Alle informiert. Keiner versteht’s? Kommunikation, die wirkt

00:00:01: Karola Hello, we’re back.

00:00:03: Eva-Maria We wish you all a wonderful day. We hope you’ve had a good start to the day, full of energy and joy. We’ll be sitting down in our café shortly and would like to discuss a very special topic with you today, as we’ve found ourselves talking about transparency and communication time and again recently. We’ve been discussing this in our preliminary talks because we’ve had a few specific cases over the last few weeks where this was precisely the issue that’s been on our minds. And for this reason, we thought it might also be interesting for you to explore what transparency and communication mean within a company; or rather, as we already hinted at last time, authentic leadership – as we defined it last time – naturally leads to this very topic, which centres on communication and transparency.

00:00:59: Karola Yes, I’m just nodding away to myself, and that’s why my grandmother just popped into my mind – what would she actually say about all this talk of transparency and communication and whatnot? Okay, I’m speaking German again; I’m not speaking English, I promise. It keeps happening to me, but transparency has now become the norm. So, in my year 2066, all I can say is that people know what they need to communicate and why they want to say it. They also spell out what’s still up in the air. They explain what’s expected of whom and what information people actually need to be able to act effectively. And they do all this with such warmth – I can’t recommend it highly enough. It works a treat. By the way, it works even with nursery school children. Okay, Grandma, thank you. It’s an honour for me, of course. So, but as for Grandma—well, thank you, thank you, Grandma. As you know, she’s my alter ego; she lives 40 years in the future and is a relatively astute observer, and is being celebrated in her time because she’s just turned 100. She’s being celebrated because, in her universe, she was one of those trailblazers in the 2020s who started to see the world a bit differently and said, ‘Hey, we need to think differently; we’ve got new challenges – so how can we tackle them?’

00:02:35: Karola And back then, as you might know if you’re aware of what’s been happening here recently, the situation there was very similar: there were a great, great, great many autocrats, a sudden resurgence of bellicose language, and a great deal of aggression. And what do people do when they’re accused of, or held up as, being part of a bloc? They fight back. And naturally, this gave rise to a great deal of defensive behaviour. We’ve noticed that this has become very pronounced. And she always said, ‘Treat each other differently and see what comes of it.’ And it worked. And it worked back then in her world because it was put into practice in nursery schools, because it was also put into practice in the early years at crèches, in schools, and even at universities. And they have a really fascinating system, but that’s another topic. Communication and transparency.

00:03:20: Eva-Maria As Grandma announced and introduced earlier, today’s topic is transparency. Quite simply, transparency – because, for us, transparency and communication are among the key building blocks of good self-management and leadership; because there are quite a few things that are as important as transparency and communication. And we’d like to start, once again, with a definition, so to speak, so that you have an idea of what we actually mean by transparency. For us, transparency does not mean saying everything, but rather making the essentials clear to ourselves and to our staff. This means we inform our staff of what has been decided and why we made that decision. We also make it very clear what is still open to discussion, what we expect from whom, who is responsible for what, and what expectations we have of the various roles within our company and of our diverse staff. And, of course, what information do people need in order to be able to act effectively? In other words, what information does employee A or B need so that they can understand exactly what we had in mind for the decision we have made – which has been clearly communicated – so that they can implement it, and so that they have all the resources and opportunities required to carry out their task and fulfil their part in this project?

00:04:46: Karola I’d like to share something with you that happened on Monday at a meeting – we met to discuss TEDx speakers. By the way, TEDx Graz is taking place on 10 March 2027.

00:04:58: Eva-Maria You’re warmly invited. Yes, you’ll probably see both of us there.

00:05:03: Karola I’ll be hosting, I’m organising it, and 98 per cent of all the speakers have now confirmed – if it isn’t already 100 per cent. So I’m still waiting for one confirmation, then we’ll be at 100 per cent. In that sense, the 98 per cent isn’t quite accurate – you’d need a huge number of speakers for that. But it’s actually everyone. They’re all here already. And one of them said – you know – and then I realised he’d taken on a leadership role and built up his company, and then he started thinking more and more about it, because not everything works – I need to talk to people as a technician. And suddenly he said, ‘It dawned on me: I have to talk to everyone differently; I have to talk to each person differently, because everyone is different.’ And we’re giving a TEDx talk about this – how leadership actually works when you haven’t learnt everything. And I think, the way it’s been described, I find it incredibly insightful. So do come along. But this part – how do I talk to someone so that they understand what they need to understand in order to be able to act? I can tell you, the one thing that’s always wrong here is: ‘Treat others as you would like to be treated.’ They’re always different from you.

00:06:17: Karola So that’s the only thing that doesn’t work. On a meta-level, yes, always be respectful. That’s what you want for yourself, and it’s what others want too. Treat people as equals and keep searching until you’ve found the words or phrases that the other person understands.

00:06:37: Eva-Maria It’s always about finding out what makes the other person’s brain smile. Ultimately, it’s nothing other than a service and communication – or when it comes to staff, it’s always about communication; it’s about relationships in the truest sense of the word. And the question is, if these are people you work with a lot, what language do they speak? What words can you use to engage them and win them over, so that they can share the same vision and believe in the same things as you do?

00:07:07: Karola And now I’d like to take you back to your school days. Each of us has – I’m hoping this is the case, but I’m assuming it is – had at least one teacher who was fascinating, whom you remember, who really said one or two sentences that have stayed with you throughout your life. These are the people who managed to trigger exactly that in your mind: that smile Eva-Maria is talking about. And then there are the others – the ones where you say, ‘I never want to be treated like that again’, the ones you still harbour a grudge against. You don’t want to experience that, nor do you want to cause it in others. And it pays to be a bit curious about this and to work on yourself to see how you can achieve it.

00:07:51: Eva-Maria It’s really, really very much about listening with respect. Because when people talk to you – when you sit down with them – if you listen attentively and have a bit of training in this area, you’ll very likely find out within no time at all what their world view is and what big questions they’re asking themselves in their lives. Because, subconsciously, it’s precisely these three – or two or three – big questions that reflect what they convey throughout the whole conversation. Do they speak positively about the world? Do they speak negatively about the world? Do they see the world as challenging? Do they see the world as straightforward? Do they like people? Do they like animals? These are all the sort of things you can pick up on in a few sentences of small talk, and you’ll get an idea of how people think and what questions they ask themselves. And finding out these three questions that every single employee asks themselves is incredibly valuable and incredibly important. And, of course, you also have the opportunity, every time, to find out – with a few simple questions – whether you’re really present in this conversation, in this moment, right now. Because it always comes down to three simple questions.

00:09:03: Eva-Maria That is the question: Where is my focus at the moment, and where am I directing it? Am I focusing on recognising what my male colleague can do, whilst focusing on what my female colleague cannot do? Am I focusing on what might be possible, on recognising the potential? And, of course: as a manager, do I always have the opportunity to work out where I’m placing my emphasis, or what significance I’m attaching to what I’ve just experienced? Am I placing the emphasis in this direction or that one? In what context do I incorporate this into my own world view, into my own perception? And then I have the opportunity to decide: what do I do with this now? What do I do now with what I have just experienced, where I have placed my focus, and the meaning I have attributed to the whole situation? What do I put into practice, and how can I now support my staff in implementing what is important to them at this very moment?

00:09:58: Karola There’s a book called *Unternehmensstärke: 15 Essays for Greater Success*. I’ve written an essay in it on this very topic, and it’s called *The Power of Curiosity*. I always say: harness this strength, this persuasive power of curiosity. I’m talking about curiosity in the sense of a genuine interest in the other person. Don’t ask questions in a way that’s probing or annoying, but ask the questions that genuinely interest you. And see what happens to the other person when they realise, ‘Wow, this person is actually interested in me.’ And if you’re a manager or a member of staff, miracles happen, because people suddenly feel seen.

00:10:41: Eva-Maria It’s about that open curiosity – asking questions that might interest you personally, and occasionally asking about someone’s hobbies or family. It’s not always just about context that comes directly from the company; it goes in many different directions. It’s often the case that you learn a great, great deal about your staff when you talk about their hobbies. And it’s often very, very fascinating to find out what hobbies staff members have. For example, I have an acquaintance in senior management who spends his spare time building professional paper aeroplanes and takes part in championships. He’s simply someone who otherwise comes from a completely different background, but who enjoys building his paper aeroplanes and travelling to tournaments to compete with them. If you approach him on that level, you’ll have a completely different angle to the conversation. The conversation takes a completely different turn. He’ll be open to talking about what’s important to him. Or if you’re talking to a new dad, for example, it makes sense to ask a few questions about the child. If you’re talking to a lady who really, really enjoys travelling the world, it might be a good idea to talk about her travels first.

00:11:51: Eva-Maria It just occurred to me.

00:11:52: Karola There’s a lady sitting next to me, yes.

00:11:57: Eva-Maria It really is simply a matter of creating that space where you engage with people on a human level, where you approach them with curiosity and a sense of positive surprise, and listen to them. That is one of the most important things: really listening to them and not having a ready-made response in your head about what you’re going to say next before they’ve finished speaking.

00:12:23: Karola And that brings us to the topic of transparency, because I think transparency is so often misunderstood as meaning that I have to tell you everything so that you know everything, and that’s then called transparency. It’s just like authenticity: I just spout out whatever’s on my mind, and you take it and everything fits. Well, transparency is… it’s important so that I’m informed, so that I have the information I need. But I’m allowed to filter things, and I have to filter them. It’s not always relevant. So transparency could also mean: I come into the office, and now I have to be transparent. What did I do this morning? I slept with my husband, then I had a coffee, and then I did this and that. That’s not transparency, nor is it authenticity. It’s simply overstepping the mark. Unless it’s a good friend who knows we’ve known each other for ages – God knows what else. So there are contexts where it’s appropriate, and there are contexts where it isn’t.

00:13:18: Eva-Maria And I simply think that when it comes to transparency and open communication within companies, we’re back to that role which we’re allowed to fulfil authentically. It’s simply a question of: does it serve the greater good, or does it not? Are we, so to speak, taking this to a new, positive level, where we engage with one another in a way that makes sense and is appropriate for the entire project and for the whole company? Or perhaps not. And that’s why it’s important to apply this filter to a certain extent, so that I don’t just let everything out unfiltered. There are, of course, people – whom we probably know in our own circles – who tell you absolutely everything. Yes, there are plenty of opinions on that too, but let’s leave that aside for now. I’m more of a fan of asking, ‘OK, what serves the greater good?’ In my role, I’m primarily a manager, and it isn’t necessary for my staff to know everything about me. Nor is it necessary for me to know everything about my staff, because that simply isn’t feasible, especially if you have a larger team.

00:14:20: Eva-Maria But perhaps you have one or two points of contact where you meet them in a different context, such as in a professional one.

00:14:26: Karola Yes, that’s really important when someone is at home – that is, in a private space – or in… yes, I always make a distinction between ‘personal’ and ‘private’; I’m interrupting myself again, I realise. So, the difference between ‘personal’ and ‘private’ is, for a start… yes, I think it’s better to look at it that way. So, first of all, make the distinction between ‘personal’ and ‘private’. There are things that are very personal, which I can absolutely share in a work environment. Private matters don’t always belong there, but they do if the context is right. And then there’s the aspect where it’s sometimes important to know about private matters too. If there’s just been a bereavement and it’s affecting the person, or if there’s a serious illness—and not in the sense of, ‘Ah, I’m allowed to, I have to’—it does happen sometimes that some people are afraid of being made redundant because of a serious illness. Then they won’t talk about it, but it will affect them every day, because, as we now know, worries about survival are really serious concerns – even in a financial crisis. Yes, those are survival worries too. Creating a space that feels so trusting and so safe, where it’s also clear that we wouldn’t do that – and sticking to that – is absolutely, absolutely vital.

00:15:36: Karola Otherwise, you’re taking away a resource from the company that you need – that you really need. And someone who has worries and is allowed to bring them to work – in other words, someone who doesn’t have to hide anything – has the capacity to deal with them and can say, ‘OK, I have to go home after six hours today; I’ll catch up on it later.’ It’s often much easier, and they remain just as productive as before if this option is available, for example. So there are solutions for this. Not having to stick it out for the full 8 hours every day, but saying, ‘I’m not feeling well today, can I go?’ Of course, if it’s possible, a colleague can take over, and it’s relatively easy to sort out. There’s a lot that can be sorted out on a personal level – you can say, ‘OK’, or even just grant half a day’s leave. Yes, no question about it, you can sort this out in all sorts of ways. It has to work for both sides, but in these exceptional situations in life – and if someone’s been working for you for a while, then these exceptional situations come up in everyone’s life – there has to be a solution for them.

00:16:39: Eva-Maria Which brings us back to the ‘Brave Space’ we were talking about earlier – the idea of simply creating this space of trust where people can share such things, where they can talk about them openly without immediately fearing that they’ll be sacked the very next day.

00:16:54: Karola Exactly. And as a manager, you have a duty to look out for others. But that doesn’t mean that, as a manager, you have to solve other people’s problems.

00:17:05: Eva-Maria Above all, not personal problems.

00:17:07: Karola Exactly, and besides, everyone has a right to their own problems.

00:17:12: Eva-Maria Sometimes it’s nice to have a problem and feel important.

00:17:16: Karola So they always take up a lot of space.

00:17:20: Eva-Maria Every problem serves a purpose; otherwise, we wouldn’t have the problem.

00:17:25: Karola But it’s so fascinating how easily transparency can be handled – and how easily it can also be misused, even within the team, because that’s just the way it is. I had a colleague on a project; there was the project manager, who was also the chairman of the association, and he really felt that every single step he took required him to keep the team informed, so he’d ring everyone round in turn to keep them up to date. And somehow you always found yourself wondering, what am I supposed to do with this information now? Until, at some point, I asked him, ‘What are you actually trying to tell me with this? Is it relevant to me? Do I need to know this? And do I need to know it right now, or isn’t it enough that we meet once every two weeks and then I’ll be up to speed on what’s really going on…’ He said, ‘I just want to keep you all in the loop transparently.’ And then I thought to myself, honestly, it’s just a waste of time.

00:18:16: Eva-Maria Yes, the question is whether it wasn’t just confirmation that he’d done something anyway.

00:18:21: Karola I suppose that was the urgent one, but it was simply disguised as ‘the others need this’ and a misguided form of team leadership. We sorted that out, and things have been different ever since – it’s working quite well. But it really did – I’m familiar with these mechanisms – it annoyed me to no end. And it really took me – I think – four weeks before I asked the question: ‘What am I supposed to do with this?’ Because at first it was just a bit, then it kept piling up. And of course, that’s exactly when it clicked: ‘Ah, if I report this, then everyone will think I’m doing a lot.’ Exactly – it did have that effect, but that wasn’t the point.

00:18:56: Eva-Maria But the question is always: who needs how much transparency? And certain people have the impression that they offer more transparency – let’s call it transparency again – but they simply communicate more and have a greater urge to communicate than other people. And for them, it’s perfectly fine to set targets every 14 days, work through them, and nobody needs to talk about it in inverted commas. But you simply need different resources for that, and different staff members. It also has a lot to do with how I’m used to working and how I’m used to carrying out my tasks independently.

00:19:33: Karola And I’ve had some really funny experiences there, because on the one hand I was working for cruise ships, in the office in Hamburg. I was the one who made – or rather, had to make – a great many final decisions, particularly when it came to changes. So, on the one hand, I was allowed to make them, but I also had to make them. And my colleagues were, in a way, 2,000 kilometres away and had to manage day-to-day operations on their own. And within that framework, where it was clear what was going on, that was only logical anyway. But of course they also liked to make decisions from time to time – decisions that affected the budget and, above all, the programme. And I was responsible for that. Clarifying where the boundaries lay was quite a challenge. And at some point we started – on the one hand, Zoom didn’t exist back then, so we couldn’t just make phone calls either, because that was sometimes simply too expensive or only possible whilst in port. So we emailed each other, and at some point we realised there were misunderstandings again. And then I flew over, and we met up again and just talked things through. I flew over, and we’d almost ended up having a row over the emails.

00:20:38: Karola And once we’d sat down there, we had a coffee and said, ‘Hey, what’s actually going on? How are you?’ We didn’t talk about the issue itself, but just asked, ‘How are you? What’s going on in your life right now? What questions are you asking yourself?’ And from that, we realised why the other person had been so sensitive about that email. And that was really, really, really important.

00:20:58: Eva-Maria Absolutely. And that brings us back to the point that, if there really are moments when you realise communication isn’t quite working, perhaps you should take staff out of the office for a change. That might mean organising team-building activities or taking individual staff members out. I have a lovely colleague who always goes up the mountain with her staff; she simply picks out a wide variety of staff members, sets fixed dates with them, and they just spend two or three hours hiking up the mountain together, talking about everything – and, of course, about work as well. But ever since she’s been doing this, communication has improved so enormously, and they’ve reached a completely different level of communication with one another, as well as greater transparency.

00:21:41: Karola Well, I’m actually involved in some of these team-building sessions, and for a while they were asking, ‘Right, what can we do? How can we organise a trip to the spa and so on?’ ‘Right, right, do you need me for the spa? So what shall we do if I come along too as a trainer, as a facilitator?’ And then we realised that the manager had actually asked her team. She said, ‘Right, we’ve got a team-building session; we can choose whatever we want. Would you rather go on a wine tavern tour and go for a hike?’ And the whole team said, ‘You know what, we’re in such a new set-up – because she’d reorganised the department – so please let’s sort out our workflows.’ And so we did that; we were at a wellness resort, worked on these things for six hours – which turned into eight because it was so engaging. And in the evening there was a sauna, there was great food, and we had both. And the feedback we got – we always do a debrief at the end – was: ‘What are you taking away from this? What was different from usual? Was there anything enriching? Was there anything I need to know – anything that didn’t work?’ What fascinated me most was that three people said: ‘I’ve never worked so constructively whilst feeling so relaxed at the same time.’

00:22:52: Karola And that’s worth its weight in gold. That’s when transparency makes sense, and it’s also important to consider what someone needs. I, for one, when I’m further away, like to know what’s actually going on. I’ve also found that people have perceived this as me ‘checking up’ on them, and that’s the furthest thing from my mind – I just like to be involved, I like to be part of the story. And on the ship, we did it so that they’d send me videos every now and then. It wasn’t that easy, but I could just see how things were going. And then, hearing how someone described what had happened, seeing the footage to go with it, and realising, ‘Oops, I would have described that quite differently.’ So, from what I’d read, I’d understood something different to what I actually saw. That was lovely.

00:23:33: Eva-Maria Which brings us back to language: the fact that people simply explain and describe the most diverse things in different ways, and use different language to do so, in order to work, so to speak, on a common ground using terms that everyone understands, where everyone knows what is meant and what is necessary and what is important.

00:23:51: Karola And on that note, we’ll leave you to enjoy a wonderful day today. Perhaps you’ve still got time for a walk or a coffee.

00:23:58: Eva-Maria That’s right, we’re going to treat ourselves to another coffee now.

00:24:00: Karola That’s exactly right.

00:24:01: Eva-Maria And we’ve still got an inspiring evening ahead of us today.

00:24:03: Karola That's right.

00:24:04: Eva-Maria And we’re sure we’ll be telling you a thing or two over the next few days and weeks about what else we’ve got planned for this evening.

00:24:11: Karola Exactly, we’re off to Speakern to have a look at what’s going on there. You know, we’re both on stage ourselves, so today we’re just going to check out what the competition are up to.

00:24:21: Eva-Maria With love, we wish you a wonderful day. Enjoy yourselves, true to the motto: champagne for the soul and clarity for the mind.