From Chaos to Clarity: How Building a Communication HABIT Changed Everything at Kreatures of Habit
I want to talk about HABIT of communication in today's Brain Dump.
The power of communication; The importance of communication; The potential pain of communication, but ultimately the necessity of communication for a successful
Let's start with the power of communication. At the core of most all great relationships, businesses, teams and leadership, there is a foundation of, and commitment to consistent communication. It is so incredibly meaningful within the strategy for any successful venture in life. Without it, there is typically misalignment, confusion, resentment and in many cases, a slow and painful death. The weight and power of this one commitment is typically the difference between success and failure over time.
With that, it is not an easy road. There will be many distractions, many difficult conversations, all the reasons to want to schedule something else, or feel that you don’t have enough time to in the day to make room for a meeting to simply communicate. When it comes to business, I would like to give a nod to our Chief Strategy officer, Nick Kaplan. Nick has been working with us at KOH for almost a year now. When Nick joined the team, my priority for him was to come in and assess areas where we could some optimization, a fresh set of eyes on the business. The first thing he did was introduce the WBR, a weekly business review where all stakeholders were on the call, a tight agenda was set, and we all committed to 60 minutes to give an update on our departments. After that was going well, he helped reorganize the rest of our meetings, and helped me establish weekly 1:1’s with the team for clear comms and accountability.
Let me just say, there are a lot of meetings, and this was hard to adjust to in the beginning, but now months later, we are running a tighter ship for sure, everyone is seen and heard, and we are in lock step together. I am not going to lie, it is not easy at all, there have been many times when I’ve felt like we have too many meetings, especially because my inbox is like non-stop stock ticker, but I can also say that I haven’t heard anyone on the team say “I didn’t know we were doing that” or “Why didn’t you bring me into that conversation” in a long time… We are running smoother today than ever before, and we are in the busiest time in KOH history. Lots of communication, lots of success coming down the pipe. Coincidence or just communicating better? The worst thing that can happen in a company is when leadership is not aligned and avoids communication because they are too busy to make the time to talk or sometimes fight it out.. This typically the direct result of the lack of communication, I’ve been there, and it sucks!
When it comes to personal relationships - I’ve shared about this with you all in the past, but I really owe a lot of the success in our relationship to this simple commitment: My wife and I have committed to sitting at the dinner table every night after dinner for 20 or 30 minutes to just talk and catch up on each other's day. It helps keep us connected on a daily basis, no big surprises. We have the hard convos when it is necessary, we don’t hold back or let things bottle up. Again, this is not easy, avoiding confrontation is a human condition, in the long run, it is a recipe for failure.
In friendship, communication is also super important. If you are feeling a certain way about your friend, good or bad, being vocal is critical. I really try to send a text or make a call to my friends throughout the week to just let them know I am grateful for them. I know that may sound corny, but getting that kind of communication from a friend feels really good, also feels great giving it. Long term friendships have been studied as one of the most important elements to a happy and healthy life. Most friendships get harder and harder to keep as we get older, and in many cases that's because we simply stop communicating. Just because you don’t live down the block from your friend anymore, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be friends anymore. I try to call my old friends at least once a month, and see them at least once a year if not more.
Lastly, and something I am learning more and more as I get older… Humans, businesses and relationships evolve with age, we change. Things that used to excite us may not anymore, things that used to repel us, may excite us today. It is strange, but 100% real. We all evolve and when that happens, communication is critical. You can get through almost anything in life with a commitment to communication, it is the secret sauce, the super secret sauce..
I hope this one hits. It is hard to communicate at times, especially when the communication is about bad news, or something that is bothering you, or when something about you is bothering someone else.. Fight the desire to want to retreat, have the hard convos, have the good convos, just make sure you are HAVING THE CONVOS.
Much love team,
Chernow