©iStockphoto.com/RichVintage. Other art by James Steidl.

Thirty years ago, as a young executive at Campbell Soup Company, I learned how organizational practices have a profound effect on performance.

In those days, Campbell had what some called a “low courage culture.” Company people were well educated, well mannered, collegial, genteel. By today’s standards, the atmosphere was formal. Pinstripe suits for the men, high heels for the women.

But the most obvious cultural trait I noticed when I first joined the company was a general aversion to discussing risky or politically sensitive subjects. People would often dance around subjects, approaching the most critical issues only with hints and innuendo. They apparently hoped others would read between the lines and somehow guess what they were really trying to say. And a favorite approach was to exchange memos. Lots of memos.

When I’d been on the job only a couple of days I received a memo from Herb, a senior executive. I don’t remember the subject of the memo, only that it was three pages long and that about twenty other people had been copied on it. Most notably, it was written by my new colleague Herb, whose office was right down the hall from mine.

I turned to my secretary Edna and asked, “What do I do with this?” Edna, who was approximately the age of my mother, explained that the protocol was for me to dictate a response, which she would then type up and place in the company mail system.

“What about all these people who were copied?” I inquired. Edna said something about keeping others appropriately in the loop, but we both knew that all those copies were also about protecting Herb’s backside. (That’s not a commentary on Herb; it’s a commentary on the company’s culture.)

So I dutifully dictated a response, which Edna typed and placed in the company’s mail system. Then I waited.

Three days later, Herb walked into my office holding my response. “I got your memo,” he said. “I have just one question. I notice that you copied everyone who was copied on my memo, but you added Larry Evans. Who is Larry Evans?”

“Oh, Larry’s a friend of mine. He’s a county sheriff down in Texas.”
“Why would you copy a Texas sheriff on a memo exchange at a company in New Jersey?” Herb asked incredulously.

“I didn’t really copy Larry,” I said. “I just included his name in the ‘copy’ list because I knew it would bring you down the hall to talk with me.”

Herb stared into my eyes with a look of, “Are you really serious about this?” and I responded with an expression of, “Yes, I really am serious about this.”

“Call me crazy,” I said. “But I have an idea. How would it be if you and I just walked down the hall to visit with each other face-to-face? I realize that won’t leave a paper trail, but I’m sure we can keep our secretaries busy with other things, and I’m equally confident that everyone will benefit if we talk instead of writing memos.”

Herb broke into a broad smile, as if liberated from a tether. He agreed to adopt the “new” protocol of conversation. Our relationship blossomed into a strong and trusting friendship that was a blessing to us as well as an advantage to the company.

Better than Email

Why do I tell that story? Because it has application today. Email has become a ubiquitous method of communication in virtually every organization on earth that is plugged into modern technology.

Don’t get me wrong. Email has its appropriate place. It’s good for comparing schedules, setting up meetings, and passing along basic data. But email can be worse than two tin cans and a long string when it comes to “connecting” human beings.

Real communication is all about connecting, about the exchange of meaning. “Dialogue” — something championed by great thinkers as early as Aristotle — can be defined as “the free flow of meaning between two or more people.” Notice the emphasis on meaning.
Dialogue is not necessarily about agreement. It’s about meaning. Two intelligent people can (and often do) attach different meaning to the same set of data. True dialogue occurs only when people feel comfortable (safe) in expressing their meaning.

Because dialogue works best in real time, “in the moment,” email exchanges are no more than competing monologues. Competing monologues are the antithesis of real communication.

Even among well-intended people, it’s common to address critical issues only obliquely day after day, year after year.

In 2006 I was invited by a major utility company to meet with the senior executive team. They wanted me to do an in-depth assessment of their organizational culture. I had done a culture assessment in that same company back in 1989. That was three senior management teams ago, and none of my recommendations for intervention had been followed.

When I met with the “new” management team in 2006 I showed them a single PowerPoint slide with six bullet points. “These bullet points represent my key findings from seventeen years ago,” I said. “What do you notice?” One by one, the executives began to chuckle, then they laughed out loud. “That’s exactly where we are today,” one of them finally said.

Measuring Success

He had nailed an important principle: The measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal with, but whether it’s the same problem you had last year. Here’s a corollary to that principle: The hallmark of successful organizations (and people) is not that they don’t have difficult challenges. Success comes through our capacity to address challenges openly, honestly, “safely,” and without equivocation.

This is not just theory. It’s been validated by tons of research.
For example, one study by psychologist Howard Markman focused on newlyweds. He and his research partners defined newlyweds as couples who had been married for 90 days or less.

They invited a newlywed couple into their office and said, in essence: “Within the first 90 days of marriage, most couples have discovered at least one subject on which they disagree. Pick a subject on which you disagree, and discuss it for 15 minutes.”

Then Markman and his colleagues simply observed the discussion. They did this with many hundreds of newlywed couples, then they tracked them over an extended period of time.

Result? With only 15 minutes of initial observation, Markman and his team were able to predict with better than 90 percent accuracy which couples would be divorced within five years.

When I first heard about that study my reaction was, “Why didn’t you warn them?” But that wasn’t the purpose of the research. The purpose was to test the hypothesis that if you have difficulty discussing one subject you will have difficulty discussing other subjects. The issue is not the subject under discussion. The most pertinent issue is the skill (or lack of skill) in discussing the risky topic.

It’s possible for people to interact for many years and never really engage in genuine dialogue. Professional colleagues can work side by side for years without honestly discussing “risky” subjects like each other’s performance. A married couple can coexist for decades and never really address the “touchy” issues that make one or both of them uncomfortable.

What’s missing? Dialogue, the free flow of meaning.