322. Communication as a Verb: Building Trust and Culture with Alejandra Ramirez

If you have ever walked out of a town hall thinking “we were crystal clear” only to hear your team say “we still don’t get it,” you’re not dealing with a motivation problem. You’re dealing with a communication and trust problem. Mick Spiers sits down with Alejandra Ramirez, internal communication strategist and founder of Ready Cultures, to show why leadership communication shapes organizational culture, and why culture is not a noun you describe but a verb you practice.

We dig into what makes internal communication actually work inside modern, multicultural workplaces: listening as a leadership responsibility, closing the feedback loop, and responding to dissent in a way that builds trust even when people disagree with the decision. Alejandra explains how employees become your brand ambassadors, why ignoring feedback makes it fester, and how leaders can create clarity without pretending change is easy. We also talk about the messy middle of change management, where fear of loss, fear of the unknown, and even identity threats show up when new tools, AI, or new systems roll out.

You’ll get a practical framework you can use immediately: Head, Heart, and Hands. What do people need to know, why should they care, and what do they need to do next? We also unpack the illusion of transparency, the need for repetition across multiple touchpoints, and how manager toolkits, FAQs, and smart check-ins help strategy messages finally land.

Subscribe for more conversations on leadership, internal communications, employee engagement, and building high-trust cultures, then share this with one person who needs clearer communication at work and leave a review so more leaders can find the show.

🌐 Connect with Alejanda:
• Website: https://www.readycultures.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/malejandraramirez/

Transcript

Mick Spiers: 0:01

Have you ever wondered why people are not aligned, only to realize they never really heard the message in the first place? And have you ever stopped to ask yourself,"Is your communication creating clarity or confusion?" Because here's the truth, communication is not just something leaders do, communication creates culture. In today's episode of The Leadership Project, I sit down with Alejandra Ramirez, an Internal Communication Strategist and founder of Ready Cultures. Alejandra spent more than two decades helping organizations transform from the inside out, and in this conversation, we explore one of the most overlooked responsibilities of leadership, how we communicate. Because Internal Communication is not just about newsletters, emails, town halls or announcements. It's about trust. It's about alignment. It's about whether people feel seen, heard, valued and included. This is a conversation about listening, clarity, trust and the invisible link between communication and culture. Hey everyone, and welcome back to The Leadership Project. I'm greatly honored today to be joined by Alejandra Ramirez. Alejandra is an Internal Communication Srategist, but she's had two decades experience helping organizations transform from the inside out, and that link between communication and culture, and that's where we're going to unpack today. What is this link between communication as leaders, as a leadership group, and how it impacts the culture around us. She's the founder of Ready Cultures, an organization that helps organizations through these transformations. She's an expert in crisis communication, and I'm really looking forward to unpacking this connection between how we communicate and how it sets our culture in an organization. So without any further ado. Alejandra, I'd love it if you'd say hello to the audience. Give a little flavor of your background, but mostly what inspires you to do this work that you do?

Alejandra Ramirez: 2:15

Well, first of all, thank you for having me. It's great to be here. My background, as you said, is in communication. I worked for about 15 years in house in what's talked about as big law so the very large law firms, and I led Corporate Communications at these firms where I oversaw, you know, The Umbrella of Communication. And through my work, I very quickly found that if the internal piece wasn't done right, none of it was done right. And so that was a big"aha moment" for me when I was working in house. But also I've always just been a very curious person. I love words, I love writing, I love reading, and I I enjoy knowing and understanding why are the way they are. And I think my upbringing, also, I was what, what's called a third culture kid, which is essentially someone who was raised outside of their sort of motherland culture, but so kind of straddles two different cultures. I was born in Colombia, raised in the US. My mother is Colombian as well. My stepfather is Texan, you know, white American from Texas. And so I was raised in very different cultures, and I think that taught me the importance of understanding different perspectives. And so that confluence of just my upbringing, my curiosity and my experience in having worked in house and corporate communications really led me to this realization that for companies to get it right, they need to really communicate effectively with their employees, because they're

Mick Spiers: 3:56

Yeah, really good. So the importance of people too. communication is coming through the some of the things there, the curiosity. Definitely want to unpack that a little bit later, the power of words, and your, your interest in words. And then the two things I want to start with is this, this thing where you say, we often get it wrong internally, and then if we get it wrong internally, it messes up elsewhere as well. But this class of clash of cultures, this one's interesting for me, because certainly, I think every company I've worked with, has been increasingly multicultural. Like, I would say, almost to the point of United Nations. You look around the shop floor and you go, "Wow, 61 different nationalities just in our group here." Where does that come in? So is this part of the challenge that we have for internal communication?

Alejandra Ramirez: 4:49

So, you know, I'd love to take a step back for a minute and talk about what culture means in an organization, because I, I find that too often it's described as more of an noun instead of a verb. And so what I mean by that is, usually when you talk about culture at a company, it's this idea of a shared way of doing things, that shared set of values and set of ways of doing things. And so that's great, but that's not very actionable. And I like to think of culture as a verb the way you do in science, which is, when you culture something, you're trying to create conditions under which you want things to grow or not grow. And to me, that's a really important distinction, because as leaders, it really kind of sets the stage for understanding that it is your responsibility to culture the environment that you want people to work in, and people to thrive or not thrive. And so that's, that's just one piece. I want to kind of clarify so far as how I look at culture at a company. And then to your question about culture generally, right? We're talking multicultural. You've got, you know, I've worked with companies who have offices around the world, and you know, you're, you're talking thousands of employees from different countries who have different ways of working and understanding just from their cultural upbringing outside of work, but at the end of the day, it's important to understand that people just want to do a good job. They're, there to get their job done, and understand how they play a role in it. And so as leaders, it's really your responsibility to be able to clarify the direction that you're headed in and why it's important to those people. And so a big part of that comes with listening, and listening is a big piece that people forget comes with the role of leadership, and when it comes to internal communication, which is, this is a conversation. This isn't just this, you know, one sided. Let me just blast an email out and expect people to just do what I'm telling them, you're flying blind if you do that, and the more you listen and take in feedback, the more you're able to adjust and accommodate your messaging so that it lands correctly with the people that you need it to land with. So I just I think that's a really important piece that, that people often forget, and if they don't get that right, you're going to get people who are essentially your brand ambassadors not being very happy, and that seeping out to the external arenas as well.

Mick Spiers: 7:11

Yeah, really good. So big takeaway for me, already, culture is a verb, not a noun, and we need to think about that, that means that it's an intentional action. We are culturing the environment. So maybe that's what we should add. Is the "ing" on the end, we're culturing the environment. That's really interesting. The second part then, is the listening. So if you're struggling with the things that I was talking about, 61, 61 nations sitting in front of you, how do I communicate with them? We'll give them a good damn listening to first ask them what they, how they want to be communicated to, and what lands for them, what's working for you today, what's not working for you today, and then we can get somewhere. And I don't want to miss the bit that you said there, that these are your brand ambassadors. So if they're not happy on the inside, they're going to reflect that on on the outside. Let's talk about the listening. So if someone's listening to that, this message right now, and they go, "Yeah, we should give our team a good damn listening to and and understand their preferences." How do they start, Alejandra?

Alejandra Ramirez: 8:14

So there's different ways they can start. And I want to tie listening to this idea of in marketing, you know, when you're talking about your customers, you tend to do feedback surveys. It's that same concept, right? And so employees are sometimes also your customers, if you you know, if you have a product that you're selling, you know, versus, say, a service. And it's a missed opportunity to learn about ways to improve the way you do business and ways to connect with your external audiences as well, how to start with listening. There's different ways, I would say, as a leader, you know, it's nice to have some one on ones, even if it's just, you know, if you're walking down the hall and you run into someone and say, "How have you been?" "What's working for you?""What's not working?" Make it personal. Make people feel like they're not just kind of in here for an interview and an interrogation. You know, I think just general connection with people is a great way to start and just having a coffee with someone, connecting with them over you know, if you're meeting with them about a project, taking a few minutes to say,"Hey, I'd love to just generally hear about how things are going. What are you hearing from your team? What's happening?" That general, first step, I think, is a really good way to engender trust and goodwill from people, because they see that you care and you're not just robotically sending a survey. That's one then obviously there is more of the formal pulse survey questions you can start, including, say, if you have a newsletter that goes out, start including a one question survey every so often that asks a question for people to weigh in, and then also ask your teams, right? So if you're a leader overseeing say, HR, or you're the CEO. CEO of a company, and you meet regularly with your Senior Executive Team, ask them for pulse checks and say "What you know?" "How are your teams doing?" "What's not working?""What's working?" and you know, take all of that into consideration for determining how best to adjust what you're saying and whether or not it's landing.

Mick Spiers: 10:22

Yeah. Really good. Alejandra, so more of a personal touch here the one on ones you know how, and it shows the person that you do care. Shows them that they are seen, they're heard, they've you value their opinion. You want to know how, how is it going? How's it, how's all this landing for you? Let me share an experience on the team front recent. This is very recent in our organization. We ran some focus groups around employee value proposition, and the reason why we ran those focus groups had nothing to do with what you and I are talking about today. We were trying to work on how we can attract better talent into the organization. How can we get the brightest university students to want to join us instead of our competitor just being very blunt here, and then in that focus group, once we got them talking, we learned so much more in that intimate environment than that we were not getting from we do it. We do a six monthly employee satisfaction survey that's got, I think, too many questions, by the way. It's got, like, 60, 60 questions or something. And we learned so much in this intimate environment for two reasons, I think. One, it was very intimate. Second, it was synchronous communication, instead of cold reading what someone has read on the on the survey form. And there was the ability to have a bit of interchange. God, interesting, just like I do with you. Tell me more about that. That's interesting. Alejandra, you can't do that with a survey. You're live there with a human being.

Alejandra Ramirez: 12:01

Absolutely, and I'm a big fan of data. I'm also a big fan of human connection, and I think both work well, and both are important, and they serve different purposes. And listen, I have a survey that I use for when I work with clients, and it's called The Ready Index, and it basically asks a series of questions to measure understanding and alignment of messaging around trust and leadership and clarity of message that gives us really great insights. It's not enough, and it's why, to your point, I also do focus groups. I do one on ones, and I work with leaders to build that into their day to day and their, you know, their schedules. Because people thrive on human connection. It's sort of the human condition, right? That we're a very social, social being, and they want to feel heard, and the more you make them feel heard, the better you're going to engender that goodwill.

Mick Spiers: 12:55

Yeah, really good. I tell you, what's bouncing in my head now, because I've got this word culturing the environment stuck in my head. So good job. I really like it. And I had this image of gardening, and I don't want to treat people like we think that they're plants and trees, but it's a, it's just a metaphor. Okay, so I've got this picture of a garden, and we're nurturing the soil to create something that's going to grow. But now what we're doing with this focus group, imagine that you try to nurture your plants, but you've got the ability to ask them,"Hey, do you have enough water? Would you like some more water? Have you got enough?" And I'm not a, I'm not good at gardening potassium. Does that make sense? I think so. Do you have enough potassium? Like now you're having a dialog, and you can actually ask them in in real time, how is this culturing working for you? How does that sit with you?

Alejandra Ramirez: 13:48

Yeah, it's exactly it. And I think that in some industries, it's especially important to bring people together where, say, you have a company that has a manufacturing plant, for example, I find that sometimes organizations in that space will say, "Oh, well, it's manufacturing. Let's just focus on the office people." And it's like, well, these are people creating products for you. Let's go look at what they're saying and doing. And by the way, they may solve a lot of issues for you around safety, because they may say, "Hey, that new policy you rolled out about. I don't know how to drive the truck around the warehouse is actually not conducive to safety, because it creates issues when you're turning corners." I'm making this up, but it benefits you to also hear directly from people who are on the ground, and I use manufacturing as an example, just because it's a, it's something that's come up a few times recently for me. I also work primarily with Professional Services. And when you work in Professional Services, it's easy to, think that you just have to care about the partnership, or, you know, the senior most people who are kind of the the ones that bill, "The Billable Hours" folks. When, in fact, you've got an entire workforce that is operationally supporting this company that may have ideas for how to work and improve things and how to do things better. And so from a purely just operational perspective, it's beneficial. You're not only are you engendering goodwill and building trust, but you're also gaining insight that could improve so much about how you do business. And so to me, I think that's why it's so important to lead with curiosity and be willing to ask those questions and not just take it as "Oh well, this is a critique on how we do things, so we're shutting it down.

Mick Spiers: 15:42

Yeah, so that's really cool. The curiosity, the listening, but also listening without judgment, and being prepared to listen to what's really being said, not just listening to what you want to hear is what, is what I'm worried about here, Alejandra, that you might go into that and go, "Oh, I don't want to hear this. We got dissenting voices here and shutting it down. And what? No, no, this is gold. You need to know this. Pay attention."

Alejandra Ramirez: 16:08

And it's a good point you bring up about, you know, being open to that feedback too. Because not only is it important to hear that and listen to it, you also need to do something with it. And I don't mean someone says, "Hey, you need to change the way we do this thing, because it's better." It may not be, but then at least you need to be able to say, "Okay, we heard you. Thank you for your feedback, and this is where we came." you know. Conclusion, here's why. It brings me to another point, which is this idea that, as a leader, it's easy to think that everyone has to agree with you. They don't have to agree with you, but they have to trust you. And I heard that. I can't take credit for that insight. That was a podcast I listened to, hosted by Adam Grant, and he was interviewing the CEO of Airbnb, Brian Chesky, and he made that point, and it's always really resonated with me. Because I feel like it's so true, and I've lived that firsthand, where I worked with a with a leader once who was making a really big decision. He was a very senior leader, and sent out an announcement about this decision. Someone wrote back and didn't agree with it, and said, said as much, and his initial reaction was. "Well, I'm not, I'm just not going to respond. What should I do?" And I said to him, "This is a really great opportunity to build trust and show that you care about what they have to say and that you're listening even if they don't agree with you." And so we worked on a response that I don't remember the exact wording, but more or less said,"Hey, listen, I appreciate you weighing in. This is really helpful to hear in this scenario, I'm standing my by my decision, but please always feel free to come back with other thoughts and questions and feedback." And that person wrote back and said, "Wow, I didn't think you'd reply, but thank you so much for hearing." And so that person still didn't agree with this, with this individual, but that person felt heard and it built trust, and that trust is paramount when it comes to leadership.

Mick Spiers: 18:07

Yeah, really, really powerful. Alejandra. There's two things here. One is the Closed Loop. So when people are giving feedback, whether it's in a survey form, in a meeting, in an email, giving them that closed loop. If you don't give them that closed loop, they eventually give up. They go, what's the like if we do a six monthly survey like my company does, they eventually go, what's the point? No one, no one actually responded to the comments I put the last three surveys. Why is it going to change in the fourth survey? So the closed loop keeps the dialog going is the first thing. The second one is, it shows them that they, that their opinion is valued, that they're seen, heard and valued. The third, and this one's really powerful. I strongly believe this Alejandra, is people can typically accept a decision that's contrary to the one that they wanted, as long as they understand the rationale behind the decision. And a rationale is not, "I'm the boss I just told you, so it's my call. Bugger off." It's "Okay. Thank you so much for your idea. We're not going to do that one. We're going to go in this way. And here's why, and that here's why." It's got to be something that resonates with them. And go, "Oh, okay, yeah, this makes sense now." I'm on board now they that's where trust is, is built through that transparency. How does that sit with you?

Alejandra Ramirez: 19:29

Absolutely, and it actually, you know, it's funny when I think about, the times I've been brought in to work with clients. Sometimes it's more often than not, as a result of a change, whether it's an acquisition, a merger, new leadership transition, new tech rollout, like an AI tool or some new ERP system. And inevitably, that's when leadership realizes,"Oh, wait a minute, like people aren't doing what we need them to do, or they're scared to make these changes." I help. With that, because I help them communicate and explain the why, to your point. And I have a framework I use that is called The 3H Framework, which stands for Head, Heart and Hands. And when I work with organizations on communicating, yes, there's the sort of bigger picture. How you know, what's the communications infrastructure? What is the message you're trying to deliver? And is leadership aligned? But once it's time to actually deliver that message, you need to address the three H's, which are Head, what is, what is the information they need to know? Like, logically, what are the facts the Heart, and this is the one people get struggle with the most is the why? Why should they care what's in it for them? And I'll give an example in a minute. And then the Hands is, what do they need to do with this information? What happens next? And so, for example, if, say, "There's a new tool that's getting rolled out, like an ERP or a new HR Onboarding Tool, obviously one email is not going to cut it. Let's start with that." You want to, you know, have multiple touch points. And I could go on a tangent about that, but I won't. And when you send this information, you could just say, "Hey, we have a new tool, start using it." That's not really going to land. What you should ideally say is, "Hey, obviously, assuming it's true, you need and this goes back to this idea of feedback and listening." And you can say, you know this, "Hey, we have this new tool. It's launching on May 1, and we are launching it because we heard from many of you that the existing tool we have is causing a lot of glitches and wasting a lot of your time, and we did the math, and this new tool is going to save you 10 hours a week on this, and therefore we feel it's a better tool that's already going to be like, "Oh, wow, you heard what I was saying." "Oh, wow, you're going to save me time." That's going to connect. That's that Heart. It's not meant to be this mushy. I mean, yes, like you want to be empathetic, but when I say heart, people sometimes think like they have to be like, mushy, and like, "We support you" and yes, that's important, but it's really just what's in it for them? And then the Hands says "Before May 1, we need you to do a few demos. Here's a link to sign up." More to come, right? It's that simple, but I think people forget that you need those three to make any difference and tangibly move the needle towards whatever you need people to do. And I mentioned change as being a big factor in why I get brought in. And ultimately, I like to remind people that it's not really people don't resist change. They resist the unknown, and I help make that unknown known through better communication.

Mick Spiers: 22:41

Yeah, it is the fear of the unknown, and unfortunately, well, I want to come back to Head, Heart and Hands on this one, and this is a, this is going to help us a lot, right? So, so like, the framework, "Head, what do they need to know? The Heart, what? Why is this good for them and us? Like, what's in it for them, what's in it for us? And Hands, what do they need to do?" Underlined by the word clarity, I think is also important there. But this, in this change scenario, if you are communicating a change, unfortunately, and this is biological, people fear loss at a greater degree than they appreciate gain. So how do we cope with, dealing with their resistance to change in the communication so we're, we're trying to tell them the why, which is the gain, but if we ignore the fear of loss and the fear of the unknown, that's going to be to our peril. So how do we balance that equation?

Alejandra Ramirez: 23:37

I think it starts well before the change actually happens, and it goes back to this idea of building trust, right? Because if you end up at an inflection point where that change is happening, or where something big is causing people to pause and maybe get a little sort of deer in the headlights, it's already too late to start building trust as a leader, it's important to build trust every day so that when those tougher moments come up, you're going to land them much, you're going to land more softly. That's one two is the clarity that you mentioned, right? So you can, I always like to say, people don't know what they don't know, and they're not in your head. You can't assume they're reading your mind. You've been in something. You're seeing it so close that you forget that some people don't know all the facts, or don't know all the new ones, and so put yourself in their shoes when you're thinking about that clarity. I mentioned Trust and Clarity, because to me, those are The Core Essential Pieces to this. Trust, you can have high trust, which is great because that means people are willing to run through walls for you. But if you have Low Carity, they're going to run in circles because, they don't know what they're doing. You can have High Clarity, which is great because they're like, "Okay, great. I know where I'm headed." But Low Trust, they're not going to trust that you're going to get them there. So they're going to be more reticent to do the thing right. And so those two things, I think, are really, really essential, and I think that it's natural to have people mourn the loss of whatever was. I think acknowledging that is important, and saying, "Listen, this is really big. This is a really big change. We recognize it's going to be tough. We recognize you. You're used to this way of doing things, but we encourage you to give this new thing a try." And continuing to show and emphasize and acknowledge and show empathy that you know that the change is not easy, that you're there, you're there for them, you're there to support them through this you're there to guide them through this new transition, and inevitably, people will be more willing to move in that direction, if, if they feel like they're not alone in it, and if they feel like they're being heard, and can sort of raise concerns as it goes. And that's a big part of communication, is that people forget is, people think about the beginning and the end, but they forget that messy middle, that messy middle is important. It's always going to be messy. You can't fix you know, you can't think perfect, but what you can do is communicate in a way that makes them feel heard and supported through it.

Mick Spiers: 26:10

So I'm hearing a lot in there around. Okay, so we've got the Clarity and Trust that's a very powerful message, but there's also an acknowledgement of the emotions that people might be feeling about this. So I'm going to double down on the on the loss thing here, because the Loss could be a fear of loss of identity. So you mentioned an ERP tool. That's a good enough example. If I was the expert in the previous tool, someone's rolling out the new tool, I'm not the expert anymore. So I feel challenged. I feel my identity is challenged. But if we don't talk about it, it doesn't go away. If we talk about it, we can have a dialog about it.

Alejandra Ramirez: 26:48

Yeah, that's a great example. I'm so glad you brought that up, because I find that, in that example, often leaders forget about those experts when it comes to making some of these decisions and bringing them in early in the conversation, so they feel a part of making the decision for the change is also really important. So rather than saying, "Okay, I'm the senior team, and we've heard people, and we, we listen to what they had to say, and this is going to also save us a lot of money to do this new tool off we go to institute it." That's probably going to be, less well received than if they say, "Okay, who are the experts on this current tool that we can bring in early and start having the conversation with so that they hear it first, and so that they feel like they're still a part of it, right?" Those are those little nuances that I think will make a huge difference for people. And by the way, sometimes, you know, sometimes change does lead to job loss. I get that, and it sucks, right? That's, let's not sugarcoat that. How you make that decision and how you communicate that decision is also going to go a long way, because you could just say, "All right, guys, new tool, by the way, here's 10 people who are going away." Now that's gonna be like, "Whoa, what's happening?" Or you could communicate it first with those 10 people, and, you know, face to face, acknowledge, say, "Look, this is really hard. I know it's, it's, it's not gonna, it's not, you know, the direction that you hoped for, but we wanted you to hear it first, and here, I mean, ideally, you have a solid severance package to give these people to support that as well." And then you announce it more broadly, that is also going to go a long way, because even though it's still not great that you're having to let go of some people, those people are going to feel more like, "Okay, we're not just some, you know, people you're throwing off to the side." We feel human. We feel like you've we've been talked to about it first. We don't feel like we were left out, just by the wayside, if that makes sense. And that, that that goes a long way, because those people may leave, but other people may go to them, they're looking to apply for a job at this company and say, "Hey, what was your experience there?"

Mick Spiers: 29:05

Yeah, good. Okay, so the big thing I'm hearing here is don't ignore it, because if you're ignoring it, it doesn't go away. It actually festers and probably gets worse. Have the courage to have the conversation, even if it's not a nice conversation, it's, you know, some hard truths in there, really good. All right. The other one I want to come back to is around Clarity and Understanding. You've used both of those words as, as we've gone through we've spoken a lot about communication being two way. But I want to go, want to go to some of the topics that can feel a little bit one way and where it doesn't land. There's been some psychologists recently studying this thing called the Illusion of Transparency, and they're trying to measure the gap between when someone communicates a topic, and I loved your example before of someone might have been thinking about this topic for six months, and then when they present. Into it. They get frustrated that the other person's not understanding it well, you've been thinking about it for six months. This person's heard about it six seconds ago. So that's where we're part of it is. But this, this illusion of transparency, is that is the gap between you ask a leader, "Okay, how many people do you think understood your message that you just delivered? Or 100% or, or they might be a bit more humble, and say 80%." And then the psychologist will go and measure it and work out it somewhere between 20 and 30% of what was just said was actually landed the way the person thought it landed. Now I'm going to give an example that I see quite often, and it comes through things like employee surveys. It'll be something like the group is telling the leadership team,"Hey, we don't understand the strategy. And then the leadership team all look at each other and go, "We've spoken about the strategy on the last six town halls in a row. How are they not getting this so there's not a bad intent or a bad will from either party here, but something's just not landing. Something's just not landing." How do we address that,

Alejandra Ramirez: 31:07

It's such a great example, and by the way, Alejandra? is more common than you think, because I think people just forget that not everyone can read their minds. A big part of that comes down to, well, first and foremost, knowing that that gap exists is really important, and not just assuming, "Oh, we said this, so everyone's fine. I'm not going to go ahead and ask." Right, because that goes back to this concept of not acknowledging and not listening, and that's important, so at least they know, right? Knowing is the first step, I would say, that comes down to, you know, having a solid communications infrastructure. So I talked earlier about how, when I'm working with with clients, I look at Leadership alignment. That's one making sure leaders are aligned, that clarity of of message, right? Like it, do we know what the message needs to say, and is it clear? And then there's what I call Communications Infrastructure, and that's that piece that helps with emphasizing the points that need to be made so that people are clear about it. So in marketing, I mentioned a tangent earlier, so it actually I'm glad it came up again. In marketing, there's this Rule of Thumb that people need to hear and see things at least seven times for it to connect, and then want to go and buy whatever it is. They're, they're being sold on. And if you think about that, it's not seven times that they just get an email about it. Usually they'll see a billboard, or they'll get a, you know, an ad on Instagram, or they're get they're getting different touch points. The message is still the same, but it's tackling visual and auditory, and just different ways of gleaning information. And so when I work with a company, I look at their infrastructure, and I think,"Okay, how are you communicating this information? Is it just an email from the CEO or the head of HR? Is it just a town hall? Is there a follow up?" Because not everyone retains information in the same way. And you know, people are busy. They're working all day. They're getting things done. This is just in their minds, like another call for another update. And so you want to think about how you're communicating this, and what the different touch points are that are reinforcing that core narrative that may come initially from the CEO because of the level of importance. And then are there maybe teams channels where they can get an update with FAQs, or is there an intranet, micro site that has additional information? I work a lot with companies to create what I call manager toolkits, which is sort of this idea of a cascade with information that managers can use, so that when they have team check ins, they can bring it up and say, here's this information as well. And so sometimes you print posters and put them in the cafeteria, the more touch points, the more likely they are to understand it. And if it's still not happening, then you need to go back to figuring out, is your message even clear to begin with? Are you answering those core questions, which is, what's the challenge we're trying to solve for? What do people need to know? What you know? How will we know what's working and why is this important for the business? And it goes back to the 3hH we talked about.

Mick Spiers: 34:13

Yeah, really good. Okay, so I'm hearing, I'm gonna say three stanzas here. The first one is the alignment of the leadership team to make sure that they are on the same page. Because if they're not on the same page, they're going to go and have their department meetings, and it's going to start fracturing already. So alignment, clarity and doesn't have the ingredients. Have we covered Head, Heart, Hands? Have we covered that the key messages that need to be done. Okay, then we switch to the consistency and repetition of message, multifactorially, that not everyone receives information in the same way. Some people might prefer the email. Some people might want something on yammer or slack, or whatever your billboard is in the company other people might want it at a town hall, but they receive it in a different way, but, but it then also needs to be reinforcing, and in L and D, in Learning and Development, there's this thing called the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve. And it's, it's amazing how, how much of the information drops off in the days after the first communication. So I'm going to say that it's not just a one and done. You broadcast it on seven channels and you're done. It's got to be repeated a few times over a week or two weeks or three weeks before it's going to start to land. And then the third stanza I'm hearing is the check in. I want to double down on the check in to see if the message did land. I want to throw an idea to you here that I use, which is, you know, the world is full of can be even one on one meetings, full of meetings where people walk away with a completely different understanding of what was just said and what was just agreed. Okay, so what I tried to do is in those meetings, in a closing rather than me summarize the meeting, I try to get them to summarize the meeting. I try to say, "So what? What was your biggest takeaway from today?" So if I build this back to the town hall example that we've been using, what I'm hearing is that in their next team meeting or one on one meeting, the leaders of the business should be going to the people and say, "Oh yeah, the CEO announced something pretty important at the town hall yesterday. What was your takeaway? What was your understanding of what was said?" So the reinforcement isn't just coming from your mouth, it's coming from their mouth, and you can quickly correct if they say,"Oh, well, I interpreted this and like, whoa. No, no, no, that's not it. This you can bring it back." How does that sit with you on the closing of the loop?

Alejandra Ramirez: 36:49

It sits wonderfully. I mean, it's, it goes back to that importance of dialog. You can't assume you know what they say when you assume. So I think it's a great way to bring it back to them and have them repeat back what they're hearing, because, again, otherwise you won't know. And so I think it's a really great approach, and it's something that we actually include in the toolkits. When we have manager cascades where, you know, depending on the announcement, it needs that additional extra layer, and we have do's and don'ts for managers, and the do's and don'ts will include, you know, ask questions, regroup. We have sample agenda templates that say, "Like, start with this, do this, close with a question, and next steps and things of that nature." And all of those things are essential for, ensuring that, that is landing. And but again, I go back to a point I made earlier, which is doing something about it if it's not landing. Because if people are feeling like they're saying all this and it's not connecting with them, and then you're not doing anything to change it. Is it worth going through that process to begin with? Right? You know, there's, it's a double edged sword.

Mick Spiers: 37:58

All right? Really good. Alejandra, look, I'm going to summarize a few things, and I'm going to ask you a question about how people might lean into this and take the first step if they're listening to this and they're going, Yeah, this is missing in our organization, so I'll start with the summary. So what have we taken away from today? That culture is a verb. You should be culturing your environment. It's not it's not a noun. It's a verb. It's really powerful for me, Alejandra. Then we spoke about communication is a dialog. It's a two way thing. It should be as much about listening and curiosity as it is about broadcasting a message that when we want our message to land, we need alignment. First, we need alignment of the leadership team. Otherwise, it's going to fracture. Then we need the clarity and the clarity around this 3H Framework of the Head, the Heart, the Hands. What do they need to know? What makes this important? Where's the why, and what do they need to do? How do they execute what you're asking them to do with clarity, that they really get it and then the repetition of message that that our communication needs to be multifactorial, that we need to be able to get there, say it at least seven times, but potentially across multiple channels, and do it over a period of time until it lands, and then we're going to close the loop and check in with them. Did you understand what we intended here? And if not, let's have a dialog so that we can that we can type talk more about it. Now, if people are listening to that summary there Alejandra, and they go, "Yeah, this is what we need to do." And they're not doing it today. How do they start?

Alejandra Ramirez: 39:43

I would say it made me sounds cliche. I would say, start with listening. It all comes down to asking what's missing, because if you don't ask, you won't know, and then you don't even know where to start. And obviously, certain. Me, you know, remembering that Internal Communications isn't just one person's job at a company like yes, you you should probably have an internal communications manager, whatever title you want to give them, that oversees that more structural, strategic effort. But at the end of the day, culture internal comms, those are everyone's job to get, right? So start by listening, and remember that it's not someone else's job to to own it.

Mick Spiers: 40:29

Now that I love this, all right? So we'll start with listening, start with curiosity, and stop waiting for someone else to do it. It's your job too. That's really good. Okay? Alejandra, thank you so much for today. I'm going to take us to our Rapid Run now. These are the same four questions we ask all of our guests. So what's the one thing that you know now? Alejandra Ramirez, that you wish you knew when you were 20?

Alejandra Ramirez: 40:51

Oh, man, 20 year old me so many things that I wish I knew. I would say that. I would tell 20 year old me that no one knows what they're doing. Everyone's making it up as they go. And the key to feeling like you're not just completely, you know, sliding downhill is to just keep asking questions and you'll get there.

Mick Spiers: 41:18

That's really good. And no one knows all the answers, and anyone that pretends to know, yeah, yeah. Very good. Okay, excellent. What's your favorite book?

Unknown: 41:28

I have many. I if you can't tell from the background, I don't know if you can see, but have many books. I tend to like historical fiction. But actually, there's a book that comes to mind often for me that I just love. It's called the Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green. John Green is one of a duo called the the Vlog Brothers, and it's John Green and Hank Green. And they are, they have phenomenal they have a company called The Good Store, where they sell everything, don't make a profit and take send it to charity. It's, I love them. But the book itself is the"John The Brother". He has written turtles all the way down, which might be a more popular, well known book. A young, young adult author. Anthropocene reviewed each chapter. He reviews something in life on a scale of one to five stars. So he could be like trees. He'll do an essay about trees, and he'll be like I rate trees three. I don't know what he'll do if he did trees. It's such a fascinating view on the world because it just takes these seemingly mundane things and rates them. Love that book, highly recommend.

Mick Spiers: 42:44

Its sounds very cool. I haven't heard of it. I'm going to look into it. What's your favorite quote?

Alejandra Ramirez: 42:49

So there is a quote that I've thought about often, and I, I mean, as someone who loves to read, there's many that come to mind. But there's one that is, and I can't speak for whether it's accurately tagged to Eleanor Roosevelt, but everything I've seen is tagged to Eleanor Roosevelt, and she says, "Do what you feel in your heart to be right for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do and damned if you don't." And so I think to me, that speaks to the importance of, like, staying true to yourself and your morals and the rest come naturally.

Mick Spiers: 43:25

Yeah, powerful, the authenticity and the strong moral compass. Let that, let that moral compass guide you, and then, then, at least, you won't have any regrets yourself. You might get, you might get, you know, particularly on social media. You might get attacked on social media from one party or another, but at least you stayed true to yourself. Yeah? Like, it really good.

Alejandra Ramirez: 43:47

Yeah, listen, it's not your business what other people think of you. You can only care about what, what you think of you so.

Mick Spiers: 43:55

Very good. Okay. And finally, Alejandra, there's going to be people that need this help. They're going to be listening to this going, "Yeah, well, our communication never lands" and, and the like. How do people find you and find Ready Cultures?

Alejandra Ramirez: 44:10

Yeah, so they can go on my website, readycultures.com. I actually have a free, free age download that they can use. It's a worksheet to help guide them through any message that they're delivering. And schedule a call to talk about how I can support them. I'm also on LinkedIn. I'm pretty active on LinkedIn, Alejandra Ramirez actually also Wells at the end of it, because I had to verify my identity, and that's my married name, but I'm on LinkedIn as well, so reach out. I'd be happy to connect and, you know, see how I can support.

Mick Spiers: 44:42

Wonderful well. Thank you so much. Alejandra, thank you for your gift of your time and your wisdom today, and for the clarity of your message. You've given us a great framework to work with and given us you've worked with our head. You've given us something that we needed to know. You've worked with our heart. What makes it important. You've worked with our hands, you've you've given us something that we can action. So thank you so much.

Alejandra Ramirez: 45:06

Thanks so much for having me.

Mick Spiers: 45:09

Another powerful conversation there with Alejandra Ramirez. So let me ask you, where might your communication be creating confusion instead of clarity? Where are you assuming people understand the why? When perhaps they have only heard the what and where do you need to listen more deeply before you speak again? Because one of the biggest takeaways from this conversation with Alejandra, is this. Communication is not a broadcast, it's a dialog, and if we want to build trust, we need to close the loop. When people give feedback, respond, when people ask questions, explain the rationale, when people are impacted by a decision, help them understand not just what is happening, but why it matters and what comes next. Alejandra gave us a powerful framework, the Head, the Heart and the Hands. The Head, what do people need to know? The Heart, why should they care? And the Hands? What do they need to do next? So here's your call to action before your next important message. Pause and ask, "Have I covered the head. Have I connected to the heart? Have I made the hands clear?" Because people can often accept a decision they do not agree with if they understand the rationale behind it. In the next episode, we continue this theme of understanding people more deeply, because in my conversation with Wainwright Yu. We explore Neuro Diversity, Cognitive Diversit, and how leaders can create environments where different minds do not just cope, they flourish. So until then, communicate with clarity, listen with curiosity, and as always, lead better. You've been listening to The Leadership Project. If today sparked an insight, don't keep it to yourself. Share it with one other person who would benefit from listening to the show. A huge thank you to Gerald Calibo for his tireless work editing every episode, and to my amazing wife Sei, who does all the heavy lifting in the background to make this show possible? None of this happens without them. Around here, we believe leadership is a practice, not a position, that people should feel seen, heard, valued, and that they matter. That the best leaders trade ego for empathy, certainty for curiosity, and control for trust. If that resonates with you, please subscribe on YouTube and on your favorite podcast app. And if you want more, follow me on LinkedIn and explore our archives for conversations that move you from knowing to doing. Until next time. Lead with curiosity, courage and care you.