Hi everyone. Kumar Dattatreyan here with Agile Meridian and the Meridian Point. Today, I am excited. I'm gonna be joined today by Dr. Michael Gerrharz, a communication expert with a unique background in computer science. Dr. Gerrharz's journey began during the mobile phone revolution when he noticed that brilliant ideas often failed due to poor communication. This observation led him to develop strategies for communicating complex ideas with clarity and impact. Dr. Gerrharz now helps leaders across the globe communicate with what he calls irresistible clarity, ensuring their ideas make the impact they deserve. His upcoming book, The Path to Strategic Impact, addresses the crucial gap between strategy creation and execution.
So, without further ado, I'd love to welcome Dr. Michael Gerrharz to the stage today, and we'll get started on our conversation about this idea of strategic clarity and how he helps people attain that. Hi, Michael. Is it okay if I call you Michael or Mike?
Michael: Michael is fine for me. Hi, Kumar. It's good to be here. I'm very much looking forward to that.
Kumar: Yes, this is really interesting. So my first question, in our prior conversation when we were getting prepared for this interview, you shared a story of how you started in computer science. Can you share that journey? How you went from computer science to becoming a communications expert? It seemed related, but tangential in some way. What was the key moment that inspired this transition?
Michael: Well, I'm not sure that there has been that particular key moment. It's probably much more a kind of series of events or me kind of seeing more clearly what felt off in the field. So first of all, my PhD is in computer science, but more specifically in communication systems. So that's an interesting incident. Actually, I did my research in mobile communications, and well, I've been to so many conferences. We worked with so many industry partners back then, and it was kind of really a revolutionary time and there was a lot of enthusiasm. There were a lot of great ideas, but what always felt frustrating for me was that many of those ideas were quicker forgotten than anyone had even time to think about them. So that there were people who spent so much time researching those ideas and refining those algorithms or coming up with these new business ideas, but then when it came to presenting them, no one really seemed to care for the words that they used. No one really seemed to care for making anyone pay attention to the idea or make it easy for them to get the idea.
So these people often seemed to believe, at least that's how it appeared to me, that great ideas somehow win on their own, that great ideas would somehow speak for themselves. But that wasn't my experience at all. I was much more of the impression that when you want your idea to make an impact, it's absolutely your responsibility to help people see the significance, to make it easy for them to see the brilliance, to see the relevance for their everyday life or business opportunities. So to take care of finding words that make the brilliance of your idea actually visible.
Kumar: Wonderful. Yeah, I see this all the time in my line of work where I coach executives and teams all over the world, really. And I see it all the time where people that are in higher positions, their ideas, people pay attention to them for some reason, more so than people that may have a better idea, but they just don't have the platform to be able to share that or they haven't done enough preparation. I'm wondering if you could comment on that. Is your level, your role in the organization, what impact does that have and how can someone that's more sort of middle management or lower, someone that's an aspiring leader, has a great idea, how much of that preparation can propel that idea forward in a typical organization?
Michael: Yeah. First of all, I think that that's spot on. It's a harsh truth and a bitter pill to swallow for a lot of ambitious and smart people that in the end, very often prominence beats competence. So if you're well known or if you're in a position that people kind of naturally pay attention to you, you're much better positioned to get your ideas heard. But then again, I don't think that there's any use in complaining about that. Well, it's just the rules of the game that we're in. We cannot change the audience. We cannot wish for a better audience or a different team. We have the audience that we have. And but that is something that we can work with. It's an audience, and well, and our goal is to compel them as much as possible for the potential of our idea, to make it easy for them to fall in love with our idea, to not delegate the task of figuring out what's the point here actually. Where's the opportunity here actually? To not delegate that part of the work to our audience and certainly not to those higher up in the hierarchy.
So one of the most impactful questions that you can ask is, in what way would the idea that I'm so proud of and that I would want to push forward, in what way would this idea benefit the audience that I'm talking to? Where's the common ground? Where's our common interest here? So how can we align our interests so that I don't necessarily have to persuade you that you're wrong and I'm right, but that we might find kind of a common path where we both can walk together to join forces and make a big leap forward.
Kumar: Yeah. I love that. It's more about what is common between me and the audience and how can I and my idea help serve them in some way and being able to find the right words. I'm imagining it's about the story you tell and how you tell it more than the idea itself. Would you say that's true?
Michael: Certainly. Yeah. And the big misconception that many engineers and inventors make is that, well, they crave for the applause. I mean, they put blood, sweat, and tears into their ideas. It's been a real struggle to arrive at that solution, and of course, you would like the others to see that. To clap you on the shoulder for the huge effort that you undertook. But that might not be in the best interest of your idea actually. Because the thing is that your audience, especially the higher-ups, they might not be in the game for another hero. They might not need another hero. You to be the hero of their lives. They are already the heroes of their own lives. So, a useful switch in perspective is for the story that you craft around the idea. How can you tell it in a way that your audience, your team, your boss, your partner, your customers even become the hero of the story? So in what way does your story make them a better hero of their lives rather than having them clap for you to be the hero?
Kumar: That's a really interesting perspective, and I can see that in the people I coach that when they're sharing their idea, it's really about them. It's about their idea and how great it is and how wonderful it's gonna be if all of you adopt it. And I do, if I think about it, I do see instances where people talk about ideas more about how it's gonna help the audience in some way. They make them the center of the story. And specific example, but it certainly resonates with me.
When we last talked, I know you're coming out with a new book, The Path to Strategic Impact. Is that right? That's a new book you're gonna be releasing soon or have already released?
Michael: 1st October.
Kumar: 1st October. Okay. So in this book, the book focused on a gap in strategy literature. Can you elaborate on what this gap is and why it's crucial for business leaders to address it?
Michael: Well, yeah. The idea for the book actually originated from my work where I saw a pattern emerge. That somehow it felt like it's always the same problem here. That when strategies fail, it's often not that the strategy was bad, or that the vision wasn't bold enough, but that it wasn't communicated effectively. I mean and that makes sense if you look at the literature and the industry, the consulting industry actually. I mean, libraries have been filled with books about strategy and how to craft a smart strategy, what building blocks you need, and how that needs to look like. And then there's also a lot of books that focus on, like, the execution of a strategy. Like, supposing that everything works as we hope for, like, how to set up the processes in our business, feedback loops, and how to tweak it and things like that. But there's hardly any good book on how to bridge that gap, how to actually inform our teams about the most crucial question here. So to find a plain and simple way of explaining to them. So wait a minute. What actually is our strategy all about? And being able to say that in plain and simple English so that anyone on the team can understand it and translate it to what it means for the everyday actions that they need to take in their jobs.
Kumar: Yeah. I see that so often. So can you elaborate a little bit more? I think this is from the book, the PATH acronym that comes out of it, plain and simple, actionable, transformative, and heartfelt. Can you talk about this framework and give an example of how it works in practice?
Michael: Yeah. Well, actually, I've taken a look at some of the strategically more successful companies, actually, some of the most successful businesses we know, and compare that a little bit with the work that I did with my clients. And I found that there's a simple set of principles that help you get to improve your chances of actually getting your team to act on your strategy. And those four principles form the acronym PATH. So what's the path that we're on with our strategy? And those four principles are, as you already mentioned, plain and simple. So can we describe the strategy in a way that everyone understands what it's actually about? As opposed, for example, to the mission statements that a marketing agency has crafted, but that no one knows what it actually means.
Then A, actionable. Can we translate what the strategy means for the everyday actions that the team actually needs to make, and really make that tangible for them? So when the customer rings, when we set up a new project, what does the strategy tell us about the way that this project needs to be set up?
Then T, transformative. Can we somehow encourage our team to not just play by the rules that we set with the strategy, but to really embrace the bold moves, to encourage them to make the decisive leaps that get us significantly closer to our vision?
And then H, heartfelt, so how do we get them to really embrace that wholeheartedly so that we can get them through the tougher decisions, through the hard times when the industry wind changes and wind keeps blowing in our faces? And we still need to stay course because that's what we need to do in order to get closer to our vision.
So those four principles, plain and simple, actionable, transformative, and heartfelt, are I think when you cross those when you check those four boxes, your strategy will have so much more impact in your team and get them aligned on a common path.
Kumar: Yeah. I really love it. It is, I love the acronym that what it spells out as well. What is a path, right, to making your strategy more actionable? I'm curious. I wrote a blog post not too long ago about this idea of stress testing your assumptions as it concerns a strategy. Like, say, for instance, a company wants to embrace the value of servant leadership just as an example. Alright. Everyone has in my experience anyway, everyone seems to have a different opinion on what that means and how to make that actionable. And I wrote this article and I witnessed this in one of the clients that I serve where people are, you know, talking about servant leadership. We already do that. You know, we're great servant leaders and blah blah blah. And of course the experience in the room was they were actually not doing that even in that meeting. They weren't demonstrating the qualities of a good servant leader. And I started to think about, well, how would this be more... How could we make this more actionable, and heartfelt? Right? You know, picking up on the principles in the PATH framework. And I thought, well, maybe if they actually stress tested this notion of servant leadership and actually gave people, the leaders in the room, some scenarios to work through, you know, with some options. What would you do in scenario A, you know, and of course, we don't tell them what's the servant leader response or what isn't a servant leader response. We just have to let them have a conversation about how they would respond to these things. Yeah. I would love to hear your thoughts about that. I don't know if this is something you've done, but it seems like it would be something that might work to get them to be to be to people to sort of embrace the principle or the mission, the vision, whatever it might be, in a way that's more actionable. What are your thoughts?
Michael: I think that first of all, what you try there by getting them to go through those scenarios, hands-on, is a crucial step because, well, it made them... it made the abstract concrete. And I think that this is a crucial step that needs to happen. That a lot of strategy communication is really kind of caught up in that technical jargon of strategy consultant speak. Where it kind of sounds smart and eloquent, but it somehow doesn't really have a tangible meaning for those tasked with bringing it to life. And I think there are a bunch of great examples in business history that we can tap into. Like for example, if you imagine that you're a logistics company, and your strategy would be to become the front runner in logistics efficiency. That sounds spectacularly ambitious, but it's also totally meaningless for anyone involved in the actual work. So what does that mean? How do I become the front runner of logistics efficiency? And what does it mean for the package that I need to deliver?
So a different way of saying the same thing could be something like, it absolutely positively has to be there overnight, which is the same strategy, but in a way that I can actually see it. It feels like I can touch that. I can almost see the package being delivered, and it informs me directly about the actions that I need to take. So do I double-check any packet that is planned for overnight delivery? Absolutely. It has to be there overnight. If I missed the train, do I charter a bus or a truck to get it to the place? Absolutely. It has to be there overnight. And I think the difference in quality between those two statements, those two versions of the statements, is that the one is very abstract. It's totally from a business' kind of target perspective, while the other is made from the people's perspectives. So to enable them to actually see that, to translate the abstract into the concrete.
Kumar: Yeah. It makes a lot of sense, and it kinda lines up with, with, very well with my experience. I'm sure I can gain a lot of insight from this book. So I'm waiting for it to come out. I could definitely get a copy of it. So in your experience, what would you say are the most common mistakes leaders make when communicating strategy? Is it just that, is keeping it too abstract? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.
Michael: I think there are a bunch. So one is that it's too abstract. The other might be that, something that I like to call kind of the lazy approach to strategy, lazy strategy, which is often much more the formulation of a goal rather than the choices that we need to make in order to achieve that goal. Like, for example, we need to become the leader in our segment in the next 5 years. Or our strategy is to increase the quality of our manufacturing process by 10% in the next 3 years. And what this does is that it basically delegates the hard work of figuring out what are the actual choices that we need to make here. It delegates those choices to the team and it avoids... it kind of pretends that this will be easy and it will be just, well, just increased quality. But that's not the reality. This is the hard work, and we should, as the leaders, as the ones writing those strategies, we should take control of that and take ownership of that and at least stand by our team to figure that out rather than fully delegating it to them.
Kumar: Yeah. I hear you. Although I have to say that, you know, in most successful transformative efforts, it's the people that are closest to the work that have to make... have to take that strategy and make it actionable and actually do the things that help implement that strategy. So I think what I hear you saying is that leaders shouldn't just make these proclamations and say go figure it out, they should be in the trenches with their people, their teams that are doing the work to help them, to help guide them, to help set guardrails, whatever, to support them with more than just a blank check to say, here, go spend the money, make this happen. I think that's what you're saying, but please correct me if I'm wrong.
Michael: Yeah. I think we're fully on the same page here. Well, and I think that that's actually a great measure for good strategy communication. That you manage to bring the decisions and the choices that need to be made as much down as possible so that the people closest to the work can actually make them. But then, of course, we need to inform them and help them figure out, so what are the... what is the path that we're on and what is the journey that we're on that helps you make those choices, that helps you determine whether we're gonna move straight on or take the detour to the right, whether we move uphill or take the turn to avoid the hill. So what are the measuring sticks that help the team make those choices? And then when we set that up, we can... we should trust them with making those choices. So the goal is not to kind of micromanage that and f
Michael: So the goal is not to kind of micromanage that and foresee every single choice that could happen, but to kind of give the, well, as you mentioned, guardrails and set the boundaries of the path that we're on so that they have some measuring stick to evaluate their choices against.
Kumar: Yeah. It makes sense. Yeah. I knew we would be on the same sort of page on this, just based on our prior conversations. How can leaders know if they're on the path? You know, what are some sort of signs that, okay, I've communicated it well, people understand, they, the things that we're doing are actionable. What are some sort of things that I can start to measure, if you will, that tells me we're on the right path? And I'm using path, that word, on purpose.
Michael: Yeah. I think that there's many very different aspects that we could pay attention to. I mean, first of all, you probably sense it in the way that people show up to work. That somehow there's this spirit that has emerged that, well, somehow it feels like we're onto something here. We're in this together. We're working. Our work somehow feels meaningful suddenly. So this is something that's hard to measure, but you're probably gonna see it through the smiles that show up on people's faces, through the jokes that happen in our teams, through the way that criticism is not taken personally anymore. It's not the cause for personal struggles and fights anymore, but it's taken constructively because everyone feels that we're on the same page here.
Then you're certainly gonna be able to measure it in the way that you get less questions from your customers, from the press, from your partners, because they are less confused about so what is it actually that you offer here? What is actually your core promise here? What can we expect when we work together with you?
And then thirdly, I mean, there's a very easy method that's open to any leadership team. You can simply ask your team. So one of the most powerful tools that I've seen in my work with businesses is to actually ask the team. So what would you say is our strategy in your own words? First and second question: So what do you think what does it mean for your everyday actions? And then just shut up and listen.
Kumar: Yeah. That's such a key thing you just said there. You know, that sort of a way to demonstrate servant leadership. Right? Ask questions and ask open-ended questions. And you said that at the end there, the key point is just shut up and listen. Right? Don't interrupt the flow of the conversation. Just shut up, listen to see what people have to say and it's a good sort of gauge of how effective your communication has been as a leader, how well have you communicated the strategy, and how people have interpreted it. And if it's off, it's off. You learn from it and you do a little bit better.
Michael: Absolutely. You engage in more conversations. You, you know, invoke the PATH framework, you know, to ensure that the team is better aligned. That's a crucial point. I mean, if you reread Good to Great from Jim Collins, you see that, well, somewhere he writes that it takes the best companies years to arrive at their strategy. It's not like, well, and that's not my promise here. It's not that there's that magic formula that you, well, read through and then you apply it to your strategy and then everything is somehow super clear overnight. This is a process, and it includes feedback loops. It includes a lot of conversations and honest conversations, and it includes facing the truth. So what are you facing here? And one of the big mistakes that you could do is take that personally or take that on you. That's just part of the process. You have to start somewhere and very likely, just like with the best companies out there, it's not gonna be the perfect solution at the first attempt. You're gonna need to tweak it and go through a couple of loops, sometimes very many loops, until you arrive at something that really makes sense, that really clicks for yourself, for the whole management team, but also for the team that's doing the actual work.
Kumar: Yeah. I love it. There's a method that me and my colleagues have created. We call it the disruptor method, and you can see that here at the logo. And a lot of the things that you're talking about resonates so well with the things that we do working with leadership teams in terms of coming up with a shared understanding of what the mission, the vision, the strategy is. Right? With not just with from the leader that sort of disseminating this information, this vision that he or she wants, but the whole team, what are their roles? How would they make it actionable? And part of that process is something we call emptying the glass. You know, people's glasses are full. I mean, they've got all this work on their mind. They've got all these competing priorities that are on their mind. And the first thing that we have found important is that people allow them to sort of empty their glass, get out the things that are bothering them that are maybe that stand in their way of getting their work done. And but only then can something new come in. They have the space to actually make the strategy more actionable. Right? More transformative, more heartfelt. What are your thoughts there, on a way to make whatever it is, a strategy, resonate more within a leadership team or a team of, you know, that's doing the work.
Michael: Well, I think that you touch here on something that's so near and dear to my heart, which is one of the most fundamental principles in communication, in that you should stop trying to be right with kind of what's inside the glass already and instead focus on getting it right instead. So, really ask the questions that need to be asked. And if it needs to be, involve some outside help there, that help you kind of ask the questions that you stopped asking because we are so deeply involved in your ideas, or that no one on your team dares to ask because you're the boss, or that you stopped asking because you're afraid of seeing the answers. So, but switching that around and adopting a posture of that, this is a game that's not about me figuring out initially, but getting it right eventually. That will change, I think, everything for your business.
Kumar: Yeah. I totally agree with that. What would you say to someone that's, you know, sort of part of a team that's implementing a new strategy. They're not the... they're one of the participants. They're one of the sort of the soldiers, if you will. Right? And that person is having trouble getting their thoughts, their vision communicated to the rest of the group. And actually, let me elaborate. So the whole group has sort of different ideas of on how the strategy should be implemented, and they're all sort of fighting each other for time in front of their leader, who also is having trouble communicating that vision. Because this leader knows that part of being a good leader and a good strategic thinker is allowing this group to sort of form their own way. However, this is sort of taking a long time. I mean, they've been talking about this now for a year. So what does an individual on that team, how can they get there? How can they sort of lower their armor, I guess, in a way and be more open to the ideas of others while still being able to articulate what makes their idea good. It's kind of a roundabout question. I hope that makes sense.
Michael: Totally. I mean, we see that happening a lot, and it's so frustrating when you're that person that has trouble getting their ideas heard. But I think it kind of circles back to what we mentioned earlier about those stories, that the earlier we understand that this is not at all about whose idea it is, but really about what's in the best interest of the team, the business, that changes your perspective. That it's a much more comfortable place for you to be in if you just step off that hero's pedestal where you feel like you need to fight for your idea, but rather understand... try to understand. So how can I help the others become the hero here? And so, actually ask honestly ask that question. So what's going on here? I mean, these are all smart people. Right? So how on earth can they miss that what's so obvious to me? How can they even... how can that thought even cross their mind that they think, like, we should enter this or that market overseas? And then kind of try to find a way to bring it back to kind of a layer down or up, depending on how you look at it. So what are we actually trying to achieve here? And kind of change the discussion away from defending your own ideas so that everyone kind of tries to make their idea the winner, but really translate it to so hold on a minute. What is it that we actually want to achieve here? And try to translate what the ideas that are circulating in the room, how these ideas relate to that more underlying goal.
Kumar: Yeah. I love that. And I know instinctively, I know this is what must happen, for this team to be successful. So, you know, this is not a fictitious situation. I've seen this play out over and over again, and the companies I serve. And I'd say that what where a measure of success in strategy in implementing a strategy could be speed of preparation for it, you know, to really prepare the team for and setting some ground rules of how they communicate and how they share ideas. And, the work that we do with the disruptor method helps set that framework and sets the sort of the expectations, if you will, that, okay. You know, this is not your typical strategy session. We're gonna be doing things a little different, and we expect you to be open and blah blah blah, you know, open to feedback and open to share your ideas and remember why we're doing this. Do you suppose that has an impact? I'm sure. I know what the answer is going to be. I'd love to hear your thought.
Michael: I think that this is probably one of the most important steps early on. The better you kind of establish that atmosphere, that everyone's voice here is valued and has the potential of making a contribution, and that we pay attention and that we make it the norm rather than the exception to allow anyone in the room to raise their hand and ask, so what does it actually mean? How would that translate to my situation? So what... but really plainly, what does that mean? Because I honestly didn't understand it and not kind of make that you feel ashamed because you missed something, but make that the norm and kind of delegate the task of making yourself understood to the communicator rather than the listener. That is really a powerful powerful switch, I think. And I love, love, the way that ISSCOM former ISSCOM under Scott Kelly put that, who once said that the smartest person in the room is the one who knows how to tap into the intelligence of everyone in the room. And so if we can establish a way of communicating amongst each other to make that happen, then basically the sky is the limit. Right?
Kumar: Yeah. Absolutely. Alright. One final question, and then I'm gonna turn it to you to see if there's anything I didn't ask that you'd like to share. We all know that communication, and we all instinctively know that communication is such a powerful tool for any business. Right? How they communicate to their customers, how they communicate internally, the flow of knowledge and information between departments and divisions in a company. How do you see that relationship, and more specifically, how do you see the ability to communicate related to an organization's ability to adapt and disrupt their market?
Michael: Well, you will often hear me say in conversations with my clients that I think that great communication improves actually the work that you do. Because it forces you in a way to commit, to let go of the fuzzy gut feelings and the fuzzy ideas that kind of make sense. But every time we kind of try to frame that we find different words and sometimes it clicks for the other person sitting on the other side of the table. Sometimes it doesn't. But really kind of forcing myself to find words that make the others in the team, in the meeting room, even in the press conference, really get what I mean. Change the whole thinking process. And it gives you early on feedback upon so where are we actually headed and does that make sense and is that actually something that resonates with people, and that we can fully stand behind. So finding trying to find those words, will, in my experience, greatly increase the speed with which you arrive at meaningful conclusions.
Kumar: Yeah. I love that. So do you... Sorry. I said I only had one more question, but actually this prompts another question. So how do you help leaders? Do you help them find the words? What exactly do you do to help organizations implement PATH or just, you know, a way to communicate better?
Michael: Well, actually, I'm just helping you pull those words out. So I'm not the one who finds those words for you. I will help you find those words because I deeply believe in that the best communication is such that you find words that you truly believe in about the things that you deeply care about. And these are not my words. They have to be your words. And so what I will usually do is that I will just well, ask questions, kind of the questions that we mentioned earlier. The obvious ones, the non-obvious ones, the too obvious ones, the ones that you hide away from, and then just listen. Listen for the words that come out of you and then probably help you understand the significance of those words, the impact that those words will have on your audience by helping you switch that perspective around and help you understand. So now imagine that someone hears those words. What impact will they have on them? How do they listen to what you say? What's so clear to you? Can they even see that from their perspective? And this will lead you to gradually arrive at way more meaningful words. Words that make sense not only for you, but that make sense for your audience. So words that you deeply believe in, but that have deeply meaningful impact for your audience.
Kumar: I love that. So it's really to help these people that you work with, become more self-aware of the impact of the words that they use, be able to be more empathetic to the needs of the people that they're serving, you know, as leaders, and use the appropriate language to make an impact. Right? Really make an impact, a resonant impact on the audience in some way that involves them and this collective cause, if you will, that propels the organization forward. I really like that. And, it sounds... it sounds really the thing to do. It's that should be the way leaders operate. So, Michael, what have I not asked you that you'd like to share?
Michael: So one thing that I think is very important to understand here is that as much as you believe in your strategy or in your ideas in general, your product, your business, your values, if you want to make a meaningful impact with those ideas, you're gonna have a hard time doing that if you don't get on the same page. So if you rely on what's so common in the literature on communication and actually, in the communications consulting business, that you obsess about ways to persuade your audience about that you're right and that others need to see it the way that you do. I think that rather than persuade harder, you should consider resonating stronger. That you should really try to become more empathetic, listen better, try to understand what matters for them so that you can find a way to resonate with what matters to your audience rather than having to persuade them. Because as it turns out, if you want others to pay attention to you, it's so valuable if you're the one who has paid attention first. So to get people to listen to you, listen first.
Kumar: Yeah. Absolutely. And that's a really good parting bit of advice for anyone viewing this or listening to the show. Dr. Michael Gerrharz's new book coming out, The Path to Strategic Impact October 1st. Is that right?
Michael: Exactly.
Kumar: Okay. So please look out for that. I will certainly be getting a copy. And, I hope you enjoyed the show, and we'll see you soon for another episode of the Meridian Point. Dr. Michael Gerrharz, thank you so much for being on the show. I hope to have you back on. We can probe... I could talk to you about this pretty much for hours because this is so near and dear to my heart, but I don't think people will stay on for, you know, several hour-long talks. So we'll have you back if you're okay with that.
Michael: It's gonna be a total pleasure. Yeah. Looking forward to that.
Kumar: See you soon.
Michael: Alright.
Kumar: Alright. Thanks, everyone. Bye bye.
Michael: Goodbye.