get started today. We're going to talk about clarity and the importance of, of clarity within communications and your messaging, but to get started, I want to set the scene a little bit and have you define a few terms because some of the things you talk about relate to thought leadership and clarity of message.

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And I think for a lot of folks, they might not have been exposed to that language before. Could you get us rolling here and just define thought leadership for us as a starting point.

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Dolores Hirschmann:
Yeah, absolutely. So when. We talk about thought leadership and it's a term used for someone independent on, on the context area. And it's not whether you are. Communicating within a company or outside of a company, but it's the concept of think of it as the idea holder and that idea holder communicates that idea powerfully to the world and kind of lead a conversation.

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so the thought leadership is a concept of, of leading. Uh, I thought or leading our conversation, a topic, a theme, an idea is who is first to speak about this, or first to make, do some research about this and start interacting with other people around this new concept. Sometimes it's an old concept brought back.

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Dolores Hirschmann:
It doesn't always have to be new, but is that leader of our company?

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Pat Sweet:
Okay, perfect. So this is the kind of thing you don't necessarily need to have a PhD to be a thought leader, but it's the kind of thing. If, if you mentioned

[00:05:51]
Dolores Hirschmann:
You can have the PhD of Harnack.

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Pat Sweet:
that's right. Well, and that, and that's important. That's important. That lived experience. So, so that, that makes sense. Um, so when you talk about a person's message and, and clarity of that message, what ultimately do we mean by that?

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What do we mean by a person or a thought leader? Having a particular message.

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Dolores Hirschmann:
Yeah. So it's a comment for me, right? It's for me, my interpretation is a combination of a lot of internal cloud. And carry around an idea or a thought that you want to, to really spread through the world. So, first of all, it's clarity of who I am like of all the ways I can bring a message or communicate or have an impact in my community or in my work or in my market.

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What kind of. Communicator on my, like, what is my strengths? Where do I thrive? What comes easy to me? Right? Like the internal, what I call the internal knowledge so that you can. Powerful internal leadership and lead yourself in an intentional way. And so that paired with high called the quest. The thing that you say, I stand for this.

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So let's say that you were for company and you stand for DNI, right? Diversity and equality and inclusion. Sorry. And you say, I am going to be the spokesman. Independent of the hierarchy. I could be new to the company. I can be the C level, but I want to be a spokesperson. I want to take a stand for the conversation around diversity and inclusion.

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And so that paired with the knowledge of what kind of person I am. I am an introvert, an extrovert. Uh, do I want to shout it from the main slack channel or do I want to just have quiet conversations about what I think now that the staff. Doesn't diminish the power. Like I think it, some people say the louder you are, the more leader you are.

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No, you are not. Or the louder you are, the more expert you are. No, you're not. And so I think it's important for every to understand that when you own your message and you stand by it and you choose to stand out a step into it, your style is going to be your style. There's no one way.

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Pat Sweet:
See that's really interesting because I think that flies in the face of what a lot of people experience as leadership. It's the person who really is

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Dolores Hirschmann:
Standing on

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Pat Sweet:
standing on the. And screaming it. Right. And, and this is something that

[00:08:32]
Dolores Hirschmann:
that's a shouter.

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Pat Sweet:
Yeah. And, and, and I'm sure that, well, that's a way to get attention, but one of the things that I've tried to emphasize with my work and in the show is that there's more than one way to lead.

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So I think that's really interesting that you say that. And I think that the next logical. Message here is that what really is important? It's not the way you express it. As long as you have clarity, I assume this is a big part of your message.

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Dolores Hirschmann:
Exactly. And so let me just pause there, but it, you know, shouting it from the top of the building, he told way to get attention, but it's not necessarily a way to influence thought or to have an impact, getting attention and influencing or, or transforming or having an impact are completely two different things.

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The person screaming can get my attention. I will get in my head. The fire cause I'm about to learn, but am I going to be, is that person going to be my leader? Am I going to fall? I'm not going to learn. Am I going to maybe explore their ideas? Not necessarily. And so yeah, there is no message. There is no impact and there is no influence without message clarity.

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Pat Sweet:
Okay, so what makes a message clear? How can you tell that you've got a message and people get it when you present it?

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Dolores Hirschmann:
So as a TEDx organizer, we would receive for those that don't know, TEDx are independently run tech like events, and nobody gets paid is a volunteer thing. You do it because you love ideas or you are a Masaki sideways, or you want to suffer and you get stressed and get very busy and not be able to do any billing hours because you are doing. Uh, or you'll have ideas about, but, um, when I was a TEDx organizer, which I did for three years, we would get hundreds of applicants to speak on an event. And we would, uh, ask one, there were a few questions we asked in the application, but there was one main question, which was, what is the idea behind your talk mainly that, what are you going to talk about?

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Really? That's what that means. And if we would get. I short sentence, we will pay attention if we will get paragraphs and paragraphs and paragraphs for them to explain the one idea that they were going to speak on our 18 minute states, then that's a sign of known clarity. So the more convoluted, the longer, the explanation of what your ideas are, the less clarity you have and the more you're just running.

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Pat Sweet:
right, right. And I, one of the things that I've certainly experienced in. In my career, I'm an engineer and I've worked with engineers throughout my career for detailed oriented people for, for highly analytical people. Getting to that point, getting to that sentence is incredibly difficult. And I think, I think there's a fear that if you don't explain the full story, so to speak that people won't get it, or that's something we'll, we'll be missing.

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How do you get past that? How do you get over?

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Dolores Hirschmann:
Yes. There's a couple of layers by the way. I'm a coach. So there's a couple of things I'm going to touch upon that are more a coaching thing. So my oldest son is an engineer as well. He actually, he's graduating from Northeastern in June

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Pat Sweet:
No, that's great. Congratulations.

[00:11:55]
Dolores Hirschmann:
excited. He's young. So first of all, the. Need to devote the whole thing.

[00:12:04]
And the reason why we do that is sometimes it's lack of clarity. Usually it's a combination of things. Second is a self-worth issue. If I don't show all of my knowledge and research and big words, then they won't think I'm smart enough. here's the thing, pat simplicity. And so Sydney. Requires courage and clarity, because if you are a PhD doctor in quantum genetic Delilah, and you say, my idea is this, and it's a short sentence that I am a nobody.

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I'm not a doctor. I'm not a PG. I can understand. Then if I can understand that very smart person that maybe they're not. So there is, um, unconsciously, unless you've done your internal work and self-leadership, and I looking to truly impact the world in order to impact the world, you need to connect and engage with the world and communicate powerfully.

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Cause I was you can't, if you truly are committed to that and you do everything. In your power to do that, then you will have the courage to speak in the simplest most clear way so that anybody including a second grader, I don't have anything wrong with certain grades, but they're in second grade. So they don't have a PhD.

[00:13:34]
Even a second grade can actually understand what you do. They might not be able to do what you do, but they'll be able to wrap their head around what. And if you are doing that, then you are committed to your work versus committed to your ego.

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Pat Sweet:
Yeah.

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Dolores Hirschmann:
Because the big words, what happened with complex extensions and big words is that they create a natural gap.

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Moat of I'm in my, I know everything castle does a moat, and then there's the people who don't understand what I do because I'm so. They don't understand if you're this Mart and you can communicate to this person, then you either not that smart, another clear,

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Pat Sweet:
So that that's an interesting idea. Yeah. Yeah. That's an interesting idea because I think coming into this conversation, my assumption was going to be that there's, there's a skills gap for a lot of people in terms of how to distill their message into something

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Dolores Hirschmann:
and that's true too.

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Pat Sweet:
It really didn't occur to me that there might also be a.

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Dolores Hirschmann:
Oh,

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Pat Sweet:
and that

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Dolores Hirschmann:
And that's why I started with that. I mean, the, how I can teach you the how in a second. But will you stand in front of a room of people that are you're a senior and they're freshmen, will you start in front of a room and explain your brilliant idea in one sentence, let them get it. Then they will judge you that you didn't explain it enough, or you didn't show all your cards.

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Now, now here's the thing you asked me. Why is it that we explained so much when we were spinning? Our idea? Part of it is because we collect. The potential engagement with someone. Let me explain. So communication and communication as a speaker with an audience or with your team is like dating. If you go to a first date, And you say, hi, I'm bad.

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And I, my parents are divorced and I failed in second grade, but then I got a PhD in blah, blah, blah. Uh, I'm afraid of the dark and I love the color blue and all the way when I grow up, I want to have two boys, one girl named Mary and three dogs. That date is going to run away as fast as possible because you are packing.

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You're collapsing, every experience you want to have with that person in the first 10 minutes.

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Pat Sweet:
It's overwhelming.

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Dolores Hirschmann:
so you, you're overwhelming, you're overwhelming. They can digest. And it's too much to in, in the dating thing. It's scary. But if you were to do that, you can't, you can't go into the details of your idea to someone that hasn't even understood the big picture.

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So if you're sharing an idea is first is what problem are you? Don't talk about what you do to simply start with, what do you solve? My son actually just called me yesterday. He's finishing his capstone. I dunno about, he said, yeah, yet, but he said, oh mom, I finished my capstone and it works. I said, what, what does it do?

[00:16:42]
I didn't want to know what components had had or the design. And he said, it turns anybody of water into drinking water in about a minute without Kevin.

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Pat Sweet:
Wow.

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Dolores Hirschmann:
and he's like, yeah, we took it to the river and he works. So now he's coming for Thanksgiving tomorrow. I'm like, okay, show me this stuff. But if he had said it's two pieces that connect with each other and solar panel, and then, and then he would have lost me over there and would have never gone to the point of what, what actually will it do for me?

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Pat Sweet:
yeah, that's very powerful. That's very powerful to, to start with the wide start with that punchline, that bottom line upfront.

[00:17:24]
Dolores Hirschmann:
with the problem itself.

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Pat Sweet:
Yeah. Yeah, no, that's amazing.

[00:17:28]
Dolores Hirschmann:
Cause then you plant curiosity and he's like, okay, if that person is talking about a problem that I have, or I have experience, or I have awareness of, then I will be curious if they say like, well, I solved the problem of migratory birds. the, the wings get wet. Yeah. It's not really my problem. I will go talk to the next person and that's. Because I'm not the ideal audience for

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Pat Sweet:
Sure. Sure. So let's say you've got this desire to. To establish yourself as a thought leader. whether it's within your own organization or you're working with a big company, whatever the case may be, what can you do to assess yourself and establish today? The clarity of your message?

[00:18:17]
How can you identify whether or not you've got a gap to close there? What, what might you do to look yourself in the mirror, so to speak?

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Dolores Hirschmann:
So let's, let's separate thought leadership on an idea and leadership.

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Pat Sweet:
Sure.

[00:18:31]
Dolores Hirschmann:
'cause I think what you're asking me is leadership that obviously will include thought leadership as, as you put different ideas, but before being a thought leadership, you have to act and behave as a leader. I know to act and behave as a leader.

[00:18:45]
You obviously need clarity. We're very even talking about that. 30 of self clarity of the things that you share code in how you communicate, you also need consistency. Meaning I, I can't be. Cheerleader for this way of working or this kind of behavior or this idea and tomorrow the cheerleader of the opposite, because then, then there's going to be a little bit of noise from the people listening to me.

[00:19:13]
And a little bit of, I mean, ultimately to be a leader, you need to be able to build trust with the people around you. You cannot be a leader. If people don't trust you, we just can't. A dictator. Yes, you can be that dictator, but a leader requires freewill from the people that follow you. And so free will means that they have to choose to follow you or listen to you or work with, or they can, they can work with you because they have to, but to really buy into you

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Pat Sweet:
Hm.

[00:19:45]
Dolores Hirschmann:
as, as a guide, as a mentor, as a, as, as a voice that guides the group.

[00:19:51]
So without trust, there is no. And so consistency builds stress. Obviously clarity also builds trust because you care enough to communicate clearly enough for me to understand. So clarity, consistency, obviously confident and your internal capacity to be clear or aware of. Where, what is your strength? What is your weakness?

[00:20:16]
And to play into that? I was I'm I'm, I'm merging two. Usually I, I talk about consistency at can heat cohesiveness. And so, but that's a little bit more when you are outward facing, but inward facing opportunities is cohesiveness of message. Consistency of how you show up, but also consistency in availability.

[00:20:38]
You know, you know, the leader in the company or the team lead. Maybe it doesn't have good handle of their calendar, or God has their fingers in too many projects, but then never available for their team. You know, that's, that's a problem. And that's a problem that affects your capacity to lead your team and eventually will hurt, your work

[00:21:01]
Pat Sweet:
When you can't communicate, if, if catch.

[00:21:03]
Dolores Hirschmann:
if they can access.

[00:21:04]
Yeah.

[00:21:05]
Pat Sweet:
And then this actually leads me to, to one of the other questions that, that I had for you is about the importance of, or maybe not the importance, but the role that medium plays in communicating your message. Because I think a lot of leaders and, and certainly I've gone through phases my own career where this is the case is it's difficult to show up.

[00:21:24]
It's difficult to be available and you rely on. Asynchronous tools, right? Whether it's a slack channel or email, I'd be curious to know what your take is with respect to the power of some mediums over others. Is it, is, is email inherently better for some things, or is face-to-face communication inherently better for some things.

[00:21:47]
What's your take on that? Do people over rely on some, on some methods versus others? I just, just be curious to know what your experience is.

[00:21:54]
Dolores Hirschmann:
Yeah. So, I mean, it's so virus in the context and also, you know, you'll look at people and their personalities and they'll choose one medium over another based on what their comfort zone is. So I enter, I will always want to prefer a slack or an email versus a zoom, right. And an extra. Uh, we'll always prefer zoom with, with a camera on, you know, but if you are being intentional about your cuppa, your as a leader, if you're trying to really truly engage with your, let's say your team, you know, depending on the, the reason for connecting anything that.

[00:22:30]
It's not straightforward. Tactical should be a zoom because if you're having a conversation about performance, do you have a conversation about a creative ideas or move forward or, or problem solving, you want to be fully engaged. So in-person would be great. Zoom is second best. Then there's so many as synchronized as you say, you know, slack is.

[00:22:53]
For many of us, the backbone highway of communication. And so I've actually have a new appreciation about. Playing with that. What that means is that there is a diplomacy in any of these mediums and yes, short and sweet makes it efficient and productive, but short and sweet can also be misinterpreted, could be too, too cold, too sharp.

[00:23:21]
And so. Emojis go a long way. I mean, call me crazy, but emojis going away gifts in Giphy, you know, the animated gift is to make a point, really make people smile. I smile when I have a funny gift, I really do like when they're making up, like we just weren't a slack on something and someone was confused and there was a little bit of that.

[00:23:43]
What's going into like the blaming game thing, they teach you to this. And someone said, well, I think we've documents. And someone came in and clarified. No, no, no, we're all set. There's one dog. And so that person said, thank God or something like funny, like, oh, I'm so relieved, but it was a funny gift. So it just made the whole thread not so tight.

[00:24:07]
So I funny GIF. It can really. I need log a thread of conversation that is getting tighter and tighter and tighter because people are getting stressed.

[00:24:16]
Pat Sweet:
Oh, no, I think it's a brilliant point and I don't think I've ever. Or spoken with anyone here on the show who, who really emphasized the power of things like emojis and gifs. And I agree with you. I really do that. There's a, there's an interesting book

[00:24:33]
Dolores Hirschmann:
Chemically. I mean, think about it, pay attention, chemically something happens. And you're like, there's a little bit of.

[00:24:41]
Pat Sweet:
um, yeah.

[00:24:42]
Dolores Hirschmann:
when you allow a little bit of levity, here's the thing. What does stress do? Stress actually shuts down our creativity. Right because stress puts us into fear, into reaction, into fight or flight, and all of those create the chemical reaction that literally impairs thinking.

[00:25:03]
There's a lot of research on this. You shut down creativity and you go into full alert and you are in like, okay, where am I going to get hit? You put a little bit of levity into a stressful conversation. And all of a sudden, you, you can't help it, but if you put something funny, you're going to smell the moment you do this.

[00:25:22]
Chemical-y you're releasing, or you're balancing the stress chemical reaction. You are releasing dopamine, the moment you release dopamine. And if you can stay in that truck, you're going to lower your stress. The moment you lower your stress, you'll actually be able to problem solve. So when. Not a leader because I wouldn't call that presented here, but a manager who's not as only a good leader, they get into stress because something's happening and they're going to, they're coming from the top.

[00:25:54]
They're getting kit and they transfer it to the team. Now you have a whole chain of people who cannot, problem-solve think critically or creatively because you have actually infused from the top down stress. And stress reaction, nothing good comes from stress reaction,

[00:26:15]
Pat Sweet:
Yeah, that's, that's fascinating. The, the, uh, almost viral nature of that. And I use that term very carefully, especially these days,

[00:26:24]
Dolores Hirschmann:
but it's true.

[00:26:26]
Pat Sweet:
One of the things we've talked about already when it comes to clarity of message. Is that desire that tendency to go into too much detail to overexplain, to, to build that moat?

[00:26:37]
What other problems

[00:26:39]
Dolores Hirschmann:
going to use a mode thing

[00:26:40]
Pat Sweet:
I liked that I liked that. No, but,

[00:26:42]
Dolores Hirschmann:
I never used it before.

[00:26:43]
Pat Sweet:
that's brilliant. What are the problems do you see in your practice when it comes to problems or issues that impede.

[00:26:52]
Dolores Hirschmann:
So, so what happens when the modus.

[00:26:55]
Pat Sweet:
Well, if you're having trouble being clear, I go going too much detailed as one issue, but are, are there any others that, that kind of present themselves that, that really get in the way of clarity, weight, whether it's that mindset thing or skill set thing, what other problems should people look out for?

[00:27:12]
Dolores Hirschmann:
Yeah. so mindset is part of it. Tactical knowledge about how to best communicate, understanding how someone will receive information always can help. And also trying to be an expert too soon. You know, there is such thing as expertise and you gotta have it or you don't. And so. You really, truly can fake it because if you really fake your thinking expertise, I will know in one seconds, cause you're overextending.

[00:27:41]
Cause you really don't understand it yourself. You're using the words because you don't know what they mean. So if you don't know what they mean, they won't know what they mean. So nobody will get you. And you are never really efficient or productive in that communication. Like, it's almost like these are, you know, you've been in meetings where there's empty conversations where they don't go anywhere because the person's just regurgitating something.

[00:28:05]
They learn or read in a magazine or in an article, but they don't didn't fully kind of explore it yet. So. There's a timing for expertise. And if you don't have it say, you know, I've heard this sounds interesting. I'm not the expert here, but let's explore it together. That's leadership. That's saying let's open our shared minds to a new idea that I am not an expert yet, so I'm not going to claim that, but I think it can help us in this way or that way.

[00:28:35]
Pat Sweet:
I think you're painting a really, if I may say a clear picture of what, of what it means to have clarity within a message. Can you think of an example, whether it's a Ted talk or a Booker or anything else where, where someone does a really good job of communicating a message with clarity, despite the subject matter, being.

[00:28:58]
Complex or difficult.

[00:28:59]
Dolores Hirschmann:
Yeah. And I'll talk about one of my clients, because one of the things I do do with my clients is crafter talks, craft a signature talk. So this client came to me and she, she needed to present at one of the big conferences on genetic treatment for, for terminal illnesses. So she's a. Yale doctor, you know, genetic researcher working with people, mostly with cancer or some kind of terminal health issue with a specific genetic differences.

[00:29:32]
And so she came to me and she explained me to me what she did. Could I grasp the main ideas even though. Going into all the scientific side. And even though she was going to speak at a scientific conference, what I encouraged her to do is for every bit of information or data point that she was going to share to wrap it around a personal.

[00:29:56]
This is what I call like, the gift when you receive a gift it's wrapped in a bow and paper. And that's because this is like, it's this a, just as a, how, how it's presented that matters. So when you are presenting difficult, complex, Ideas or, or research. Then if you wrap it into some human beings experience, in the case of this doctor, she told three stories, one of a woman who was pregnant with twins and had some high stage four cancer and what her journey was and why this treatment was a right one for her originally, she was going to just talk about the treatment and. of research of success and probability of whatever, but by wrapping it and weaving it in a person's story, then first it's easy for all of us to continue following her because she's engaging our creative brain and our analytical brain. That's what storytelling does. And second. She was able to keep, not just the people engaged, but committed to her message.

[00:31:04]
So it's really about how you construct your, what do you want to say in a way that it can be digestible by your audiences?

[00:31:15]
Pat Sweet:
I really liked that the, the, the power of story. And I think that's really interesting that that particular device was useful in that situation where it's, it's an expert speaking to other experts who are perfectly capable of following the technical detail.

[00:31:32]
Dolores Hirschmann:
They also gave a flying a Sikh.

[00:31:34]
Pat Sweet:
Yeah. And that, and that, and that's the key message is.

[00:31:36]
Yeah, absolutely. And everyone is overburdened and overwhelmed and busy and our attention is divided. Uh, it's really, it's really interesting to hear about the value of treating an audience like an audience, even if they are your peers or, or have a similar background.

[00:31:56]
Dolores Hirschmann:
Exactly. Exactly. It's an audience, which is human, who may have just had lunch or is tired, or is in a day with 15 other speakers or whatever. And, and the human brain, especially now, you know, more than 15, 20 minutes, you know, we start kind of shutting down and listening to less and less of the content. So, so keeping it relevant, keeping both sides of our brain engaged.

[00:32:23]
Pat Sweet:
Yeah, th this is, uh, this is hugely valuable Dolores, and I really appreciate the insights here. My hope is that the people who are listening to the show today are seeing more and more the importance of. Clarity and a message, the importance of being able to communicate ideas, w when it comes to developing and establishing leadership, if someone was interested in, in you and your work and trying to pursue this further, what might you, uh, direct them to?

[00:32:53]
how could they.

[00:32:54]
Dolores Hirschmann:
Yeah, the best way to, to learn more is to go to masters in clarity.com. That's my company, and you'll be guided there. There's you can hop on a call with my team or myself. Um, or look at the programs that I offer.

[00:33:10]
Pat Sweet:
Excellent. Yeah. And I'll put a link in the show notes to that. So, uh, once again, Delores, this is just awesome. I really appreciate your time and your expertise today. I was an athlete.

[00:33:21]
Dolores Hirschmann:
Thank you so much, pat, for having me.

[00:33:23]
Pat Sweet:
We'll talk again soon.

[00:33:34] Post Interview

[00:33:34]
Pat Sweet:
Thank you once again, Delores for that wonderful, wonderful conversation. I really enjoyed chatting with you. And there was an awful lot that came out of that conversation that struck me. Interesting or unique things that I wanted to touch on again here after the interview, one was this idea of the value of emojis and gifts and how powerful bringing levity to a conversation can be.

[00:34:02]
And it got me thinking about the fact that we have a number of rules that we have in business communications about what's acceptable and what's not. And the fact that a lot of the rules that we have, a lot of the things that we do accept don't make a lot of sense because they don't actually help move a message along.

[00:34:21]
We. Poor grammar and poor formatting and quickly typed emails on iPhones and mobile devices. We, we accept this stuff where some other things like emojis and gifs are maybe a little less professionally accepted in most circles. And I can't help but wonder why that is because I think Delores has a point in that there are certain things we can do.

[00:34:51]
Tools that we have at our disposal that culturally corporate culture hasn't quite accepted yet. So I really appreciated that idea. One of the other things that came up was this idea of building a moat by overexplaining by propping yourself up and demonstrating to the world.

[00:35:09]
Just how smart you are, just how brilliant you are and that you can inadvertently create this distance, create the separation between you and the people you are extensively trying to communicate with. It's really important as an expert. And many of us are experts technical experts in our fields, interacting with other technical experts.

[00:35:36]
It's important to be very careful to be accessible because even if you have all of the knowledge and even if you are sharing exactly what you know, Still not be communicating. And that's a really important thing to bear in mind. You can use all the right words and still not be actually communicating, getting your point across or bringing people into the fold.

[00:35:58]
And if you're not sharing your knowledge, then what's the point. You're really not moving things forward. So I really liked that idea, that visual of building a moat around yourself for your own ego, your own self-worth. So that's something to be very careful of. Finally, the power of story was an important lesson for me.

[00:36:20]
People get stories, people love stories. And this came up in a really interesting book called building a StoryBrand if I'm not mistaken. And in that book, the author explains that people latch on to long form content all the time in the form of movies and the reason movies work. Where you can actually be engaged for two, two and a half, three hours at a go is because it's built around story.

[00:36:48]
There's very little in life that we could sit and pay attention to for three hours straight. And the argument he makes is that yeah, the, the visuals are important. Good dialogue is important, but what's most critical is story. And what Delores said here, I think backs that up. If you can find a way to present and communicate your ideas.

[00:37:11]
By leveraging story, you'll be amazed at how much easier it is to communicate to the people you are trying to reach. So again, Dolores, thank you so much for the tips, for the advice, for the insight. I'll be sure to put links to your website, your LinkedIn profile in the show notes. If anyone is interested in working with Dolores or learning more, you can absolutely do that.

[00:37:35]
By going to the show notes, engineering and leadership.com/episode 46. Next up we've got the engineering and leadership mailbag.

[00:37:43] Mailbag

[00:37:43]
Pat Sweet:
Well, my friends, you know how this works. This is the part of the show where I read your messages and answer your questions. I promise to read everything you send me. And I promise to read my favorites right here on the podcast. I got quite a few notes over the last week, which was just fantastic to see Alexander DeSousa shared an episode of this podcast on running effective meetings over LinkedIn.

[00:38:15]
And it was great to see the material that I produce here in the show being shared with other people, especially when it comes to meetings. This is a topic that I'm very passionate about. It was great to see that it was being used in a way to help others. So thank you so much, Alexander, for sharing that really appreciate that Riley chute reached out to say happy 20, 22.

[00:38:39]
First off, I would like to say thank you for the continued great work you are doing through your podcast. It has really helped me to develop and recognize the type of engineer I want to be. So thank you very much, Riley. That's super motivating, and I'm really glad that the show is helping you looking forward to chatting with you again soon.

[00:38:56]
Next I'm gonna message from Daniel saying he's also a big fan of the show, so thank you very much, Daniel, for reaching out. And finally, I got a note from John Prindle who says, I just discovered this podcast and I love the content. I recently took on an application engineering manager role and the content will be crucial for upskilling.

[00:39:14]
I'm already experiencing an unmanageable amount of. A webinar called inbox detox was discussed on one of the shows. And I was wondering if that content is still available or if there will be another opportunity to take part, John, thank you very much for reaching out and congratulations on the recent promotion.

[00:39:31]
That's excellent news. I'm sorry to hear about the email overwhelm situation. I am not surprised. Unfortunately, it's something that most of us go through. Especially early on, it's something that is very difficult to try to navigate, but you're in luck. Uh, I do have a replay of that webinar, the inbox detox webinar, which I believe I originally did back in October.

[00:39:59]
So I'll be sharing a link in the show notes for that for you, for anyone else who's interested. And I'll also be doing another live version of that webinar in the coming months as well. It was very popular and there are lots of people who wrestle with email. So I would encourage people to keep their eyes peeled for that.

[00:40:15]
Or if you can't wait, do check out the show notes and you can find a link there. Thanks again, to all those who reached out. If you would like to chat or leave a comment, please do find me on LinkedIn or on Twitter. Or you can always go to the show notes and scroll to the bottom of the page and leave a comment there.

[00:40:32] Outroduction

[00:40:32]
Pat Sweet:
That's all the time we have for the show today, I will be back next week with a brand new episode featuring Anthony Fasano. Who's a good friend of the show on how engineers can grow their leadership skills and what organizations can do to support them. Don't forget to check out the newly posted video in my three video series on productivity for engineering managers.

[00:40:55]
Again, that link will be in the show notes. If you enjoyed the show, I would love it. If you subscribe so that you can stay with me on this journey, you can check out new episodes in the future. And it would be great if you could leave an honest review and let me know what you thought was most interesting from today's episode reviews, of course, helped me make the show better and help others discover the show as.

[00:41:15]
For more information and links to the resources mentioned today. Again, just go to the show notes@engineeringandleadership.com slash episode 46 until next time, this is pat sweet reminding you that if you're going to be anything, be excellent.

[00:41:30]
You've been listening to the engineering and leadership podcast with pat sweet, to learn more about the engineering leadership project, including other podcasts articles, free resources, courses, consulting, and much, much more. Just go to engineering and leadership.com. That's engineering and leadership.com.