5 x 5: are you “loud and clear”?
Erik Boemanns
Derisking technology with a lawyer's lens and a technologist's techniques. Governance, Risk, Compliance, and Security Executive supporting businesses focused on their next stage of growth.
Leadership’s most valuable skill is communication. It doesn’t matter how brilliant your idea is, how passionate you are about the subject, if you can’t communicate it to others. And good leadership recognizes effective communication is more than just being the loudest voice in the room. It’s also about being the clearest. Shouting nonsense from the head of the table isn’t leadership. But neither is whispering wisdom from the corner. Leadership is when your message is designed to motivate others into action and can be heard strongly and clearly.
In radio (especially military) a signal is measured by its strength and its clarity. A perfect score is a 5 in each, meaning you are being heard “5 by 5.” Or in our everyday words: “loud and clear.” If a radio signal is 1x5 or 5x1, either way the message is likely to get lost. Loud and full of noisy interference?
“It’s like he’s trying to speak to me […] but I don’t know what you’re saying,” says Marlin, from Finding Nemo.
Clear line, but barely audible? “What? I can’t hear you!” even if you could hear a pin drop.
Leadership communication rarely fails in our modern world due to poor signal strength or noise on the line. But the same principles apply to how you communicate with your team. Are you being heard and understood?
Are you being heard?
The saying is you have to say something seven different ways to be heard. A leader gets on a live town hall and tells everyone about the new initiative the company is launching. Are they mad later when someone they talk to doesn’t know anything about it? If the company is lucky, a third of their employees show up for a live event. Between time zones and obligations, getting to an event – even if it’s webcast, can be impossible.
The message goes out in an email, on the company Intranet, in talking points to local leaders and managers, and gets repeated. If you aren’t broadcasting on all channels, you can’t be surprised if your message is missed by those tuning into only one channel. Even if it was a 5x5 message.
Are you being understood?
Just as important as being heard?is being understood. Rallying the team around a cause, but muddling the message, can create some excited confusion. “Yes, we want to! How do we do it?!”
This is further complicated by the diverse culture within a group. Describing your new initiative in American football terms is likely to lose effectiveness in a wider audience. How you construct your message is as important as how you broadcast it. You have to share it with a frame of reference your listener can understand. Slang or complex business terminology can make even the best of messages get lost in translation.
Be heard and be clear.
As a leader, you want your message to be 5 by 5 – as strong and clear as possible. This means working with a team who understands communication to help craft the right wording and shape it for all the available channels. Good communication is rarely an individual sport, and good leaders recognizing the need for the strength of a team.
So, on this 5th of May (5/5), what are you doing to help ensure your message is 5 by 5?
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About Erik
Erik Boemanns is a technology executive and lawyer. His background covers many aspects of technology, from infrastructure to software development. He combines this with a "second career" as a lawyer into a world of cybersecurity, governance, risk, compliance, and privacy (GRC-P). His time in a variety of companies, industries, and careers brings a unique perspective on leadership, helping, technology problem solving and implementing compliance.
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?Leadership isn't just about talking; it's about making sure your message comes through loud and clear, just like a 5 by 5 radio signal.
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6 个月Erik Boemanns Very well-written & thought-provoking.
Project/Program Manager | Change Coordinator | Sales Support | RFP Specialist | Military Spouse | PMP Certification | Agile Scrum Fundamentals Certified | ITIL 4 Certified
6 个月Excellent!!