Chats that Click: A field guide for all manager conversations

By Amanda J Oldridge

Great communication skills are a must-have skill for all managers and leaders. However not every conversations clicks. And when you become a manager and leader, chats often become more awkward. Where once you gelt relaxed, clear, and like yourself, suddenly you are stumbling, stiff and searching for the right words.

Times have changed. You

• Language: English
• Publisher: People Insight Pty Ltd
• Release date: May 20, 2022
• ISBN: 9781922764140

Amanda J Oldridge

Workplace communications expert Amanda Oldridge has travelled the world helping leaders to master the art of communication as a senior HR executive for top-tier companies such as Novartis, Linfox and Verifone. As the founder and principle of People Insight Pty Ltd, Amanda draws on decades of cross-cultural experience in Melbourne, Boston, Bangkok, Singapore and Hong Kong to guide and develop senior executives across the globe. She applies her expertise and experience to areas that include change management, developing and growing company culture, organisation, leadership development, diversity and inclusion and organisational communication for all levels of leadership.

Book preview

Prologue

I expected a normal life; maybe even a small life. However, one small choice – deciding to move for a year to take up an opportunity for the advancement of my husband’s career – began an adventure and a career of a lifetime. We came home to Australia after living in Asia and the US for 25 years, having consulted, coached and contracted to organisations and leaders throughout those regions. I have had such a wonderful career helping team members and leaders – whether I was employed in corporate organisations, consulting organisations or working within academia as an HR business partner, or a head of HR, consultant or lecturer. Having had such deep and transformative experiences helping companies and leaders in their own development as well as improving people matters, I have a strong point of view about building relationships and the importance of connectivity between managers and their team members.

So why was I overseas? Initially, we and our three tiny children went to Indonesia for my husband’s job. We quickly realised that there were so many incredible opportunities for our careers, and life experiences for us and our children. So, we decided to remain overseas. We lived in Indonesia, Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Japan, the US and finally Thailand.

I have been responsible for large populations of people in my roles and have had the opportunity to work with many different types of people in different companies and countries. This has taught me a lot about company and country culture. I was so interested in culture that I based my dissertation for my Master of Science in Psychology on the topic of country cultures.

And so, what happened after our overseas adventure? Thankfully, my husband and I had two successful concurrent careers in Asia, and we both now operate our own consulting businesses across Asia and Australia. Our children are grown and flourishing, now living in Singapore and Australia, and have partners and children of their own.

The techniques I share in Chats that Click are those I have learnt though observation, experience and academic study. They are simple and easy to use, and with regular practice you will become a skilled conversationalist in the workplace.

Introduction

Every so often you find yourself in a conversation that clicks. It goes fantastically and you feel excited, interested and understood. The other person gets you and you get them. We all know communication is critical for business success. When you click, you understand each other, you feel you know one another, and the other person trusts you. There is an ease about the way the conversation goes. It’s not about whether you know the person – it can happen on a plane, on Zoom/ Teams or at a seminar – it’s about the quality of the exchange.

How often do you feel that this happens between you and your executives, your frontline team or your team members? It might happen some or most of the time – or perhaps not at all. What if it happened all the time? You might think this is impossible, but in my experience, it’s doable.

Why this book?

With the global pandemic, working from home, the Great Resignation and ongoing challenges to build engagement, it inevitably comes down to the manager’s soft skills and people skills: the particular way they communicate with others. Team members join organisations because of the brand or vision of the company, but they often leave because of their manager’s or supervisor’s style or the way in which they communicate. Their decision to resign is often not due to the job itself, but because of the way they are treated, the different styles of each person and the relationship they have with their manager.

The power of the conversation and chats you have with your team lies in your ability to think about what you want to achieve and understand the action you need from your team member. I’m not saying you must take your team members home with you for an evening meal, but if you can plan your conversations, the level of harmony and understanding of what each person must do in the workplace will be much improved.

What you will understand after reading this book is that your team wants to belong, to feel heard and understood within the company you both work for. Your team members want meaningful work that provides them with fulfilment and purpose, and in turn to be trusted and included. As Stephen MR Covey says in his book The Speed of Trust, if we understand one another, trust increases and so does our ability to get things done on the job and in the workplace.

Our experience with COVID-19 and hybrid working has only heightened that desire for belonging. Through the lens of COVID, we have become even more discriminating as to who we work for, and the fulfilment and purpose we want out of our working life. For many team members that sense of belonging, fulfilment and connection is achieved through communicating regularly with their supervisor and colleagues. If you and your company do not reach out and connect with your team members, they become disengaged. They will leave and you’ll not be able to achieve what is needed for the company to be successful.

As managers, we should all know this but so often we don’t have these everyday conversations. It might be because we are too busy, we put these communications off because our team member is different from us, we are afraid to say the wrong thing or even because we don’t believe it is necessary. I believe this connection and those chats and conversations that foster it are critical.

This book offers you 7 Principles that will help you think about and plan the conversations and chats you’re going to have with your team members – in virtual and face-to-face conversations, as well as formal and informal chats. This is a methodology that works each and every time.

The reason I wanted to write Chats that Click was after many years of working with leaders and those supervising others in the workplace I was frustrated to find that so many managers put off, avoid and are unskilled in having conversations with their teams. It astounds me that even today in organisations throughout the world we provide a manager title to someone who does not communicate well with others.

This book is set out as a field guide to help all leaders and those who need to influence others in the workplace. It will help you plan and practise your conversations, to slow down and think about what the conversation purpose is, and to be more mindful and aware of the words that must be used to gain an outcome that is gladly accepted by the team member.

Who am I?

I have lived and worked across the world working in senior executive positions in large corporate organisations. I have found that communication problems in the workplace are not confined to any single culture – they’re the number one issue of disengagement in every culture in every workplace and every team. I started my employment career in logistics in the transport industry as a sales manager and then moved into HR, where I have worked with leading organisations across Asia and the US. I have worked in logistics, financial payments, diagnostics and vaccines, academia and consulting. With such broad and wonderful experiences, I felt that I could provide support to new and existing managers by helping them in all areas that involve people. I have seen so many examples of managers being poor communicators, often with dramatically terrible results. Across many difficult types of conversations, from formal