Leaders know when to “sell” and when to “tell”

Posted: June 25, 2019 | Categories: Leadership, Team Building

Effective bosses communicate early and often.  When I am coaching managers and owners on their communication skills, we often talk about classifying the type of communication you wish to have.  The four main categories are: Sell, tell, join, and consult.  If we are selling, we need buy-in.  If we are telling, we are delivering a message with a non-negotiable directive.  When we join, we agree to support a team member on an idea or project they have generated.  When we consult, we are seeking input and ideas regarding a possible course of action.

I believe that the “tell” situation is the most challenging.  Most people do not want to appear harsh, and telling means you are really saying, “This is the way it is…no exceptions”.  Here is an example:

In my early 20’s, I began my career in hotel management.  I moved around a lot, and one time I took management of a hotel that had a weekly payroll.  No, we didn’t have a payroll service, and I also did not have a calculator.  (This was in the early 70’s, and calculators were way too expensive).  This meant that doing the weekly payroll took a half a day a week – way too much time.  I decided we would change to a bi-weekly payroll schedule.  I did not even attempt to sell this idea.  It is funny about the word money:  Although not synonyms, “sooner” and “now” seem to be first cousins.  I knew the staff wouldn’t be happy.  I told them about the change.  The announcement came in July, but the new procedure would not begin until January 1st.  I wanted to give them time to adjust to the change.  They were not thrilled, but they understood.  If I had told them in a wishy-washy way like, “Hey, what do you think?”, I would have lost trust, because they would have soon found out that what they thought would not change things.  This was a “tell”.  My point to you: If you have to give a “tell” to your team, don’t disguise it.  Be clear, and realize that there are things we need to say and others need to hear, and we cannot expect people to always be smiling when we give them the “tell” news.