WATCH: How to engage and retain your best people with Respectful Candour (Ep6)

In this episode, I’d like to talk about “How to Keep your Best and Retain your Best People with Effective Communication”. Because Communication is the fifth C in “The Five C’s of Post Pandemic Management”. And it’s critical for managers to be effective in communication, especially now in this post-pandemic environment.

Paradox of Respectful Candor

Because communication was a challenge before the pandemic. It was a massive challenge during the pandemic. But now with hybrid working, we really need to be experts at communication and how to get a balance in our communication so that we can communicate effectively with a broad range of people. And that leads us to the ‘Paradox of Respectful Candor’. So the Paradox of Respectful Candor was developed by Dr. Dan Harrison who’s an expert in Positive Psychology and Behaviour Analytics. And we could take a paradox as having two traits which are seemingly contradictory but in fact when they come together form something synergistic.

Frank and Direct without being Blunt

And in the paradox of respectful candor, the traits are being ‘Frank’, direct, straightforward and to the point. And ‘Diplomatic’, being respectful and thoughtful and tactful, respecting the feelings of others. Now, if we’re very frank without being diplomatic, we can come across as being blunt. And that means that you would have fractured relationships. Create, stir up people’s emotion. They’ll get defensive, it could become argumentative and some people may leave. And if we have diplomacy without appropriate levels of frankness, though, we could end up being, saying lots of things, and being evasive and not getting our message across. And this could mean that some people think we’re hiding something or that we’re playing politics. And they may feel that they can’t trust us. And they leave.

Diplomatic and Respectful without being Evasive

So, it’s about getting this balance just right. How to be able to be ‘Frank and Direct without being Blunt’. And how to be ‘Diplomatic and Respectful without being Evasive’. And that’s called being fourthrightly diplomatic. Having forthright diplomacy or we could say ‘Respectful Candor’. Because an effective manager needs to get the balance just right in order to communicate with a broad range of people and achieve success in the workplace.

So when it comes to Communication, think about where you stand and above all,

Stay Curious!

With best regards,