Reflections on our first workshop – “Digital Leadership and Communication”

On 8.9. 12 handpicked leaders from Danish companies met at IT University of Copenhagen to learn about the chances and challenges of digital communication for leaders.

After an introduction of the I4L project, the team members, as well as the participants, the workshop was kicked off by an inspirational keynote on “Leading Creativity in the Digital Workplace”, by Mette Kim Bohnstedt  as announced in a previous blog post. With many hands-on examples Mette illustrated how are our jobs changing, how we are bombarded with information, and how creativity occupies an important role in the new digital society.

An important aspect of the workshop, that was also pointed out by the participants, was the interactive nature of the sessions, as well as the balance between information and reflection.

In this context, amonst other things, the participants applied a framework that was developed for the workshop that allowed the leaders to critically reflect on how they communicate, adapt, listen, understand, and empathize when their communication is mediated by technology. Some of the action points mentioned, were: “working on my kindness factor when I communicate digitally”, “focus on building an atmosphere for creative thinking”, “be more inclusive towards digital workers and have more frequent communication, despite the time zone difference”.

Some of the things the participants reported to have learned from the workshop, were: “types of motivation – how I can become a better remote leader.”; “a really useful framework for continuing my work within digital transformation”, “a wealth of cases and inspiration from other participants”.

We are looking forward to working further with the participating companies of the workshop.

Are you a leader and do you want to make your business sustainable in the digital age? If yes, you can become part of the Innovation for Leadership (I4L) project at the IT University of Copenhagen (ITU). Participation is free for participants, as it is sponsored by The Danish Industry Foundation.

 As part of the I4L project, we invite Danish leaders to participate in one of the three workshops. In addition to the three workshops, researchers will be in continuous dialogue with workshop participants via an online community. The dialogue and the three workshops will form the basis of a closing conference and a final report.

• Digital Leadership & Communication (8^th of September, 2017)
• Transformative Leadership & Disruptive Innovation (March, 2018)
• Data-Driven Leadership & Analytics (September, 2018)

I4L’s first workshop

The first workshop “Digital Leadership and Communication” will take place at ITU on September 8, 2017.  Participants will be presented with tools and methods to enhance communication and management in a time, where interactions are increasingly shaped by technology.

Through inspirational presentations from experts, idea generation and group work, the first workshop will touch upon a variety of topics:

• How to write as a digital leader?
• How to stay in the know as a digital leader?
• How to evaluate your personal knowledge infrastructure?
• How to foster digital trust?
• How to build a virtual team?
• How to cope with technostress?
• How to adapt to new power structures and hierarchies?

I4L participants are leaders who want to learn and implement new digital methods in their businesses. Applicants will be selected based on their motivation and the possibilities for carrying out their ideas subsequently. You can apply online here.

Literary technologies for Leadership

This article explains how leaders can use literary technologies, such as summarizing, persuading and storytelling, to lead through writing.

A quick google search on leadership behaviour reveals many products, services and advice tailored to leaders, on how to act and talk in order to inspire and influence. But what can leaders do when their communication is mediated by technology such as Skype, emails or Enterprise Social Networks?

New media technologies allow for modelling, in other words, we can use technology to emulate behaviours we would have in real life. One of them is authoring, described as “the act of generating content and putting it online for a broad audience”. (Richter and Wagner, 2014).  Computer-mediated communication allows leaders to reach more people, thus broadening their influence and turn the traditional one-way communication, in engaging and online conversations. It is also important to note that employees prefer authentic texts authored by their leaders, as opposed to texts that were edited or written by someone else in the name of the leader (Richter and Wagner, 2014).

There are multiple literary techniques that leaders can use to assemble a text. As Jack Hart, former writing coach at the Oregonian says, a fundamental question to ask in the process of writing, is: “Just what sort of narrative are we talking about here, and what tools will I need to build it?” (Hart, 2012). Depending on the purpose of the communication/text, leaders can use different types of literary techniques to ensemble unique and authentic texts, to inform, motivate or engage:

Persuading techniques – can be used for motivating, persuading and motivating people, for example when assembling a text about disclosing a new direction for the company, a major change – when it is important to bring the employees on board with the message:

• Consultancy discourse – employing a future state (desired or feared) to gain/justify/convince that what we do in the present is exactly what we should be doing. Example: “Because of the new economy, every organization risks irrelevance unless it can keep its technology, people and business processes synchronized with a moving target strategy” (Bloomfield & Vurdubakis, 1994).
• Dynamic words will create a sense of urgency, such as rapidly, dynamic, accelerating, explosive, boom, movement, action, progress. 
• Glossy expressions and clichés can be used to put some aspects in the light and other concepts (for which no glossiness will be used) in the shadow. Example: “first-of-its-kind”, “state-of-the-art”, “breakthrough”, “one-of-a-kind”.
• Multiplicity – bringing in multiple views (research, influencers, journals) can convince your reader of the validity of your sayings. “Research shows that a success factor for digital leadership is transparency. We must therefor be transparent in our work”
• Including the reader: “as our level of acquaintance with the reader rises, so our ability to write something highly personalized – and persuasive – increases” (Camp, 2007).
• Being personal – Camp (2007) thinks it is more persuasive to be personal: this can be achieved by using pronouns in the 1^st person (I, my, mine), sharing your emotions, feelings, views, or opinions.

Summarizing techniques – these techniques can be used when assembling short updates about the company, projects, and/or changes within the organization, meeting minutes and other texts where brevity is important.

• Titled paragraphs: giving titles to paragraphs signals the importance of its contents (Bloomfield & Vurdubakis, 1994).
• Bullet points – “important points are often described as bullet points – presumably emphasising the notion of going straight to the heart of the matter” (Bloomfield & Vurdubakis, 1994).
• Re-read and remove words: A sentence should not contain unnecessary words and a paragraph should not contain unnecessary sentences. Interrogate every word in a sentence for its meaning and utility to your reader.
• Replace vague words with powerful, specific words. For example, replace adjectives with numbers: “Our company has a lot of experience in….” with “Our company has 50 years’ experience in…”.
• Combine sentences: Re-read and pay attention to whether some sentences are unnecessary and the information they convey can be incorporated in another sentence.

Storytelling techniques – can be used for engaging, amusing, and/or conveying difficult concepts and ideas – when it is important that employees remember. “Storytelling has such wide application because, at its root, it serves universal human needs. Story makes sense out of a confusing universe by showing us how one action leads to another” (Hart, 2011).

• Storyline: Explosion, Rising Action, Crisis, Resolution, Denouncement (also known as storyline) are the building blocks of any story.
• Metaphors and figures of speech appeal to the reader’s imagination and are an essential part of Storytelling. Examples: “Our company is like an oak tree – No matter the storm, it will keep standing “.
• Anecdotes are short stories that can be used to capture your audience, or to draw a parallel to a more difficult concept.
• Hyperboles are exaggerated claims that can be used to emphasise arguments. Example: “Our CEO read a million papers about innovation and concluded that…”.
• Juxta positioning of time: using past, present and future alternatively – Example: “Our journey started in 2010, today we are challenged by many technologies, and by 2020 we want to be the best in our industry.”

The realm of literary techniques that can be used for leadership communication is vast. They are even more important when it comes to digital communication for leadership. In I4L we are working on methods and tools to apply them in practice.

Bibliography

1. Bloomfield, B., & Vurdubakis, T., (1994). Re-presenting Technology: IT Consultancy Reports as Textual Reality Constructions. Sociology 28(2): 455-477.
2. Camp, Lindsay (2007). Can I Change Your Mind? The Craft and Art of Persuasive Writing. AC Black, London.
3. Hart, Jack. (2012). Storycraft: The Complete Guide to Writing Narrative Nonfiction. University of Chicago Press, Chicago; London.
4. Richter, A., & Wagner, D. (2014). Leadership 2.0: Engaging and Supporting Leaders in the Transition Towards a Networked Organisation. Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences,7.