The Three Cs: Communicate Communicate Communicate

The Three Cs: Communicate Communicate Communicate

management by Dave Szymanksi | Tampa Bay Editor

One way to boost profit is to communicate more effectively with your employees, says Mark Wiskup, a Tampa-based entrepreneur, consultant and former broadcaster.

You're a busy CEO and you don't want to hear one more word about communication theory or how talking to your employees in the hallways will make them feel good.

Tampa-based entrepreneur and communication consultant Mark Wiskup has a message for you: It's not a feel-good thing. It's a P&L thing.

Good communications means more profits and saving money. The bottom line: It's not threats. It's not directions. It's painting a specific word picture on how everyone's individual role helps the company succeed.

It's about specifically showing each employee what impact they have. Then repeating it. Then seeing results. It's about fine-tuning the message and working on it every day.

"It's not a good-karma issue," Wiskup says. "It's all about equity, helping your bottom line every step of the way."

Wiskup, a tall California native, is former CEO and founder of Business Video Productions, a live event and video production company in Tampa. He is also a former television journalist in Florida, Minnesota, Colorado and Arkansas.

He began doing communications consulting and eventually sold the video company to a competitor and started Mark Wiskup Communications Inc. in 2002 in Tampa with his wife, Renee.

Now he flies across North America as a communications coach and CEO of Wiskup Communications. His clients include Bank of America, Citigroup, Ernst & Young, St. Joseph's Hospital and Tribridge.

He's also a successful business author, who's recent book, "The It Factor," came out in June and just won publication rights in Korea. His previous book, "Presentation SOS," debuted in 2005 and described how to plan, create and practice great presentations.

Making the time

The main thing Wiskup hears from CEOs is that they don't have time to devote to better and more communication.

"That's the biggest battle," he says. "They don't have time. They are already losing when they say that. There is no way to build a successful organization without describing what it looks like.

"They may not like it," he adds. "We're not swooning them. We're helping employees understand their role in the organization. Instead of telling them what to do, show them and lead by example."

Most CEOs try to get agreement with employees too quickly, Wiskup says. They can't agree with a message if they don't hear and understand you. You also have to deliver the message in four to five sentences.

"Great CEOs make sure they have a connection," he says. "Employees need to hear you and understand what you're saying. If you can't describe what success looks like, you can't win.

"You have to show that you know what the future looks like and that you've thought about it."

Some of his clients say one of his key suggestions is eliminating jargon in their workplaces and helping employees use layman's terms and simple examples.

"He really helped us cut through the techno-babble in our industry," says Steve Terp, director of business development for Tribridge Inc. in Tampa, who met Wiskup when Wiskup was still running Business Video Productions in Tampa and doing consulting on the side.

"We have such a tendency to speak in acronyms," he adds. "Mark cares about what employees can specifically do to help the business. He knows our business well and can be specific in the training."

Wiskup met with Tribridge's eight-person leadership team for a full day on presentations and communicating. He has met with groups and some employees one-on-one.

"He works hard and doesn't sound like a consultant," Terp says. "He continues to refine his message across the board."

Wiskup has been doing Tribridge classes twice a year for at least the past four years. The company has brought employees from its offices in Texas, Atlanta, North Carolina and Florida to its headquarters office in Tampa for the classes. His two books are mandatory reading for customer-facing employees at Tribridge.

At The Beck Group in Tampa, Wiskup helped numbers-oriented engineers and architects hone communication skills.

"He had a tremendous impact," recalls Mark House, managing director in Florida for The Beck Group. "He helped us communicate with the outside world. Engineers aren't always very good at communication skills. He stepped our level of communication up a significant amount."

Wiskup has worked with Beck for at least five years and his classes are now part of the formal training process at the company, called Beck University.

"It increased our ability for sales revenue," he adds. "Our people can develop new business."

Rock n' roll lessons

One of Wiskup's more interesting management and communication lessons came from a seemingly unlikely place: As a driver for flutist Ian Anderson and his legendary rock band, Jethro Tull.

"Ian Anderson is a tremendous CEO," Wiskup recalls. "Everything goes on on time. He pays close attention to finance. He's very concerned and the band is very successful at every step. He's a heck of a businessman."

Wiskup said Anderson is concerned about customers.

"The sound check goes on on time," he says. "He took it very seriously. There were no excesses. None. No things left to chance."

Among the things Wiskup picked up from Anderson:

• Attention to detail. Sound checks lasted a while at each venue. The band made sure the music was going to be heard clearly.

• Constant communication was important to reinforce plans, such as the playlist for the concerts.

• Discipline reinforced a commitment to excellence.

Matter of degree

Wiskup earned degrees in political science at the University of California at Los Angeles and in broadcast journalism at Northwestern University. While an MBA from Harvard or MIT is impressive, it isn't essential to be a good corporate communicator, Wiskup says.

"I've seen CEOs with degrees from USF and UF and they're some of the most powerful communicators I've seen," Wiskup says. "To be a good communicator you need to understand the needs of people and have the desire to work on it."

A husband and father of two, Wiskup and his wife Renee live in Tampa. He keeps his company small. Renee, a speech pathologist by training, learned Quickbooks to help launch the new business.

The trauma of selling his old video production company and seeing his 20 former employees go, some to a competitor, has made Wiskup sensitive about adding more people.

He does 12 to 20 workshops a month in cities such as Vancouver, San Diego, Toronto, New York, San Francisco, Colorado Springs, Chicago, Montreal and Miami.

His marketing is mainly word of mouth. He has a Web site and an email newsletter.

"There is a huge desire for powerful communication skills," Wiskup says. "There's a tremendous hunger for stronger, better communication to get their work done."

Incentive pay

Like other CEOs, part of Wiskup's pay sometimes is incentive-based. If sales increase at a customer, he gets a percentage of that increase. If a client wins a contract, Wiskup may get a bonus. That happened with The Beck Group in Tampa when he coached them on presentations and the company won the contracts.

His communications coaching is based on what he's seen working successfully when he was a TV journalist.

For example, during an "elevator speech," when a CEO has only a few seconds with a potential client, titles aren't important. Talk about how you help clients.

Sometimes Wiskup can't help some companies because they want a quick communications fix. "It's about learning the tools and it's a never-ending journey," he says. "I also change the tools all the time. I want to get better and better."

Charles Fleeman takes

Web-based approach

Among the motivational speakers and consultants tackling corporate communications issues, Tallahassee-based business coach Charles Fleeman is taking a Web-based approach to helping CEOs.

After leaving the corporate world after working 20 years, Fleeman created a Web site for communication training called Cooper Arena, shorthand for cooperation arena. You can find it at http://www.cooperarena.com/index.htm.

Here are some of Fleeman's (also called Coach Cooper) communication insights:

• Most of us don't realize our communication shortcomings because other people don't tell us about them. A lot of us think we're good communicators because we're successful by the metrics we set for ourselves, such as money and status. Good communication skills help in any conversation, whether a team meeting, presentation, interview, email, phone call, or Q&A.

• No one is a perfect communicator, and the cost of bad communication is billions of dollars every year. The biggest disasters always began with the smallest of infractions.

• Contemporary phenomena, such as the always-on media and marketing culture, affect on our interpersonal communication.

• We use hard skills when we put a battery into a cell phone, we use soft skills, like communication, when we answer the cell phone and begin to talk to a client. There's one way to install a battery, there's many ways to get through a conversation. It's been said that people cannot not communicate, which means we communicate all the time. Communication is the most widely used soft skill, and that's why communication skills are strategic.

• Workforce practitioners and policymakers agree that developing soft skills is key to a workplace based more and more on knowledge and group-oriented work.

CEO TIPS

Among the motivational speakers and consultants tackling corporate communications issues, Tallahassee-based business coach Charles Fleeman is taking a Web-based approach to helping CEOs.

After leaving the corporate world after working 20 years, Fleeman created a Web site for communication training called Cooper Arena, shorthand for cooperation arena. You can find it at http://www.cooperarena.com/index.htm.

Here are some of Fleeman's (also called Coach Cooper) communication insights:

• Most of us don't realize our communication shortcomings because other people don't tell us about them. A lot of us think we're good communicators because we're successful by the metrics we set for ourselves, such as money and status. Good communication skills help in any conversation, whether a team meeting, presentation, interview, email, phone call, or Q&A.

• No one is a perfect communicator, and the cost of bad communication is billions of dollars every year. The biggest disasters always began with the smallest of infractions.

• Contemporary phenomena, such as the always-on media and marketing culture, affect on our interpersonal communication.

• We use hard skills when we put a battery into a cell phone, we use soft skills, like communication, when we answer the cell phone and begin to talk to a client. There's one way to install a battery, there's many ways to get through a conversation. It's been said that people cannot not communicate, which means we communicate all the time. Communication is the most widely used soft skill, and that's why communication skills are strategic.

• Workforce practitioners and policymakers agree that developing soft skills is key to a workplace based more and more on knowledge and group-oriented work.

REVIEW SUMMARY

Company: Mark Wiskup Communications Inc. in Tampa

Industry: Communications and management consulting

Key: Tell employees about the positive impact they can have by painting vivid word pictures, not just giving directions or quoting statistics.