The Importance Of Internal Communication To Your Company’s Success
Nat Turner said, “Good communication is the bridge between confusion and clarity.” Unfortunately, poor communication is at the root of many business problems, yet many overlook it. Our special guest David Turano today will help you better understand internal communication, where we go wrong with it, and give you some tools to make internal communication an asset for your company instead of a liability.
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The Importance Of Internal Communication To Your Company’s Success
Tim Fitzpatrick: Nat Turner said, "Good communication is the bridge between confusion and clarity." Unfortunately, poor communication is at the root of so many business problems. Our special guest today will help you better understand internal communication, where we go wrong with it, and give you some tools to make internal communication an asset for your company instead of a liability. Hi, I am Tim Fitzpatrick with Rialto Marketing, where we believe marketing shouldn't be difficult. All you need is the right plan. I am super excited to have with me, David Turano from JCE Consulting. Dave, welcome, and thanks for being here.
David Turano: Thank you for having me. Tim, nice to see you again.
Tim Fitzpatrick: Yes, nice to see you as well. It's good. We're switching sides of the mic here.
David Turano: Yeah, you got it. You stay trapped.
Tim Fitzpatrick: Yes, that's right. I love it. So before we jump into internal communication, I want to ask you a few rapid-fire questions, help us get to know you ready to jump into this?
David Turano: Let's do it.
Tim Fitzpatrick: Okay. When you're not working, how do you like to spend your time?
David Turano: Lots of things. Lots of things. It could be anything from chewing my wife's ear off, going for walks, playing cornhole in the backyard, exercising, listening to music, anything.
Tim Fitzpatrick: And you have two boys. They both play sports?
David Turano: One is retired from sports. One is actively playing sports. She's a senior in high school. And then I have a daughter. She's very active in a number of different sports. Yes.
Tim Fitzpatrick: Okay. So you're busy?
David Turano: Yeah, absolutely. It's fun, though. And coaching my daughter's basketball team. That's one thing that keeps us busy, me busy as well. It's awesome. Absolutely awesome.
Tim Fitzpatrick: What's your hidden talent?
David Turano: Putting together playlists at parties. I'm really good at getting a crowd going, I would say. I love getting people together and picking obscure music that just gets the mood going.
Tim Fitzpatrick: Okay.
David Turano: And then I would say, outside of that, maybe saying being willing to say things that other people are thinking and not saying are probably my two biggest talents.
Tim Fitzpatrick: I'm going to be dating myself when I say this, but does your playlist capability come from a lot of mixed tapes as a kid?
David Turano: I never put together any mixed tapes.
Tim Fitzpatrick: You didn't.
David Turano: I never did that. I had some made from you, by the way. But it's honestly my mother loved, she had this really giant record player, and she used to play all sorts of stuff all the time. And I just for some reason through osmosis, learned all the lyrics to all that 50, 60, 70s music, and then I'm able to incorporate it into some of the stuff I never thought that I was listening back then. And today I love stuff. That's really where it came from.
Tim Fitzpatrick: What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given?
David Turano: I would say the best piece of advice that I've been able to use practically, is just whatever you're uncomfortable with, go do it within reason. Don't do anything illegal. But anything that makes you uncomfortable, go after it, face it, deal with it. And whether it's taking a risk, moving across country, quitting your job and starting your own thing. That's been the best piece of advice I ever got, and it wasn't without some calculated knowledge underneath it. But that to me, was what served me well.
Tim Fitzpatrick: What's one thing about you that surprises people?
David Turano: I would say that the one thing that might surprise people if they don't know me well is that I'm an introvert. I love alone time. And I would say the second thing might be, I hate small talk.
Tim Fitzpatrick: Okay. What does success mean to you?
David Turano: Happiness. To me, that's it. If you're happy, you're successful. I don't care what you do, where you live, what you look like. If you're happy, you've done it. You've made it.
Tim Fitzpatrick: That leads perfectly into my next question, which is, where is your happy place?
David Turano: My happy place is at home. I love being with my family, with friends, doing the simple things. If I'm with good people that really ask questions, humble, sense of humor, listening to music, playing yard games, hanging at the beach, the simple stuff, the peaceful stuff. When people have their guards down, that's when, that's like the best time for me in life, no matter where I'm at, no matter who I'm with. But ideally it's with family and friends.
Tim Fitzpatrick: What qualities do you value in the people you spend time with?
David Turano: Sense of humor, humility, curiosity, responsiveness, somebody who asks a lot of questions. Those are the things I look for in people.
Tim Fitzpatrick: Thank you for that. Grilling is done. Tell us more, Dave, about what you're doing with JC Consulting. Who are you working with? How are you helping them?
David Turano: Okay, it's funny you asked that, because the work I do today is so much different than the work I did when I first started the company. It's been eight and a half years now, and it was more of a leadership slash business development company back then where I did a lot of coaching and training in that space, in either space. And today it's still that. But it is by far more of a leadership coaching and training company first, business development sales second. And I would just say I work with all different kinds of companies and it really doesn't matter the industry. My clients now med device companies, staffing companies, engineering firms. It doesn't really matter what they do. The bulk of the work I do, though, is with their senior leadership teams, helping them set direction for the company higher and get people motivated to do the work that they're there to do, help them problem solve, conflict management. At the end of the day, the real thing I do is I help them build teams that want to and will stand on their own. And I do that through coaching and training and things of that nature.
Tim Fitzpatrick: So let's talk about internal communication. Man, communication is such an important part, not just business, but our personal lives. Where do companies go wrong with internal communication?
David Turano: A lot. They go wrong. It can be in so many number of ways. I don't want to drone on and on. I do have a bad habit of that. But I would say, first and foremost, many companies are not really clear about who they are and what they do. And once they start to grow and add more people, the message about what they do gets diluted and they end up hiring people to kind of just do work. And that work is not always connected with a deeper purpose. Like with my company. It's me. I'm a one man show. But the purpose never, I am here to help you build a team that can stand on its own. I am here to help your team communicate more effectively with confidence. That's what I'm here to do. I say that to all my clients. I would hire more people. That's what we're doing here, and no one's going to be wandering that. But I do think that's one miss. I think the other miss is they tend to hire casually. Within that whole hiring recruiting process, there's so many opportunities to really get to know a person, what makes them tick, what they like and don't like to do. And sometimes the interview processes are so mechanical that they never really get to know the person that they're ultimately going to choose. So missed opportunities to really level, set, and lay the groundwork then. And then the only other thing I would say and there's a number as they often don't get out ahead of problems. When communication goes wrong, an organization or a leader might just kind of let things slide or just assume that the team gets it, make a decision without really involving them. And as a result of that, things don't get done. People start folding their arms. Companies can stagnate. The flip side to that is communication can go wrong. When we get to know people way too personally and we end up like keeping problems because we know somebody too well and we can't say that to someone. So they've been here too long. They've got a lot of issues. So those are some generic answers. I don't know if that exactly answers your question, but that's what comes to mind.
Tim Fitzpatrick: No, it does. And a follow up question of this is coming to my mind here. Do you feel like a lot of internal communication issues stem from just the company not placing a priority on it? Right. They don't talk about it a lot, and because they don't talk about it a lot, they don't have a lot of structure around how should we communicate with our team? Right. Because if people aren't taught how to properly do that, they're just doing what they think is best, which in some cases is not.
David Turano: Yeah. Well, it's unfortunate many people think that they lump communication into soft skills, just like they lump trust into soft skills and they diminish how important it really is. The reality is not when a company is not functioning well, it's because of poor soft skills. It's because communication isn't happening. People don't get along. Their values are misaligned. Like, for example, if I have a high sense of urgency and you want to take your time getting back to me, we're probably going to clash. And those clashes sometimes last for years where people kind of, you know, that's where silos get created in that Department is lazy and these people. I think what happens is we underestimate what communication is when it's actually happening and when it's not happening. And it's helping people, not diminish it as a soft skill, because the reality is if you get fired, odds are it's because you lack the soft skills. I've seen so many people over the years that are very, very smart. Master's degrees or the ability to do a job is clearly there. But their inability to work well with other people is what ultimately costs them. And so I think that's the issue is we just underestimate what it takes to build trust, to recognize when it's there and when it's not, and then to deal with it, to deal with have the skills, and this is what I spend most of my time doing is helping people recognize when it's missing and then addressing it in a way that it doesn't feel like a conflict. So again, that's where I see one of the biggest problems is just let things we just ignore things or we go after things too aggressively. And as a result of that, you've got people that are working against each other.
Tim Fitzpatrick: So I love frameworks. I love systems. Do you have a framework or a system for helping businesses improve their internal communication?
David Turano: Yeah. I don't know if I'd call it a system. I would say it's a framework. Everything I do, whether it's leadership training or business development training, is under the umbrella of there's a reason we're here. Here it is. If it's leadership, I'm here to help you build and lead a self directed team. That's what we're doing here. And then underneath it, there's the challenges that get in the way of that happening. And then I provide in that program, I believe it's seven different categories that we walk through that you could call it call it a methodology. I wouldn't call it a system, but I would say here are the areas that if your team is not standing on its own, if your team isn't making decisions or isn't motivated or the performance isn't there, let's look at each of these areas, discuss what they mean. Let's talk about some examples of how each of these things work or don't work, and then let's practically walk through them. A lot of it is just making people aware of for example, if you're driving down the road and the car just stops, the dashboard will tell you what's going on. Most likely there's a light. It could be a gas light, it could be an oil light. It could be a check engine light. So that's what the work I do is. I give people kind of a dashboard. Here's what you should be thinking about all the time. So if there's a disconnect, look into one of these areas to identify. That's what I'm not doing. Like, for example, I talk a lot about accountability. It drives a lot of people crazy because they misunderstand what it is. The reality is people crave it. They want to know that what they're doing actually matters and means something, whether they admit it or not. They want to know if I'm going to do this work, someone notices it. Someone actually appreciates it. And in order to hold somebody accountable, there's an art to it. One, they have to understand what's expected of them and they have to agree to those expectations. And so when that happens, it's easy to hold people accountable. What often doesn't happen is the expectations aren't clear or they're not measured or they're not tracked or they're not discussed after the first conversation. So then accountability sounds like micromanagement or it sounds like, man, you're up my tail for God's sakes like leave me alone because they never really did this thing on the front side. So that's an example of where I help them recognize those things and then show them how to execute in those moments. Quite frankly, Tim, that's really what gets in the way with many different senior people who are very smart is when they identify where the issue is, they don't know how to execute or initiate the conversation and work through it. So that both sides are saying, I'm glad we talked. And sometimes I'm glad we talked means I'm leaving the company, but I'm at least glad we talked. But it's getting them comfortable enough to initiate deal with things so that both sides get to a better place. And that's ultimately where I spend most of my time.
Tim Fitzpatrick; So is accountability one of the elements that you look at?
David Turano: Absolutely.
Tim Fitzpatrick: What are some of the other elements you look at to help with internal communication?
David Turano: Well, that's the truth. I look at everything from is trust present? How do you build it? How do you break it? How do you recover from it? We spend a ton of time on that. We spend a ton of time on communication. What it is, what it's not everything that gets in the way of it, like judgments or blaming or controlling and all these different personality tendencies or default tendencies under pressure that can compromise communication or two way communication. We get deep, deep into that. That's another one. We get deep into expectations. Coaching. What does it mean to actually coach and develop somebody just because you want to do it doesn't mean they want you, and it also doesn't mean that they're listening. Also doesn't mean you're a good coach. So how to effectively coach people as a leader and still manage them at the same time or still make tough decisions at the same time. We cover that. We cover accountability. We cover recruiting,. We cover necessary conversations and how to execute them. Those are some examples. I hope I didn't ramble on too much there.
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Tim Fitzpatrick: No, not at all. It sounds to me like these are really elements that need to be present if you're going to have strong internal communication.
David Turano: 100%. If you don't have them, it's like building a house with no walls or a house without a roof, a house without a foundation, house without windows. It's very obvious why it's cold in here. If you live up in Boston, there's no windows in the house.
Tim Fitzpatrick: Right.
David Turano: And so that's what it is. When I go into an organization, it's gotten to the point where I've got to listen to the people. I have to understand what the history is, where they're coming from, what those relationships are or what they think they are. Then ultimately it's going to fall into these categories. And I look at some and I think, well, the reason you don't have trust, for example, is your CEO might not have any credibility. Your CEO might be doing things they shouldn't be doing, and everyone knows it. So when the CEO gets up and talks about a mission or a purpose, if nobody believes in the integrity of that person, things aren't going to work. And that's what I've noticed over the last few years is the conversations and the trainings have gotten very personal. Ultimately, it's the things they don't talk about that are in the way of them operating effectively. And that's ultimately what the coaching deals with is people come clean around the things that they haven't said or maybe that they've done and don't like to talk about so that we can work through those to improve the quality of communication and performance in their companies. And it's very uncomfortable for them. It's not uncomfortable for me, but it's very uncomfortable for them. And those are the things we talk about right out of the gate is, are you willing to go down this path? Now, not everything is dire and not everybody. It's not always that heavy. But I do know when problems linger, it's because they haven't been discussed for a long time or they've been ignored or the staff feels like, "Here we go. Talking about it again. Nothing's going to change." And so it's forcing those changes to happen.
Tim Fitzpatrick: I want to make sure I got these because I think I missed one. So trust, accountability, communications, just what it is, how the company defines it, expectations, coaching, recruiting, necessary conversations. There was one other one, I think.
David Turano; And the one I didn't comment on. I mentioned at the beginning, setting direction, I would just lump that under purpose.
Tim Fitzpatrick: Got it.
David Turano: What is it doing here? Simon Sinek talks a lot about this. There are so many people or coaches or speakers that talk about the importance of it, but the reality is it's kind of a half baked exercise. In many organizations, they hire some marketing company to come up with their purpose. So they go off site and they create a purpose. But it's not necessarily or a mission, whatever you want to call it, or vision, but it's not necessarily what they live. And if I could go back even to the beginning, when you say where do they go wrong? If they're not living what they say they are. The better companies are, so the better companies know who they are and they live it. And when you live who you are and your words match your actions, it's easier to have trust. It's easier to generate a following. And people are likelier to be motivated when they can opt in to that conversation. It's when you say you're something and do something else. That's a major disruptor when it comes to communication, motivation, accountability, it all gets thrown out the window when there's a disconnect there. So I slid over that, and I shouldn't have because we do spend a fair amount of time on that as well. Another thing, though, that when I say communication comes across as fluffy, so don't mission statements and vision statements. Very fluffy, very soft. The reality is you better stand for something and then within, underneath, that sets your values, and you better live those, too. So those are things we talk about in an ongoing fashion, and it's really what it comes down to. Are you what you say you are? Do people believe it? Do they believe in you? Do you believe in them, et cetera, et cetera.
Tim Fitzpatrick: It seems like if you don't know what your vision is, your values, right, what you stand for, how can you hire people that share those same beliefs?
David Turano: You can't. You can't. It's funny. Over the last two years, especially through the coaching I do, the coaching has become incredibly personal, more so than it was three years ago, ten years ago, especially. And there are a lot of people out there questioning who they are. There are a lot of people that are dealing with things outside the office that are making them rethink. What am I doing? What am I all about? I've been pretending to like this job or I'm going through the motions because I get paid really well and I'm not going to do anything to disrupt that. So I'll tolerate this. As a result of that, they hire that way. Like, I can give you money to come here and you'll make good money, too. You won't like it either, even though they don't say that. But I think that's something that everybody's got to think about is just to go off on a tangent here, but we have so many unfilled open jobs in the United States, I've never seen anything like it. We also have a tremendous amount of talented people sitting on the sidelines that don't believe they have a chance. The national narrative is nobody wants to work anymore. But I disagree with that. I talk to retirees on a regular basis that don't want to stay retired. They still want to contribute in some way. They'd be willing to come back. Many of them think, well, they don't want me anymore. I had a guy the other day say, Dave, I'm 59 years old. I'm like, 59. You got another 40 years to live. What do you mean, 59? I mean, I'm 50. Like, what, am I going to be dead soon? There are people out there, people in transition, stay at home moms or even stay at home dads that want to come back and contribute. They don't believe that anyone wants them because, well, I've been out of the workforce for three years, five years, I lost those skills. Not true. And I think we have a lot of smart young people coming up that actually do have work ethic that we're missing that, too. So I think that these people all want to participate and be part of something that means something. So they're going into companies saying, "Give me a chance. I hope this means something to you, because it means something to me." And I think we got to get back to that. Does it mean anything if I'm going to spend all this time with you? I want to know that we're making a difference, that I actually like doing this. Tangent again. Tangent warning.
Tim Fitzpatrick: No, it's okay, because that kind of got me thinking a bit about I think right now that's more of a systemic issue. There's so many companies, especially larger companies, that are using software to accept applications. And if you don't have the right key, how the hell can software really look at a resume to determine whether they're a good fit or not? You and I both know that people are getting weeded out that are excellent candidates. And honestly, I think it's demoralizing for people because they're just like, okay, here I go submitting, filling out all this paperwork, submitting my resume, and it just goes into a freaking black hole. And I never hear from people again. It's like, why would anybody want to do that?
David Turano: Tim, I spent almost 13 years in the recruiting space, and part of that time was as a recruiter. Part of that time was as a salesperson out there, building relationships with companies that needed to hire. And then the last five years was managing recruiters and salespeople. But as a salesperson that was responsible for finding companies that needed to hire our people. They all had online portals and application tracking systems and all that. And I remember everywhere I went, oh, no, you got to operate through this portal. You can't talk to our hiring manager. Okay, no problem. And if I listened to that nonsense, I wouldn't have succeeded in the space. I spent my entire sales career going around these systems, getting caught a bunch, getting yelled at a bunch. But I put hundreds and hundreds of people at work. And then I managed and developed recruiters and salespeople over the years, teaching them how to do the same things. There are ways because at the end of the day, there are human beings that need to hire other human beings.
Tim Fitzpatrick: Yes.
David Turano: And the resume in the portal does not tell you who that person is. I mean, I could Photoshop the hell out of my picture. You're going to say, man, that guy is handsome. Until you see me in person, you say, Whoa, that's not the guy in the picture. And that, to me, is what a resume is. It's just a photoshopped version of what we want people to know. But I want to know what it's like to sit next to you. And that's what's missing in that whole process is we are lazy when it comes to recruiting other people. I don't care what your resume says. I want to know Tim Fitzpatrick.
Tim Fitzpatrick: Right.
David Turano: And I want to talk to you. I don't care what your paperwork says. Can you put anything you want on that?
Tim Fitzpatrick: Yeah. It's funny, because they're leading with the resume, which I would argue is probably one of the least important things in the entire hiring process.
David Turano: Absolutely. Think about this. It'd be like leading with your resume on a date. The first time I went out with my wife, if I showed her my bank account, we'd be done right then and there. There was no by the way, I work here and here's how much I make and here's how much I weigh. And that's how we look for. That's what we're looking for people to do when we hire them. And that's what people please look at me. Look what I've done. It all comes down to do we connect? Do I want to work with you? Do you want to work with me? Can we get along? When we get things done together? Will we communicate effectively? Because even if you lack the skills, if you're with people that want to be together, you can do anything. Over the years, I've worked with people that I was told to fire. When I first inherited people, I was given a list of people to get rid of these five people. Over the next 30 days, I didn't get rid of any of them, and two of them became my top people. But on paper, they didn't look like they were the top people. You got to get to know them. And so I don't know how we got off on this topic, but again, I think it comes back to my staffing background. I just think hiring is so broken in this country, and I don't see it getting better. I think the more we insert technology, the worse it gets.
Tim Fitzpatrick: Yeah, but that does open up opportunities for people that want to take advantage of it, I think.
David Turano: Fair enough.
Tim Fitzpatrick: So how much is poor internal communication costing companies? And I guess I can add to that. What is it costing?
David Turano; Oh, God, I don't know. I really wish I could give you a specific number. I can tell you that in some companies the turnover rate is just atrocious it's okay to have some turnover. 10%, 15%, whatever that is. It's somewhat manageable, but I've been in companies where you'll see 50, 60, 70% turnover. So what is the cost of that? Yeah, I mean, if you've got 50 or 60 or 70 employees, I'm talking about small to medium sized company. If you lose half and the average person makes, say the average person makes 50 grand, what's the cost on that person? 60, 65? I don't know. So you lose that and you lose all the productivity that they didn't produce while they were there. Then you've got to ramp up somebody new. The cost to bring somebody else in.
Tim Fitzpatrick: Yeah.
David Turano: The cost of the manager that's screwing the whole thing up. The cost of all the missed opportunities out in the market that you're not bringing in. I mean, I don't know. I wish I could tell you.
Tim Fitzpatrick: The byproduct of poor internal communication is poor retention, lost productivity, which leads to decreased profitability. Those are the ones that start coming to mind as you're talking about retention. But retention is the first one. And then it's all the other elements that are associated with a lack of retention.
David Turano: Absolutely. And people start to lose their motivation. So even though you retain, there's always going to be a small subset of people in any organization, No matter what Department they work in, they're going to kick butt no matter what. They're just wired to do that. It doesn't matter if they work for a jerk or they work for an awesome boss. They're just great. They work hard, they're constantly grinding, and they're just going to make it. That's just how they're wired. Those people are the exception. It's that middle group of people. How do we not lose them? How do we not breed complacency in our companies? And when you say poor communication, that's what it breeds. It breeds complacency, negativity, turnover. Those that stay might just feel it's good enough. They're not going the extra mile. And this isn't all about making more money, even this is just and that's where I worry about just where our mental health is in this country. I know this is not a conversation about that, but when you have to go to work or you need to make money and you need to occupy your time professionally at some level, if you're not enjoying that time or you're not getting something out of that time up here, what is the cost? I think of that, the financial cost to a company. But what's the emotional and mental cost to everybody? And then people start believing that work sucks. That's the opportunity for me. How do we get people to look back on why we're doing this? Do we want to do this? How do we attract other people to do this? And let's have fun. And I believe those opportunities exist all the time. If we just focus on it, deal with it, and don't avoid some of this stuff we're talking about today.
Tim Fitzpatrick: What kind of quick tips do you have? What can people take away from this conversation where they can go, hey, let me focus on this or that to start getting our internal communication to the right place?
David Turano: Okay? So depending on what it is, the easiest way to do it and the hardest is to go right to where you think it's broken. If I thought something was broken with you and maybe we're peers or maybe I'm your boss, I have no idea. I'm just going to go right to you and say, Tim, here's the deal. Say you report to me. I might say, Tim, here's the deal. We've been working together for a year. I'm doing a shitty job, and you're probably going to listen to me as your boss, saying that if I feel like the communication isn't good, I'm going to take responsibility for that because you're on my team and I haven't figured out how to communicate with you yet. Or maybe you're not open to me because maybe I showed you up in a meeting nine months ago. Or maybe I lied to you, or maybe I created a false hope and you couldn't deliver and I've been avoiding you. Whatever it is, I'm going to go to you and say, Tim, I messed up. I let you down nine months ago. I've been hiding from you ever since, and I don't know how to recover, but I want to try. So no matter what it is, go deal with the person and start there's no anecdotal fix. Like, oh, all you have to do is shake their hand, firm handshake, smile, and everything signed. No, there's no such thing. It's let me go deal with what I haven't been dealing with and don't hide from it. Take responsibility for it. That, to me, is the quickest fix and be real about it. Don't BS anybody. And that's what I would say. I don't know. And believe me, there are times I work with people they just can't bring themselves to address what they need to address. So sometimes it takes a little could take weeks to really get at it because a lot of them kind of, well, I didn't exactly say that. I kind of did that. No, that's not going to work. You've got to hit them head on. This is what's going on. And that would be my best advice.
Tim Fitzpatrick: I have a couple of questions that come to mind here. Actually, I know a gentleman. His company is smaller. He's a consultant. Super smart guy. But his communications, he has procedures or rules, I guess if you would call them where, hey, email client communication. If it is an internal communication, it is not through email. We do that all through, I think they use Slack. But the other thing he says, look, if you cannot answer something in one sentence, it is not written communication. It transfers from written to either video or audio.
David Turano: Okay.
Tim Fitzpatrick: Because one it's too slow, right. I can type out a paragraph or I can say it in a matter of seconds. And so they've got these communication rules. These channels are for customers. These channels are for internal. And if it's over a sentence, it is not written. Have you ever seen that much structure or those types of rules help within companies
David Turano: To that extent, no. I've heard all of those things said. I've not seen them as absolutes. I would say that nine out of ten problems that I see somebody's hiding behind a text or an email. So the answer is always stand up or pick up the phone and go see them. So I agree with the premise. I think it's a good idea. But you also need people that buy into that. So if I had those rules and I said to you, Tim, so here are the rules, all right. There are no exceptions to these rules. And you might just agree with me. No, Dave, that's fine. Until you're in the moment and then you sneak an email because you're. Still for me, you either hire people that absolutely get it and can execute without further explanation. Odds are, though, even with the more rules you have, the more you have to explain to people unless you hire exactly what you want. And so most people, I find even really, really smart people that get it. Some of them are so rigid with the way they want it that they can't see the other side. So I don't believe anything is hard and fast. I do believe that if you have an issue with somebody, speak to them directly. I think anything in writing is going to get you in trouble and not because you're going to say the wrong thing. But anything can be misinterpreted and it shows that you don't care enough. In my mind that you're hiding. So I don't know if that answers your question. I would just say that I've never seen anybody be that non negotiational about it.
Tim Fitzpatrick: Well, I wouldn't say as far as I understand it, I don't think he's like, hey, it absolutely must happen. But whenever you can follow these guidelines, because it helps eliminate communication problems, because it's like you said, you can't get tone in an email.
David Turano: Right.
Tim Fitzpatrick: A lot of people misinterpret tone in email when nobody meant anything by it, right?
David Turano: Absolutely.
Tim Fitzpatrick: And if it's in video or an audio that doesn't get misinterpreted most of the time. It's also much, much faster, right? How many of us have taken 20 minutes to type out a stupid email and you're done with it and you're like, oh, my God, what? That was just a waste of freaking time. And, you know, and that's difficult. I think that's even more challenging now because so many companies have gone remote or they've stayed remote or they're hybrid. And so there's a lot of things that are going on asynchronously. And it makes it tough to have some of the meetings that you may have had. We could probably go down that rabbit hole, too. Like, should you even be having some of these meetings that you're having? But we have to find new ways to communicate that can adapt to the way that we're working now, because it has changed for a lot.
David Turano: There's no question, my whole business, 99% of what I do is what you and I are doing right now. I never thought it would end up in this place, but it has. And surprisingly, it's effective. But it's not effective for some people. And no matter which channel or vehicle you use to communicate, it's still going to come down to how does that audience perceive you? And so if I'm willing to come to you directly or if I'm willing to send you a video or whatever I'm doing, if you don't believe in me, it doesn't matter what vehicle I choose. You have to buy into me. And I think the other thing that we all have to consider is, do you know who you are? Do you know your short? I know I talk too much. I know that. I can't even pretend that I don't. But half the time, when you're talking, there's a movie playing in my head. When you're talking, I'm seeing, like, I'm almost visualizing your words. And then all of a sudden, I got a thought, and I want to add on to what you're saying, and it causes me to talk too much. But people can tolerate that in me because I'm aware of it. But when you're not aware of those things, that's one example. Like, if you weren't aware of your arrogance or you weren't aware of not that you're arrogant.
Tim Fitzpatrick: But no, it's all good.
David Turano: But if you weren't aware that people thought you were soft or that people thought you have no idea what you're doing or that you're a yes man, it doesn't matter what vehicle you use to communicate because they see you as, you have no idea who you are, do you? And those are the things we all that's the hard part about the job is we all go look at the mirror and say, all right, I know I'm a loud mouth, or I know that's going to come across the wrong way. So the vehicle, to me, doesn't matter or the mechanism, whether you have a meeting or you just do a quick standing call, are they paying attention or not? And I think the self awareness that's the whole thing and a strong leader, that's an effective communicator can help bring that out in their people. Give them a voice. Be aware of who you are when we're all aware of our shortcomings and our little faux paxs will speak more freely because no one's judging us. So no matter which vehicle you choose, that's Tim. I love this guy. He knows exactly who he is. I'm going to listen. Another video from Tim. But if you weren't that way, if you weren't aware of yourself, people be like, I can't stand this. Do they not see this? Those are some of the things that I encounter on a regular basis.
Tim Fitzpatrick: This has been a great conversation, Dave. Any last minute thoughts or words of wisdom you want to leave us with?
David Turano: Words of wisdom? I don't know. I don't know enough about the audience to say, hey, here's what it is. I would just say, especially over the last couple of years, the conversation that I have with people on a regular basis, outside of the nuances of leadership, I would just say, take care of yourself, treat yourself well. And I can't stress that enough. I think with all the pressures going on in today's world, all the stress and pandemic related issues and getting accessing product and pricing and gasoline, while that craziness is going on, let it be. Get up every day. You get a good sleep at night, get up in the morning, do a little exercise, try to eat some good things, hang around good people, read some books. That's another thing I love to do is read and just fill yourself up. That's awfully fluffy of me to say, but that would be my advice. If you're not taking care of yourself, take care of yourself. It's going to make everything else a lot easier.
Tim Fitzpatrick: And if people want to connect with you, they love what we've talked about. Obviously from the conversation, guys, Dave knows what he's talking about. When it comes to leadership training and development, where's the best place for them to go, Dave?
David Turano: They can go to the website if they want, Jcegrp.com or just connect with me on LinkedIn. Just Dave, Toronto, I think you've got the LinkedIn profile. Connect with me and don't try to sell me anything. Just connect with me and get to know me. There's a lot of people out there selling their tails off right now. I just really get to know you before you try to sell me something. That's what I would do.
Tim Fitzpatrick: Awesome. So it's Jcegrp.com. If you want to connect with Dave directly on LinkedIn, look him up at David Turano zero nine. David Turano zero nine. Dave, thank you so much, man. I really appreciate it. I always learn something new in these conversations. So for those of you that are watching. Listening. Thank you for tuning in do appreciate it. If you are struggling with your marketing, you're not sure what that next step should be to get you where you want to go. Hop on over our site, over rialtomarketing.com. That's R-I-A-L-T-O Marketing dot com. Click on the get a free consultation button. I'll be happy to chat with you and give you some clarity on where you should be focusing right now based on where you are and where you want to go. Thanks so much. Till next time, take care.
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About the Host?Tim Fitzpatrick
Tim Fitzpatrick is the President of Rialto Marketing. At Rialto Marketing, we see many businesses battling information overload with marketing. As a result, they aren't sure what their next marketing steps should be to get where they want to go. We help B2B service-based businesses create, implement, and manage a marketing plan to communicate the right message to the right people so they build results that last. Marketing shouldn't be difficult. All you need is the RIGHT plan.