#WINNING
#WINNING
Unleashing the Power of Communication in Business with Gary Ross
Imagine having the power to inspire, influence, and motivate your team through every word you utter and every action you make. How much more successful could your business be? Renowned communication expert, former Fortune 500 corporate communications executive, and Emmy-nominated journalist Gary Ross joins Mackenzie to help you unleash this potential. With Gary, we're unveiling the significant role communication plays in business success, dissecting the art of effective dialogue, and diving straight into the heart of the matter.
Communication is more than just words. It's the lifeline of any successful business, threading through every interaction, decision, and strategy. We explored this not just theoretically but practically—discussing professional writing, leading complex conversations, and the subtle actions that tell a story louder than words. Gary doesn’t hold back, sharing invaluable lessons from his vast experience to help you understand your audience, deliver your message with relevance and timing, and connect on an authentic, personable level.
But how does this translate to your day-to-day business? We take a deep look at the real-world impact of effective communication on productivity, employee turnover, and company value. Gary even shares personal anecdotes, notably being passed over for a promotion until he embraced authentic communication with a company president. He emphasizes the need to be genuine, offering insight on navigating career advancement and initiating difficult conversations. We even get a glimpse of his e-learning courses on communication, promising to take your newly acquired knowledge to the next level. Join us in this exploration of communication's power and reinvent your business success story.
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Winning is your guide to making it in business. Join our award-winning host and entrepreneur, Mackenzie Kilshaw, and special guests in casual conversations that will educate and inspire you on your business journey. Winning will help you learn the hard lessons the easy way, with guidance from celebrated entrepreneurs and business leaders. It's fun, it's informative, it's winning Hello welcome to Winning.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:I am your host, Mackenzie Kilshaw, and today's guest is Gary Ross. Hi, Gary, hey, Mackenzie, thanks for having me. Yeah, thanks for being on. I was just saying before I started recording I'm so pumped to have Gary on. Gary works with everyone from C-suite to the production line to be a better communicator we're talking all about communication today, and so communication so they can lead and inspire others, increase productivity and advance their careers. He is a former Fortune 500 corporate communications executive. He's an Emmy nominated which is so cool we have a touch on that broadcast journalist. And he also is a current stadium and arena public announcer, which is super cool too. So thank you for being on, Gary, I'm really excited to have you.
Gary Ross:Yeah, thanks again. Thanks for having me looking forward to talking about communication and how we can help people use communication to advance their companies, advance their careers, inspire others, increase productivity all that fun stuff.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:I love that and I think you and I are probably on the same page. But if you are not a good communicator, or you are not good at communicating to whoever it is you need to, things are not going to go well for you.
Gary Ross:Yeah, things will. Things are definitely will kind of get out of control, because if we're not communicating, if we're not aligning on what it is that we want to do, if we're not sure of the job we want our communication to do, we're just going to go out there and say things willy nilly and things will fall where they may. And that's not good strategically, that's not good tactically, it's not good for anybody.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:So yeah, I agree, and I think communication is one of those things, that it is essential for your success, but it is often forgotten.
Gary Ross:Yeah, well, it's forgotten. But I think also sometimes people have a nagging sense that they need to do better at it and they're not sure how, and that's one of the things that I help people with is to drill down into some of what some of those issues might be and then to develop some tools, and also I have some tips for people in various situations on how to communicate better, and a lot of it also goes toward developing confidence as well. Sometimes people aren't sure what to say, or how to say it, or what they're allowed to say, what they feel that they're supposed to say, all those things, and that can get in the way as well.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Yeah, for sure, we are going to get all into communication, but I wanted to start back. I gave a little bit of a bio about you, but do you want to just tell our audience kind of who you are and give us some insight into some of those Emmy nominated journalists? You're an announcer at arenas. That's super cool. So this is an idea of who you are and we'll go from there.
Gary Ross:Yeah, so I got out of school as a journalist, majored in journalism and got into TV and radio and, yeah, I was nominated for an Emmy for some work I did in Charleston, South Carolina, where I was an investigative reporter.
Gary Ross:I also did some anchoring there, did some radio anchoring and reporting in the New York City area as well, and then it was a heck of a lot of fun and I had a great time doing it but didn't really see it necessarily as the career for me. So I got into communications and eventually wound up running communication departments at three large companies here in the Chicago area where I'm based. Those companies were CDW, Hyatt Hotels and Fortune Brands and after that had a chance to do something on my own which I always wanted to do and have been consulting and training and coaching and focused on internal communication. When internal communication and workplace communication happen well, then it benefits individuals because they're aligned, they understand how they fit into the organization and the organization gets a happy and engaged workforce. So it's a win-win for everybody and I like working with folks to make a difference on that front.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:That's awesome. So did you always see yourself in this area when you were younger, or did your journalism career start you out with realizing how important communication is?
Gary Ross:Yeah, it's kind of like that. I mean I started in high school actually writing for my high school newspaper and really enjoyed doing it and said, okay, well, let's go study journalism and I can be a reporter and get into journalism. Or I was pretty sure that whatever I learned there would serve me well and whatever I decided to do and really both happened I became a journalist and then got out of the daily news business. But today, being a journalist, you learn so many skills that translate into being a great communicator and helping people be good communicators. So things like being a quick study.
Gary Ross:When you're a journalist you're walking in the door every day. You're not sure what you're going to be covering that day on the news. You've got to be a quick study. You have to be able to tell stories and position things in a way that is persuasive to people. It's interesting to people be able to distill complicated information and get that down into terms that people can understand quickly on the first pass. So all those things that you have to do as a reporter really serve you very well in the corporate world, in the business world, and again, it's one of those areas where people tend to feel a little less confident and aren't sure how to go about improving on that. That's something I help folks with.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Yeah, that's awesome and so so you're a communication expert, really, if we're, if we're getting down to it, Tell us a little bit more about your business and how your expertise of communication helps people.
Gary Ross:Yeah, so I'm a workplace communication trainer, so I work with organizations to help their people inform and inspire and influence others, and that can be people within organizations. It can be also to communicate with folks outside the organization as well, like customers or vendors or partners and those sort of things, and and so for. For some clients, I partner with their learning and development team and, and, and and I'm included in some of the courses that they offer around the, around their company. I come in and do live in person training and do live virtual training. I also do e-learning as well and I've done some custom e-learning actually for for some organizations as well, so for for topics that they've, that they've needed. So again, that kind of brings back my TV background too, because I'm familiar with being in the studio and writing for writing for the year and all of that stuff. So that helps produce a lot of the, the e-learning pieces as well. So there's really a lot of different ways that people can can learn about communications. And then, specifically, some of the things I work on are, for example, clients will come to me and say you know, our people aren't showing up professionally, they're not writing well, they're, they're, they're not putting complete sentences together, believe it or not, and we need help doing that. Or or by my folks have, could use some help in in leading difficult conversations, whether it's people, managers, and and they're they're team members or leading a client perhaps through a difficult conversation. So things like that eliminating filler words, helping people say um, and and like a lot, a lot less, and even though I do it myself, we all, we all do it and it's it's about and I and I try to have fun with it too. So I don't, I don't, get up in front of people and say, hey, you said um 27 times on you, uh it, we, we, we go through it and and say, okay, here's some of the reasons why you might use filler words and here are some of the things that you can do to to try to reduce that. So so items like items like that.
Gary Ross:I have the three number one rules of communication that I feel are pretty key to to communicating, and I've spoken and talked about that as well. So I work with organizations on those, those kinds of topics, and I've spoken at conferences about those kinds of topics as well and and love to continue to work with with organizations on that, I know, you know, with with your audience. They might be on the on the smaller side, but really, as as founders, as entrepreneurs people are can be so close to a, a topic, it can be hard for them to pull back a little bit and think about their audience and understand what might resonate about their story with their audience, the people that they need to inform and influence and inspire. And that's one of the things I can, I can help people do is to understand, really dig into who your audiences are, how to understand your audience, how to think about your audience and how to think about your communication as a result.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:That's so interesting because I was just watching a Masterclass the other day about public speaking. So many people say to me how do you talk to people, how do you get up in a room or how do you go in your podcast and just talk and you sound like you're so confident, and I guess it does. I don't think I'm confident, but I guess it comes down to to confidence. But really I love how you said knowing your audience, cause that is so true. If you can connect with your audience, they are going to listen to you. Right, they'll tune out if they don't connect.
Gary Ross:Absolutely, and and so know your audience actually is one of my three number one rules of communication, and, and it all comes down to communicating the right thing to the right people at the right time, in the right way, and because if you don't, if you miss any of those elements there, then your communication is either going to fall flat or it'll land in the wrong place, or it'll go out at the wrong time. People won't know what, what, what to do with it, and I've seen a lot of people in business. They'll go out and they feel like, oh, I need to communicate something right now, I need a communication. But they don't stop to think, well, all right, is this the best time to be communicating? And who am I? Am I the people that I'm going to be talking to? Are they even prepared to act on what it is that that I want to say? And if they're not, am I using up too much of their precious attention on this when I'm going to need them later on for something else and keep my powder dry and and and not get in front of them with something they really can't do anything about anyway? But I'm just going to feel better because I'm out there broadcasting something so understanding really about your audience, what, what motivates them? What do, what do they want from you? What do you want from them and are, again, are they prepared, are they able to act on what it is that you're that you're talking about, really thinking those things through and then understanding and then thinking about actually this could be a formal communication or could just be going into a conversation what do you want your audience to think, feel and do as a result of your communication? Those three things what do you want them to think, what do you want them to feel and, ultimately, what do you want them to do?
Gary Ross:A lot of times in our communication we stop with the think and the feel part.
Gary Ross:We say, okay, here's the information and I want you to get psyched about this and this is so exciting, you're going to be a part of something terrific. And then we give them something vague that says, so, finish the year strong, or something like that. Then we turn around and people turn around like, well, all right, I'm in, I understand, I'm ready to go, what do I do? And then they turn to their manager and the manager says, well, I don't know. I saw the same email you did. I don't really know what to do, and so we have to make sure we're prescriptive about what it is that we want people to do after we've made them think and feel a certain way as a result of our communication. So we do that when we get again have that understanding about what motivates our audience, who they are and so forth. So starting to get into that discipline of thinking about that and just answering those few very simple questions can really help make you a much more effective and confident communicator.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:I totally agree. So you've talked a couple of times about your three rules of communication and I think we've touched on one of them, know your audience, but do you want to tell us what are your three rules and then go through each one and I know the audience is one of them?
Gary Ross:But let's just go through all of them. So we did the audience one, so check.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Yes.
Gary Ross:The other one, or one of the other ones, is everything communicates. Understanding that everything communicates is not just what you say and it's not just what you do. Sometimes it's what you don't say. So understanding that, for example, there may be something that you feel that you need to communicate, but you're not quite ready. So you're going to wait a week, and then a week goes by and you figure, oh no, I just need another week, and another week goes by. Meanwhile, if you put yourself in the audience shoes, they're not hearing anything. That's radio.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Right.
Gary Ross:And then. So if it's kind of a dicey situation, the audience, they're going to start making up their own story in their own mind and it's never as good as the story that you want to tell or as accurate as a story you want to tell. So by the time you're actually going out there to communicate, you're already behind the eight ball. So getting out there and communicating, even if you're not 100% ready, I mean, don't go out there and communicate things recklessly and so forth, but keep in mind that not communicating is in fact communicating. There are also things that you may be doing that are actually acts of communication without you realizing it. Now give you an example. I was working with an IT department in an organization a few years ago and they were getting ready to. The leadership of the team was thinking about some changes to the department and they didn't want to communicate it out anything out to the team just yet, because they were still working through some things, which is fine and entirely responsible. But they didn't realize that people were starting to get a hint that something was going on and the way they got that hint and, by the way, this is a virtual team, so it's not like people could see folks walking around the hallway or anything. What happened was is the leadership team had blocked out half days and full days for meetings on the online calendar and people saw they thought, well, wait a minute, why is everybody all huddled up in these meetings? The leadership team didn't realize they were communicating just in the fact of scheduling time with one another on this visible tool, and they didn't think that that created a communication implication, which it did. So what happened was is rumors again started to bubble up again, never as good as what you want them. So they had to. They had to go back and hurry up and come up with something, and it was. We had to help them out with a little bit. It was a little bit of a mess.
Gary Ross:So, understanding that the, the, the, some of the actions that you do communicate. Now there's ways to do that on the positive side as well. So, if I'm always a big fan of the old MBWA managing by walking around and we're not all in offices every day or or at all, so sometimes that's hard for leaders to do, and just these days we have to be a little more intentional about it by getting on virtual meetings and making sure we're scheduled into those and so forth, but visibility as a leader in front of key audiences, your employees, your key customers and so on, just showing up is an active community that you can use to to your advantage, especially when you're in a leadership position, and people covet that attention that that a leader can give. So so there's there's that as well. So understanding that that everything communicates is is hugely powerful and can help you communicate in some ways, either louder or more subtly, depending on what the situation was.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:I love how you said that the visibility of a leader because I know in past jobs that I've had before I became an entrepreneur but had leaders that didn't attend meetings or didn't reply to the email chain or whatever it was. And, of course, as the employee, your first thought is do they not care about this? Are they too busy for us? Do we not matter? That's kind of the first thing that you go to right.
Gary Ross:Yeah, because that's an act of communication. Them not showing up is sending a message.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Yes, oh, that's so true, so true. Okay, and what's the third?
Gary Ross:The third one is tell them a story, and it goes back to storytelling. As I had mentioned earlier, there's something about us as human beings that in our brains that just draws us into stories. We're programmed to be drawn into them, to be emotionally attached into them, and ever since cave men days that's how people have been communicating. There are tried and true storytelling formulas, structures, whatever elements, whatever you want to call them, that we can use in a business setting to give that extra feeling, that extra emotion in what we want to communicate. So I'm not talking about everybody going into a conference room and sitting around a campfire, but instead we you know the sprinklers, fire codes and all that.
Gary Ross:That's what we'd sound about road right, right, right, right, right, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I don't want to do that, but instead of just communicating dry pieces of information, take a step back and think about how can I communicate this in a more compelling way that's going to get people to follow along with me, to take them from the beginning of something all the way through a journey that they can see themselves on and they can be a part of. And so how do we do that? We ask ourselves four questions when are we now, where are we going, how are we going to get there and what will it look like when we get there? And we go ahead and we answer each of those questions, initially with essentially one sentence, and then, from there, we think about some supporting themes behind each of those sentences, and then we can back them up with some facts as well, some proof points. And if we ask ourselves those questions, all right, here I need to communicate about something. Let me think about this in the terms of where are we now, where are we going, how are we going to get there and what will it look like when we get there? I can organize everything out, and what that does is that gives me the form of a story. So I'll give you an example.
Gary Ross:Let's say a company, you have a branch office out in the suburbs and they need to move into the downtown core to be near customers. A company can send out a memo and we've all seen these memos like this that say the decision has been made to move our office downtown. This move will be happening on such and such a date. Two days before that you'll be receiving boxes. Please put all your belongings in there. It will be moved down to the new office and we need you to come in on Saturday for a couple of hours to set up your new office. Thank you very much for your cooperation.
Gary Ross:We believe this will help us be successful moving forward. Thank you for your cooperation. Have a nice day. Yeah, I've seen dry memos like that. Well, instead, let's think about what's exactly going on here. This office has to move into the city to be closer to customers.
Gary Ross:So let's think about those four questions. Where are we now? We're at our office here in the suburbs. We're far from our customers. The performance of the office is suffering. There's something that we need to do about this right now. So that's where we now. Where are we going?
Gary Ross:We're going to be moving into a new office downtown in the city. We're going to be closer to our customers. We believe that this will help improve revenue for our office and help make us a lot more financially sustainable moving forward. How are we going to get there? We'll provide all the information and materials you need for your move. We understand this is going to disrupt some of your commutes. We'll give you new information on your commutes and all the new cool restaurants that will be near downtown and other amenities in our new neighborhood.
Gary Ross:And what will it look like when we get there is our last question. We will be well positioned to be close to our customers and work with them more personally, increase our sales and have a much more successful future individually as well as as an office. So when we position something like that in a story, where are we now? Where are we going? How will we get there? What will it look like when we get there? We're able to give people a broad structure, a broad framework, have something for them to invest in and follow along with you in doing, and, as leaders, as entrepreneurs, that's what we need people to do is to follow our vision, follow along with us. So when we have four questions and create a little story, we're much more able to do that. We're taking advantage of the human brain's predilection to invest in a story, and that structure is an age old structure. It's one of many, but you see it in Shakespeare and Star Wars.
Gary Ross:My favorite example is the Wizard of Oz. That's the story structure for the Wizard of Oz. Where are we now? We're stuck in Oz. Where are we going? We're off to see the Wizard so he can get us home. How are we going to get there? We're going to follow the yellow brick road and oh, by the way, we have to get past the wicked witch and the wing monkeys and all that it's going to look like when we get there. There's no place like home. So that simple formula, we can use that at work, we could use it every day at work to bring people along with us, and it's really a terrific tool to have. And again, as leaders, as entrepreneurs, as people who want to inspire others, that is a great way to do it.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:That is awesome. I love that analogy. And when you're talking about your memo versus the first memo where it's like we're moving, you got to pack your stuff up and this is the date and thanks Versus. Hey guys, we have to make some changes, we need to move. Because of these reasons, there's going to be some great things once we make the move, and whatnot? Not only have you gotten maybe your team excited about the change, because we know change is hard, right, and change is something that people often get negative about. So now they're like oh, this is going to be cool, we're going to be busier at work, we're going to have more clients, we're going to maybe my bonuses go up. Right, they start thinking about all the positive things instead of maybe the negative things. And also, I think that it will also reduce the afterthought of the memo, which would be questions Well, why are we moving? How come we have to move right?
Gary Ross:Right. And then again that person turns to their manager and says well, how come we have to move? And the manager says well, I just read the same memo you did. I don't know.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Exactly.
Gary Ross:Just put your stuff in the box when it comes and don't get in trouble. That's no way to work. What it also does is you're also leveling with people, because in a situation like that, there are going to be people who aren't going to like the change that that's going to make to their commutes, assuming they have to be in the office several times.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Further yeah.
Gary Ross:And we're not necessarily sugarcoating it. I mean we're telling people why we're doing it, but notice, we didn't in that little story. We're not telling people we're not apologizing, we're not sugarcoating it or doing anything of the sort. We're leveling with people and when news is bad and for some folks that actually might be bad news because of their commutes people tend to appreciate it if you level with them and you say okay, look, here's what's happening. We'll answer all your questions, give you everything we can to support you and we'll move on. People may think well, you know I don't like this, but at least they leveled with me and they're being straight.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Yeah, and I feel like the more you can be transparent in your communication, the better off you're going to be.
Gary Ross:Yeah well, so let's talk about transparency for a second. Okay, I'm not a huge fan of the T word when it comes to communication, because there are as well meaning as we are. We can't always be 100% transparent, because there are confidentiality things with personal matters. With some business, there could be some considerations, there could be some regulatory stuff, other confidentiality things. So when we say we're going to be transparent, we're not.
Gary Ross:We're actually promising something we can't really deliver. Instead, what we can say is we're going to promise you clarity. We're going to say you know, we're going to, we're going to tell you everything that we can, when we're able to tell you, and we're going to answer all your questions and we're going to put it all out there, and if we don't have an answer to the question, we're going to tell you we don't have an answer and we'll give our best guess as to when we might be able to give you that, that answer, when it becomes available. But by saying we'll tell you everything we can when we're able to, you're promising to give people all the information that you can give them, but you're also acknowledging that there's stuff that you just can't talk about, and that helps the authenticity piece.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Yeah, for sure, and it is true because even just as a former business owner of a brick and mortar business, people would call and ask a question. You know, I had a clothing store, so when is my dress that I ordered going to arrive? They call or email and I always my team or I, we maybe didn't know the answer because we knew what day it was going to ship, but we maybe didn't know what day it's going to arrive.
Shauna Foster :Right.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:And I would always say we'd always reply back or phone them back, email them back, whatever it was, and say you know, thanks, so much for your call, and I don't have the exact date right now, but once it ships I'll get that date and then I can let you know. We'll have a better idea, because to just not respond at all to their email or phone call, to not call them back, and then call them back and say, oh, your dress has arrived. You know, it was just a better experience for them. Yeah, they're not left in the dark, right.
Gary Ross:Right and you're. You innocently may be saying to yourself well, I don't have an answer for them yet, so I'll get back to them when I do, and that might make that, might make some sense to you on that end. But on their end, think of put yourself in their shoes and their frame of reference. All they're seeing is radio silence, you're not answering their question and again they're left up to thinking OK, well, what's happening? They're dodging me, the item's not coming in, it's never going to come in, I'm going to not going to get a refund, I'm going to get screwed. All that that's what's going through people's mind. But just the simple act of reaching out and saying, hey, we don't have a date yet, but we'll keep you updated, shows that you're engaged.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Yeah, that's so true, so true, and it's not communicating. You said that not communicating is communicating and that could not be more true. Right, not hearing back? And if you are on the other end of that and you keep asking and there's nothing, there's no reply, like it's the most frustrating experience. Yeah, whether your staff member or a client or whatever, it is right.
Gary Ross:Exactly, exactly. And so when it's time for you to go, have people follow you, inspire people to act on your vision, you've eaten up some of your communications capital, so to speak. If you've made people sit in radio silence for a while on other things, they already have in their mind their view of you as a communicator, your communicator identity, so to speak. So when it is time for you to get up there and tell your story and all of that, if you've already led people into radio silence or doubt beforehand, it's going to affect your credibility. When it is time, when you want to get on the stage and then start talking, For sure, and I think the same goes to the importance of following through, right?
Mackenzie Kilshaw:So when you say, if you're a leader and you're talking to your team and you're giving them a really inspirational and you're doing the, where are we here? We are now and where are we going and how are we getting there and what will it look like, and you give them this story and everybody's excited and they can't wait, and then nothing happens, right? That's a problem.
Gary Ross:Well, it can be a problem because it can go toward trust and credibility. But if nothing happens and there's a good reason for it what should we do? We should go out there and communicate and update our story and say here's what's happening, we didn't expect this or whatever the reason is. But again, leveling with people, that authenticity, that clarity that you're going to offer people goes a long, long way.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:That's so true and I think once you've got it, once you've got your three rules figured out and you've got your story, and then you can be engaging and bring people along with you on that journey. We've all had things that don't work out. I don't really like the word failure because I like to look at it more as lessons to be learned, but you're right, sometimes it doesn't work out and we didn't get to where we thought we would, or there's some bumps in the road. Maybe we were getting there, but just acknowledging that right Yep, and saying I know this didn't go as planned, this was a hiccup we didn't expect to. Whatever it is, so that your team or your clients, or whoever it is you're communicating with, understand that that's where you are.
Gary Ross:Yeah, and they appreciate that. They really appreciate the candor they appreciate the authenticity.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Yeah, and I think it builds trust too right to just acknowledge that, hey, this isn't what we thought was going to happen. But here we are now, and then you start again. But how are we going to get to where we need to go, right?
Gary Ross:Absolutely, absolutely.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:That's awesome. Did anyone be a good communicator? I know lots of people are like well, I'm so introverted that I don't like talking or I don't like, but if they follow these rules, can they communicate as well as anyone else?
Gary Ross:I think they can improve in their communication absolutely, and I don't know if I would get in the business of ranking people as communicators and these people are better than others and so forth. But I think that you can definitely make progress by thinking about these three number one rules, using some of the tips and some of the things that we've talked about the four questions for the stories, the think, feel, do piece, understanding that you're communicating even without communicating. Yeah, and if you're considering all of those things, when you start tightening up your communication by considering those things, factoring them in, then, yeah, I think anybody can be a better communicator.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:I think so too, and it's so funny that we're talking about this today, because I know I mentioned I listened to this master class and now we're on here and I don't think I ever actually I certainly didn't know your three roles listed out, but I never kind of thought about the, the, where are we now going, how are we gonna get there and what will it look like. But I feel like when you think back to sometimes where you've, you know, talked to your team, you're like, oh, I did that and I didn't even realize I was doing it.
Gary Ross:How about that?
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Yeah, or on the flip side. Wait a minute. I did not do this and I maybe should have right. Things would have got a lot better.
Gary Ross:Well, if you, if you realize that you've did, you did it in the past or a form of that in the past, then that just goes to show you how tried and true the storytelling piece is and that particular structure Again, it's the core of the Wizard of Oz, which is one of the greatest stories of all time, right, yes, and it's been used in tons of others that I'm sure you can think of. So in some ways it comes naturally because, again, as humans, we're wired for those stories. But the advantage of thinking about those four questions and starting to get into the discipline of using that makes it less likely that you'll have those occasions where, oh gosh, I should have done that. So that's what I like to do is bring that to folks, to folks awareness, so they can get into that discipline, and working with teams and executives and so forth to help them do that.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Yeah, I think really, if you look at this kind of, I take notes the entire time we're going through this, but when you look at this on paper, it's not complicated Like, it's pretty easy when it's just written down here.
Gary Ross:Right and it's fairly intuitive as well. There may be some folks out there saying, well, I kind of already knew this. Okay, well, good, now that we've put it out there in a way that you can organize it for yourself and you can be a little bit more disciplined about remembering it, let's use it more and that'll help you be a better communicator. It's no good if it's all up here but you don't actually use it. So, going through it in this way, even if it's already somewhat intuitive to you, I think this will help organize some of those thoughts so you can actually use them on a day-to-day basis.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Yeah, I think you're so right on that. And just when we're talking about strong communication or being a good communicator, what successes can you attribute to communication, to your communication skills? What you mean, me personally, or just yeah, so like so I know we talked before that you can improve productivity or you can be a more inspirational leader. Is there things that come to your mind that you're like, oh, when someone's communication skills are awesome, this is what rewards they can see.
Gary Ross:Oh yeah, I'll give you a big one is when there's a merger or an acquisition some sort of, or an integration of two companies. That's you can see where good communication can help there and you could also see where bad communication has led to disaster. Because if you're buying an organization, what happens in the organization that's being acquired? They start getting nervous, or we're gonna lose our jobs, what's gonna happen and all that. So the acquirer better have a good story to tell those folks so they can understand what's happening, how they're gonna fit into the new organization, even if some of the news isn't so good. Yeah, and by doing that then people can turn around and say, okay, well, at least they leveled with me, I'm gonna go get back to work.
Gary Ross:So that's what good communication can give you. And what that means is sustained productivity. And what that means is you've preserved or even enhanced the value of what you just bought. If you bought an organization, let's say, for $100 million just throw out a number, that's pretty big number. But let's say you bought an organization for $100 million and it's full of angry, confused, disengaged people on the day that the deal closes, is what you bought still worth $100 million?
Mackenzie Kilshaw:No, yeah, probably not right.
Gary Ross:But if you get up there with that good communication you answer people's questions, you tell them a story, you provide as much clarity as you possibly can then they'll turn around and say, all right, well, they leveled with me and I guess I'll get back to work. I've actually seen this happen in a project that I worked on a while back. I was working at a. It was a publicly traded company where everybody had stock options and being a publicly traded company was a big deal to everybody. Well, the company was being sold to a private equity group and the company was gonna be taken private. So no more stock price, no more stock options. People were gonna get paid for their options but nothing more additional. This was really gonna rock people's world and I was brought in early to put together communication plan on this and, by the way, a lot of the comms had to do with executive visibility and answering questions, all the things that we had talked about.
Gary Ross:And the announcement came and we executed our plan and it went really well and within 48 hours of the announcement the company had its fourth largest sales day ever in the history of the company to that date. To that date. And the CEO said to me. He said a big part of that is because of our communication around this announcement. Because that's exactly what happened is we've reduced that anxiety, we answered people's questions, they turn around and they got back to work, and so that's what good communication can get to. It's real dollars, it's real money. So do you wanna make money and preserve the level of your investment or do you wanna kiss it goodbye because you might be a little nervous about communicating? So that's a real question that business leaders, managers, business owners need to ask themselves Sometimes. I learned a while back and I told executives this I would say to people as I was coaching them sometimes doing the right thing is kind of a pain in the neck, and I didn't use language with that knife, but this is a family podcast, right?
Mackenzie Kilshaw:It's all good, Gary, we can say it if we complete that.
Gary Ross:I literally did tell a CEO to his face. I said you know what sometimes doing the right thing is a pain in the ass.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:And.
Gary Ross:It's true too, but it's worth doing. And so if you've got that little guy on your shoulder saying you know you better get out there and communicate about this, even though it might be tough and you've got some hard things to say, and whatever you go out there, you will preserve and enhance productivity. You'll preserve and enhance the value of your organization. If you don't, then productivity will go down. Distractions will go up. By the way, employee turnover will increase. That costs real money as well, right, especially the labor market that you know. Who knows where things are going right now depends on your industry, but that's really important. Also, this is real money. It's not just a nice to have, it's real money. So that's what's at stake.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Yeah, for sure, and I mean your example was big corporation, but it doesn't matter what size you are.
Shauna Foster :Oh no, not at all.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Because this can happen in a small business of 10 people, right? Maybe someone's buying the business, or maybe there's a new employee or I call them a cancerous employee right? Someone that kind of causes trouble. And you're right, if your communication skills are where they should be, you can really mitigate a lot of these problems that are potential problems.
Gary Ross:Yeah, yep, yeah, awesome and reduce a lot of the drama also, too, that can come along with some of these things as well.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Yeah, and drama in the workplace it happens and it's never good right?
Gary Ross:Yeah, that's a drag on productivity as well 100%.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Do you have, I guess, throughout all of your years, of your different careers and now with being a communications expert, do you have a most important lesson on communication that you wanna share, or something that you must do? This to be a great communicator?
Gary Ross:Keep communicating, keep communicating and remember all the different ways in which you can communicate through your actions, through your words, through, again, not communicating there are, and that's generally not a good thing. But the more radio silence there is, the more gap that will form between the people who need to communicate something and the people who need to hear what's being communicated. So figure out a way to do it. And I know there are sometimes there's people in our ears, like lawyers or other folks, that say oh wait, we can't say this, we shouldn't do that. Well, and that's fine, and I've loved working with lawyers on those sorts of things throughout my career. It's intellectually stimulating. But we also have to be prepared to say well, there's a business need to communicate something here. So as somebody Mr or Ms Attorney, as someone who is here to support the business, let's work together on figuring out what it is we can say, because not saying anything really shouldn't be an option.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:I agree and I just want to personally thank you because I mean, I think I knew it, but it was kind of a light bulb moment for me where not communicating is communicating, and it's so true and I think that can be almost more of a detriment than saying something right.
Gary Ross:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Yeah, for sure. Is there anything you wish you had known, or maybe wish you had known sooner? With communication, I feel like when you have a journalist background, you're really great at speaking and writing, but maybe there's something you'd like to tell your younger self.
Gary Ross:To tell my younger self. I'll tell you where I got a little bit in trouble earlier in my career. Not so much trouble, it's something that held me back and it was a lack of authenticity on my part. I was in line for a promotion and my boss, who was a VP, wanted to promote me up a level in his team. But because I would work a lot with the president of the company, the president needed to approve the promotion and he didn't approve it. He didn't deny it either. He said, well, let's just wait a little bit.
Gary Ross:And he kind of kept me twisting in the wind for months at a time and I didn't really understand what was happening. Well, one day I think it was late in the day I happened to go into his office with a couple other executives to talk about I don't know what it was, but it was late in the day, it was a long day and around this guy I used to just really tighten up and stand on ceremony and just not be myself. But for whatever it was this day I was just tired. It was like whatever, I'll just go in and I was a lot more myself. I joked around a little bit, a little more questionable around him than I normally was. And the meeting ended and the number two guy in the company followed me out the door and he said you know, if you had been like that in every other meeting, you would have gotten the promotion already.
Gary Ross:And eventually I did get the promotion. But it was a huge learning experience for me in that, in working with with senior executives and working with people that I might have initially been intimidated by, or with their roles and whatnot, you still need to be your authentic self, because they're people too, and it's applied just to managing up. I think it applies to any other situation where, if it's if it's an individual or an organization or just a situation in general that we might be intimidated by, you need to take a step back and say you know, I'm here for a reason. I can be myself and and that's what people are expecting and that's what people are wanting. And that was a huge lesson for me earlier in my career and I guess I had wished I had known that earlier, would have gotten promoted earlier and wouldn't have had all those months of of angst yeah, you know what.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:That's great. That's great advice and I think, especially when we're living in a world of digital and all of that stuff just being true and genuine to who you are it is definitely going to get you further, and likely further, faster.
Gary Ross:Yeah, and people ask me, now that we're in this world of virtual work, how do people need to be communicating?
Gary Ross:And, yeah, you know there are some things that we need to make sure we do, that we know how to use cameras and microphones and lights and all that stuff.
Gary Ross:And, yeah, yes, we have to be more intentional to get somebody on the other end of the zoom or whatever it is that that we're using, and so that that requires more, more discipline and more intentionally. But the end of the day, that's the same two people on the other side of the camera and the microphone. And I think the more we remember that, the more authentic, the more authentic and the more the more effective our communication will be, even in a, even in a virtual setting. So, yeah, we've got to learn some of the tactical things and that kind of stuff, and sure that that comes with getting used to a new piece of technology and this remote work stuff has been going on for a few years now. So hopefully we're, we're all learning on that, but at the end of the day, we're the same people that used to be in the office together and and so the the authenticity, the genuineness, the forthcoming of nature of communication, the storytelling, knowing that everything communicates, having to know your audience all that stuff still applies.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Totally true, Gary. I know that there are going to be so many people listening that want to learn more about you and what you do, so where is the best place for them to find you?
Gary Ross:Well, you can email me at info, info at inside comms. com, that's i N, s, I, d, e, c, o M M S dot com. Or you can go on to my main website, which is W W, W do inside comms do com, spelled the same way. And then I have e learning courses as well, which I think I mentioned earlier about communication. I also do custom e learning as well. So if anybody is looking for e learning courses for their organization, let's talk about what it is you need, and it's most likely something I can, I can, produce for you. But my e learning website, where there's communication courses available for purchase, is plus P, l, u, s do inside comm do com.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Gary, thank you so much. I appreciate this so much and I'm a little light bulb moment here with the non communicating and I know that so many other people are going to learn some very valuable lessons here from our little chat today. So thank you so much for being on. I really appreciate it.
Gary Ross:I'm so glad. Thank you for having me. This has been fun.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Yeah, that worked out great and to everybody listening. Thank you guys so much for tuning in and we will see you on the next episode. Thanks for listening to Winning. Be sure to subscribe to get all of our new episodes. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the podcast, please share it with others, post about on social media and leave a rating and review wherever you listen to it. To catch all of the latest from us, you can follow Winning podcast on Instagram a winning podcast, facebook Facebook Winning podcast Podcast on Twitter at Winning winning. Winning was created and is produced by me, mackenzie Mackenzie Music, created by Summer Furby, Firby editing by Seth Armstrong. Special thanks to Shauna Foster for voicing our opening and, of course, a huge thank you to this episode's guest. Thanks again for listening and I'll see you on the next episode.
