Have you ever called a therapist to help you sort through a tough problem?
I don’t mean the usual kind of therapist — I’m talking about a thought leadership therapist.
I get emails that read something like: “Help! We have an important launch/rebrand/campaign, but we can’t get the words right. We all agree on the strategy, but the executive/big boss/person in charge isn’t happy with the way the copy is coming together. We’re stuck. Can you help us find the right words to express our core ideas?”
I got an email like that a couple of months ago, and I’ve been doing some “thought leadership therapy” to help sort it out.
Here’s what I’ve learned from being a thought leadership therapist. I hope these lessons can help you too, even if you’re not in the word business — because most of these lessons are about people and feelings, not about words.
It’s never a word problem
It’s always bigger and deeper than that.
Maybe the boss says, “I don’t know, I don’t think we should call ourselves ‘consultants.’ We’re so much more than that.”
Or maybe it’s a snag in how you’re describing your brand’s differentiators. “It’s not that we’re fast. It’s that we’re fast and smart. Don’t forget the smart part. Actually, cancel everything until we can figure out how to say fast and smart in one word.”
Usually, I find that these issues of semantics and diction aren’t about words at all. They’re about big feelings. Maybe the person in charge is feeling a loss of control, and seeing the “wrong” words makes that feeling flare. Maybe she doesn’t like the business that she sees reflected on the page, and thinks that if she can just twist the words a different way, the business reality will also shift.
It’s deep stuff.
That’s why I don’t start with the words. You could tinker all day, but you wouldn’t actually solve the problem. Instead, I start by asking a ton of questions about what’s really going on under the surface. And since I’m not employed by the boss — even though they’re paying me as a contractor to be their Word Doctor, I’m not all that tied to whether they like me or not — I can ask these uncomfortable questions. I can challenge, throw around opinions, treat them like a peer or co-conspirator (without the layer of deference that their direct reports bring to every conversation) and reflect back what I hear, without worrying about my job.
Even if people initially bristle at my digging (“What does this lady not understand? It’s about being fast + smart and NOTHING ELSE”), the emotion they usually land on is…relief.
It feels good to get these complicated feelings out into the open. When they hear me call it like I see it, the reaction is usually, “Oh. Huh. Yeah…I guess that could be true.” Once we can find the feelings that are at play, we can get the answers we need to build a path toward progress.
Feedback is freeing
How many times have you sat in a meeting and waited for someone to slooooowly beat around the bush until they tell you what, exactly, they didn’t like about the draft/report/presentation you submitted?
It is SO INCREDIBLY HARD for most people to give feedback on creative work. And if you’re looking for constructive feedback? Forget it. I’ve seen people ignore my emails for six months instead of writing me back a simple, “I don’t like the second section. Could you rewrite it to be more direct?”
Feedback isn’t something to hide from. Feedback is incredibly freeing! It opens the door to moving forward. If we keep our feedback locked up, no one can make any progress. But when we examine how we feel about a piece of creative work, assign names to those feelings, and open a conversation about how the piece could improve, we are able to actually collaborate, ideate, and make something better. Or make anything at all!
Feedback is a gift. Writers, designers, anyone who regularly does creative work for someone else, has thick skin. We can take it, and our work depends on it.
Calm begets calm
I was describing this project to a friend recently, and I found myself saying, “Mostly what I do is show them that it’s all okay. I’m calm and not stressed or frazzled by their situation, and usually they start to mirror that response.” In other words, it’s not my first rodeo. I’m not shocked or appalled that a major research report is stuck in draft mode for six months because of an internal impasse about the title. I’ve seen it before. And I know that we can work it out.
My family (the people who hear me grumble and dramatize about dirty socks on the floor) might not use “calm” as the defining word for my persona, but my goal is for my clients to consider me a calm, stabilizing force in their business.
When we get stuck inside our own challenges, it’s hard to remember that it’s all okay and it can all be solved — or not, and you move onto the next challenge. But nothing is an emergency or a disaster, and even if it is, it’s still okay.
If your team is stuck on how to communicate your big ideas, try to dig below the surface, find the feelings, open yourself to feedback, and take a deep, calming breath. The right words are often closer than you think — you just have to clear a path to get to them.
