The Power of Positivity

When you're in a position of leadership, it is critically important to be able to effectively communicate a direction.

Not only does your message need to be easily understood, it also needs to be remembered well enough that the recipient can use it to make decisions. Decisions that align with the direction that you wanted to set.

Crafting such a message isn't easy, so one of the first things you should consider is what tone you want it to have.

Or what tone you want to avoid.

Boo?

Let's start with the obvious one.

A negative tone is one in which you are focused on what won't happen, what you won't be able to do or what isn't there.

One way to use this tone is when describing and clarifying problems.

We will not be able to handle all support requests for the business with the current systems and processes.

When you talk about a problem, you often need to talk about gaps or issues, and those tend to come across in a negative way. This can help in clarifying the gravity of the situation to the recipient, focusing their mental efforts on what they could do about it.

Another way to use this tone is when setting a direction that focuses on a shift away from something.

We will no longer be responsible for collecting metrics for business intelligence.

When you paint a picture of the future in this way, you are purposely focusing on what won't be something that you or your team needs to worry about anymore. If that thing is taking up a large amount of time and effort, being able to envisage what life would look like without it is important.

Kitty!

In comparison, a positive tone is one in which you are focused on what will happen, what you will be able to do or what is or will be there.

You can use this tone when describing and clarifying opportunities or solutions.

We will build a system that lets individual teams easily handle the support requests that are relevant to them.

When you talk about an opportunity or solution, you have to be able to focus on painting a picture of what will exist and why it will make a difference. This can help to get people onboard with the idea, because they don't have to spend time and effort coming up with a solution themselves.

You can also use this tone to reframe how you're going to move away from something.

We will empower the new metrics team to collect business intelligence metrics across the business

Making a statement like that focuses on what will happen, instead of what won't. Again, it's about helping people to get onboard with the idea, to understand that you're not just shirking responsibilities and oblivious to the ramifications, you actually have a plan for how to move forward.

Scaring Isn't Enough Anymore

You may have picked up on the fact that the examples I provided above were exactly the same, just worded to have a different tone.

It wasn't overly subtle.

The thing is, different tones resonate with different people, but in my experience, it's much easier to get buy-in on directional messages if they use a positive tone.

I imagine this is because a negative tone can often come off as demanding or complaining. You're describing a problem or a change that you want to see, but you're not really providing any information about how you're actually going to accomplish anything.

People who receive that message may feel like it's on them to solve your problem or to create your outcome, and that responsibility or expectation can make them less inclined to engage.

Using a positive tone instead doesn't feel like that. The recipient knows that you've already given some thought to the future and as a result, doesn't feel like you're just dumping a bunch of stuff on them.

Be careful though. Not every message can be converted into a positive tone without fundamentally changing the message. The examples I gave above were pretty trivial to flip back and forth, but there are messages that need to have a negative tone to be understood.

I can't think of a good example off the top of my head unfortunately, so you'll just have to believe me.

Also, if you're constantly putting a positive spin on things, people will get suspicious that you're hiding something, especially if the tone that you're using is generally discordant with the way that everyone is feeling.

So watch out for that too.

Put That Thing Back Where It Came From

I'm fairly certain that my default tone is negative, which is sort of weird because I like to think that I'm a fairly positive person.

I'm definitely not motivated by a glorious, fluffy vision of the future though, or by statements that focus on what will be. I'm motivated by understanding what the problems and gaps are, because I have faith in my ability to resolve them.

It's the same reason that I like feedback that focuses on how I can be better, as opposed to feedback about what I'm doing well.

But proper management of tone is something that I need to work on, to ensure that my messages create the outcomes that I want them to create, taking the recipient of said messages into account.

To put my money where my mouth is:

I will use more positive language when communicating, focusing on what will happen and why it will be better.

...

Ugh, it already feels weird.