This episode features an interview with Beth Collier, founder of Beth Collier Consulting. She has spent 20 years helping people and companies become better, more connected leaders through communication. In this episode, Amanda sits down with Beth to discuss what pop culture can teach us about communications, the impact of creativity, and how to turn leaders into effective communicators.
This episode features an interview with Beth Collier, founder of Beth Collier Consulting.
She has spent 20 years helping people and companies become better, more connected leaders through communication.
In this episode, Amanda sits down with Beth to discuss what pop culture can teach us about communications, the impact of creativity, and how to turn leaders into effective communicators.
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“You've got to be courageous if you want to be creative, because it is hard to put ideas in front of people that by definition, they're going to be new and different. Because even people who say, and I've known leaders like this, who are like, ‘I want new ideas and think outside the box and nothing's off the table. Blah, blah, blah.’ They say that stuff and then when you give them something that is new and different, they're like, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa. We can't do that here. That's not going to work or we tried that once.’ It's kind of like a newborn baby. You've got to be so gentle and protective of that new idea. And so, when it comes to sharing those ideas, it takes a lot of courage.” – Beth Collier
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Episode Timestamps:
*(01:39): Beth’s background
*(04:05): Segment: Story Time
*(04:18): When Beth realized she wanted to advocate for employees
*(13:11): Segment: Getting Tactical
*(13:27): How Beth brings pop culture into communications
*(20:12): Why it's important that communications is creative
*(28:18): Why Beth disagrees that 7% of communication is verbal
*(34:06): Segment: Seat at the Table
*(34:17): How Beth helps make leaders effective communicators
*(37:09): Segment: Asking for a Friend
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Links:
Connect with Amanda on LinkedIn
Amanda Berry: Beth, how are
you today?
Beth Collier: Hey, I'm doing well, Amanda. Thanks for asking. How are you?
Amanda Berry: I'm doing really great.
Thanks for asking.
Thank you for joining me. I wanna start off and just understand a little bit more about your background. Can you walk me through your career journey and what brought you
to consulting?
Beth Collier: I started my career working as an intern in film, television production in Los Angeles. And then after that, I worked for a travel company traveling around the world for literally almost five years, like going all around the world and found, I just became more curious about the rest of the world.
So I moved to New Zealand and that that's where I really started to, to build my communication career while I was. And then came into London. Actually, I moved here in 2009 and I worked in communication for financial services for over a decade, and then decided I wanted to start my own thing. And I wanted to help people really as, as kind of cliche or cheesy as it might sound, that was what moved me into consulting.
Was that desire. To really help people who wanted help, who needed help, who felt like they were held back in their career, or maybe just where they were because they, because of their communication skills. And so that's what, what took me into it. I decided I wanted to work on the skills that would help people no matter where they lived or where they worked.
And to me, that's communication, creativity, and leadership. So that's what I do.
Amanda Berry: Tell us a bit more about Beth Collier consulting. What do you do? Just anything about it that that comes to mind.
Beth Collier: I just make magic happen though. I, I had even cheesy answer for that. So, no, I mean, it really does come down to the, the simple way it's about improving performance, but by doing that through building skills that everybody is gonna need.
So I got into reading about future skills, I don't know, probably five years ago. And just really thinking of like, how is work gonna change? And what are the skills that people need to be successful? So while, you know, people will talk about coding and tech, like that's great, but not every single person today needs to code, but every single person today needs to communicate.
And every single person, whether they know it or not also needs to be creative. And they need to understand how to build those skills, how to become strong writers, how to become strong speakers, how to bring creativity into their thinking and their problem solving. And so that's what I wanted to do was looking at those problems.
How can we make better leaders? How could we strengthen team connections? So I do that through one-on-one consulting with people. I do that through team workshops. I do that through keynote talks and just bringing people together to build those skills that are gonna help them both in their performance of their job, but also in their.
Amanda Berry: All right. Well,
let's move into our first segment story time. Welcome to
story. Time, story, time, story time coming to your story time. You just talked
about that passion for starting your own consulting company. Is there a particular moment when you realized you wanted to help employees and be an advocate for
them?
Beth Collier: Yeah, I think it probably goes back to when I was in New Zealand. So when I was in New Zealand, I was working for the treasury and at that time, The whole difference between communication teams in New Zealand and here in London is that the teams are smaller. And so you don't specialize the way you do.
And the way I have here in London. So you kind of have to do a little bit of everything. So you're doing external communication, you're doing internal communication, you're doing events, you're doing website, you're doing all kinds of different things. And at that time, the people in my team were all really big into external communication that was seen as like the sexy thing, the fun thing.
And we all got to do it, but when I did. And I, I would kind of look at it and go, well, I got this query from like a big paper or, you know, media outlet. And then I spent hours working with leaders to craft a two line answer, and then maybe see it in print or hear it on the news that night. And I didn't find it that exciting to be honest with you.
Whereas. The idea of helping people, helping employees that really spoke to me and it excited me. There's an expression nature of horrors, a vacuum. And so does Beth Collier because I saw that space where nobody kind of wanted to do the internal communication and like work on like the strategic stuff or like having.
To spell out, you know, some of the things that people needed to know about, but I saw it as a big opportunity to actually be an advocate and an ally for people to get to know what do they need and then how do we help support them? So for leaders, you know, the higher up people get the farther away they get from the ground.
And what it's like the reality of like when you are a worker bee. And so by working in internal communication and being in that space, like I get to be an advocate for. For all the people and I can help the leaders, serve them by understanding what it is they need and, and being someone to listen, being someone to, to be their champion.
I find that really rewarding and, and I really love it.
Amanda Berry: Why do you think
internal traditionally has been kind of less valued is the right word, but let me be let let's just use that to go with that less value than external communi.
Beth Collier: I suppose it's that idea of people think, well, everybody does it. Like everybody writes and everybody talks and also it's who gets put into that position.
So, you know, I've seen people with no communication training or background, just kind of be thrown into it, of like, oh, this person. You know, they, they can do it on the side of their, their desk sort of thing of like, we've got a change program, but this HR advisor's gonna do the calms with no real understanding of what strong communication looks like.
Now, people from different backgrounds can absolutely thrive in communication if they have the right skills. But too often, I have seen people. Who who don't have the skills and don't have really the desire to learn and just look at it as something that like, I can just do this. Whereas like I would never, as a communication person, rock up to the, the chief financial officer and say, well, I was pretty good at math.
So I think I could just be the, I could be part of the finance function and I can, I should have a senior role, obviously, cuz I was really good at math. I mean, I just would have that same arrogance about it, but I think people look at, at our discipline and think, oh it's, it's no big deal. Everybody does it.
It's true. Everybody communicates, but everybody doesn't do it well. Yeah.
Amanda Berry: Yeah. I totally agree. I, you know, hearing you say that I, I, my passion comes up from us a very similar place. I've been, I don't care if I'm in sixth grade or high school or college or working, if I don't understand something. Like the directions of something I, I, or this, you know, communication, whatever it is, it, it, it upsets me like what's wrong with me.
And I wanted to always work in a way to help everyone understand everything. Cuz there's a big barrier when communication isn't done
Beth Collier: well. Yeah. And the smartest people are really good at explaining complex thing in a way that people don't have that feeling. Amanda, because like, I'll talk about your, your job as a writer or communicator is to make your audience feel smart.
You don't wanna make them feel dumb. You don't wanna be using terms that they don't know or like showing off your VOCA. I mean, I've seen people do this where it's like, I need everyone to know I'm the smartest person in the room. So here I go. But if people leave the room and have no idea, what does this change mean to me?
Or what is our strategy or what should I be focusing on? Then it doesn't matter how smart you are because you haven't communicated your ideas across in a way that's actually connected with people. Yeah. So there's a whole thing that, you know, people just need to remember. It's not about them. It's about their a.
Amanda Berry: Yeah, I
really admire people who can take something really, really complicated. And I always, I always go explain it to me. Like I'm five yeah. And nothing. And they, and if they can do it
well, wow.
Beth Collier: And that's a great test. Like to take something that people go like, I mean, the number of times, oh, everybody knows what this is.
I'm like, okay, well let's ask your exec team, then explain it. Like, if they all say it to me in the same way, then. Cool, great, fantastic. But I mean, the number of times I've seen people, they will dance around. Not having to answer that question of describing something. It's like, yeah. Well, if you don't know it, how can you expect anyone else in this organization to know it.
Amanda Berry: I
can think of a project I was on. I won't get the details cuz it'll give away the employer, but all right. I explain it to me and I'm like, I just don't get it. Like, I, I really don't understand what this is. And we went, we went round around until I could explain it. Like I was five
Beth Collier: and really smart people will do this.
I mean, Einstein is someone who had different versions of the theory of relativity based on the audience he was speaking to because people who are physicists need something different from people who are smart, but just aren't interested in, in physics. Yeah. Yeah.
Amanda Berry: Anyway, I, I went off topic here, but I, I, I just, I really appreciated you pointing that out, so thank you.
But you live in London, you just mentioned that you're talking about differences between New Zealand and London. What are some key differences in cultures you've noticed between London and America? I know you're, you're a Midwest person. That's right. Yeah, me too. So get to talk about from that perspective.
Beth Collier: It's really interesting how similar and yet how different the, the two cultures are. And I think a lot of it goes back to history and also just our environment. So this stereotypical stuff you'll hear about Americans, you know, we're so loud and we're pushy and aggressive, big portions portion. Oh my gosh.
Everything's and better, you know, obvious obviously, but as I try to explain to people, like bring a little empathy into that, like imagine. Living in a country with 330 million people and you are all fighting to like win, you know, let's say, or, or to fight, to be heard. You know, if you're around in competitive environments, in school, in jobs, like everybody wants to kind of get that attention, get that little, you know, good boy, good girl.
Paddle in the head, you know, we do have to compete for that airtime. And so I think that comes into our culture and also things around the American dream. We are brought up with this, this wonderful kind of everything is possible attitude, which, which I love. And there was something I just actually was listening to somebody from Canada talking about this of the difference of like, who do you think you are to who do you wanna be?
And the attitude with that of like possibility. And I think one of the things I love about America. I believe the American dream can still happen. Like you might become an executive because you went to Ivy league schools and came from the right family. But you might also become an executive because you just worked really hard and you were scrappy.
And of course, everybody gets help in one way or another to get there. But like here there's. There are fewer paths to success, I would say. And that shows in the leadership and organizations. One thing from a communication perspective is American executives. And this is generalizing, but I, this based on my experience, like we have more teaching around public speaking.
And, you know, people have to do a speech class or an debate class. So that is more comfortable to a lot of Americans. Not all, obviously it's big country than the, the Brits. They don't have rhetoric as standard rhetoric is actually something that is taught in. I think it's less than 7% of what's the equivalent of high school, what they call college.
And it's. The private schools. So if you go to a school called Eaton, which is where the current prime minister and actually a lot of prime ministers from great Britain are from you have rhetoric, you have that training on making arguments and giving speeches. But if you don't like it's not seen as an essential skill, which is a real shame.
And that's one of the things I noticed also in terms of. Americans can be more direct, whereas Brits can be a little bit more tentative with their communication a little bit more. I'm I'm sorry. I'm sorry. That sort of phrase phrasing, but it's, it's interesting. I mean, it's, it's like the stuff with tea.
There was an article in the New York times, just a few days ago about how you can heap water within electric kettle. And this is of course, like people in the UK, there was the article I just read earlier today of like, oh my gosh, America just discovered the kettle. But of course I look at that and I'm like, We don't drink hot tea in America.
Like you drink it in England. So you have to understand those cultural differences play out in a lot of different places. And communication's just one of.
Amanda Berry: Yeah. Interesting. Well, I'm gonna move into the next segment, getting tactical.
I'm trying to figure out tactics and to be perfect, honest, and I didn't have to worry about tactics too much.
Here I am in charge and trying to say, why did you sleep through tactics tactics? I would be
really remiss if I didn't talk about pop culture with you, I follow you on LinkedIn. And it's, it's, it's one of the brightest spots, but I learned so much. Cause I used to check a lot of pop culture sites. I don't do it as much anymore, but you keep me arose to all of the pop culture stuff going on.
you know, you, you approach communications and you bring this. The these pop culture, examples into it could be Harry styles could be Brittany Spears. I saw one you posted yesterday on who's the guy that was in that movie with lady Gaga, Bradley Cooper, Bradley Cooper. Yeah. Fe Williams. So why do you approach communications this way?
Beth Collier: Cause I think it's fun. I think it's really fun. Like, I mean, you could go into textbooks and I could say, here's the way you should communicate. Here's the way, you know, you start with the topic sentence and blah, blah, blah. But if you can look at something happening in the news and it's not, it's not just like music and, and films and TV and books that I.
I look also at what's happening in the political sphere, what's happening in business. Like it's looking at what's happening now and what can we learn from it? So you can see something like I've had a lot of emails recently about price increases because everything's going up, right. And it's looking at how does company X tell me that price increase versus company Y and what could you learn from that?
So I'll take these things to say, I mean, Venus Williams, I don't think enough people know this story that the women playing in Wimbledon get equal pay because Venus William. Fought so hard for it back more than 15 years ago. I mean, not only did she use her, her public speaking skills, but she wrote a letter and just, it was such a passionate plea and so well thought out and logical and you know, you look at it and you just think like, how could they not.
Side with her, of course. And this, this is important. It shows what can happen when you communicate well, because women are getting paid the same to, to win Wimbledon as they should, because they get the same at all the, the grand slams. And up until that time, they didn't in Wimbledon. So if you can look at that and say, here's what happens when you communicate well, but I wanna, is
Amanda Berry: there one pop culture event that has changed the way you really think about internal calms or just communications in general?
Beth Collier: One pop culture event. Oh my gosh. Um,
Amanda Berry: that's really just sort of flipped a script for you.
Beth Collier: Oh, that's a good question, Amanda. But it's probably what I'd have to go back and, and think about because I collect so many of these every year in December, I do a list of Santas, naughty and nice communicators because I love end of the year list.
I'm always like tell me the best books. Tell me the best albums, tell me the best TV shows films, but I thought there's a gap here. We're not talking about the best communicators. And so a lot of that. Looking at moments from pop culture what's happened this year. What have people said? That's been great.
What have they said? That's not been so great. And I was looking for what I have in, in 2022. And I have 80 moments saved so far. Like I'm just constantly looking, you know, reading all kinds of newspapers, looking at magazines. Just checking what's happening to see what can we learn from this things like, you know, rebel Wilson, who a Sydney newspaper basically tried to bully into coming out as someone in a same sex relationship.
And she decided to share that information herself on Instagram, which is absolutely her right to do it is her life. She should be able to do that. And a journalist from Sydney. And I'm talking a respected newspaper, not like a tabloid female, like this is, this is like a news source, right? Like a news source.
He, he was wh I mean, I would say used the word whining, whining about it. His word was Goum, you know, she, we said we were gonna run this story and then she stole our thunder by releasing on Instagram. And I just thought what an interesting attitude of like a journalist to be. As if he's entitled to her story, and you can say, this is like about celebrating your love, but you know that when someone has always had a partner who has been male and suddenly has a female partner, that that is a different kind of story, and you can absolutely celebrate it, but it is going to get perhaps more attention than if she's just dating some other Budweiser son or whoever she was, was dating before.
But just the attitude about that, like I thought there are lessons we can learn and, and he. Originally, they, they stood by their story. The editor stood by the story and then because of pressure, they had to apologize. And what was interesting is when he shared the email that he sent to her, you actually got to see what he said.
And you, you remember that, you know, there's no other thing to go by. But the words there's no body language. There's no tone. There's no, no other cue. And the way he had written, it was very, I, I would look at it as a, is a threatening, you know, to say, I have enough people to go on the record and run this story comment by two o'clock or what, whatever it was.
So there are lessons we can learn from that. And there are lessons all of all the time that we can learn from of what people are saying, what they're not saying, you know, I love awards, shows, speeches, like who makes me feel something who makes me laugh, who is boring. You know, there's something to learn from that and how, how we can connect.
And I want people also to know that we can learn from all kinds of people. I mean, there are politicians who do great things. Katie Porter with her white board. I love that. And then there are politicians who say things that, you know, make us cringe. that's what I just love to I to pick one that that's a tricky one, but ask me at the end of the year, I'll at least be able to tell you my top 10 for the year.
I will definitely
Amanda Berry: be reaching out. Well, I mean, it's pretty clear that you, you bring a lot of fun and creativity. I love the pop culture stuff. I, I, for me what it means when, when I read your stuff, it's a way for us to identify. Right. And, and when I say we all, I mean the vast majority of people know what goes on.
I don't know the Kardashians or Britney Spears. And it's a way for us to take an example, because I think that's what good teachers do. Right. They take examples and they relate it to you in a way you can understand, right. It's like theory and practice. Now for me, that's what you do. We can all identify with these big events.
And when you, when you relate 'em and then talk about communication, style of creativity. It helps me go. Oh yeah. I understand that. Rather than just talking about this like thick theory with words you don't understand. Right. We talked about leaders who can use language. We understand. I, I think that's what you do when, when I read your stuff.
So I really
Beth Collier: appreciate it. Oh, I'm glad. I'm glad you're finding value of it. That's what I mean. I want it to help people and also to illustrate that, like, this is harder than people think, because I think too many people look at communication as like, it's just no big deal and everybody can do it. And I.
Constantly, I'm getting examples that just reinforce just how difficult it is to do it well. And so when people realize that, then I think they'll take it a little bit more seriously to know that this is, this is really important. This is your reputation. This is can be your relationships. I mean, there's so there's, so obviously I can sing the praises of value of investing in your communication skills.
Cause I think it, it pays such dividends. Yeah, absolutely. Well, so
Amanda Berry: I love that you bring creativity in communications. Talk about why that's important.
Beth Collier: So the, the big thing around creativity, this is one that I got into when I started looking at the future of work and why it's so important is that creativity is a skill that helps us innovate and solve problems.
And we've constantly gotta be thinking of how do we communicate in ways that are, are different, that are useful to our audience. And there are ways to do this. The thing about creativity as well. I mean, not only is it great commercially, but it's really fun. I do workshops on creativity. When you get teams like to see where the ideas come from, who comes up with things that maybe you never would've thought that person would have any good ideas, but they do.
And, and it's great. I mean, there's all kinds of benefits around, you know, mental health and connections and setting up the, the workplaces where people want to work. But one of the examples, I think that's great to show how creativity comes into communication. I love this story. There's a woman named Jessica.
She works at Pixar and she's a script supervisor. And I wrote a story about Jessica because I just thought this was so good. So she was working on cars three and as a script supervisor, she's looking. All of the words, right. Where everyone else has their part in film, she's looking at the scripts and she noticed that there weren't very many women, female characters.
And like, obviously if you're making a world war II, saving private Ryan, we expect that they're gonna be more men playing soldiers. But if we're talking about an animated car, That really doesn't have to be male, right? Like a talking car in a village or something in radiator Springs. And so she saw this stuff that like not only were there fewer female characters, but also the female characters weren't talking very much.
Now she could have gone in and said, look, guys, You know, you're, you're looking really sexist here. Like why aren't there more women come on? And probably she would be dealing to a, a crowd that I, that might be a little more amenable to gender diversity anyway, but how do you, how do you communicate that message and what Jessica did was she worked with one of her colleagues to get, she actually Coate a spreadsheet and she could show in data exactly what the percentages were of male and female characters and who was speaking.
And when she did that, it was a very creative way. To illustrate to people that there was a problem without smacking 'em over the head, because when people saw that, like probably the people make these decisions are nice people not trying to do anything negative to women, but you know, their own biases.
And, and what have you, she showed that data in a way that they went, oh my gosh, we, we gotta do something about this. Like what characters can we make? Female? What lines could be said by more of our female cars? And it became something she made this become part of their process, like their business as usual activity.
So when they do films, People are expecting her report. Like we wanna see the gender diversity here. And she's talked about, if you look at some of their films since then, like they have gotten a lot better with this. Like, you will hear more females talking, you will see more female characters and Jessica's able to solve that problem by thinking creatively.
And I just think it's a wonderful example of like how you can use creativity to solve problems. And that's, that's why it's such a valuable skill. . Yeah, I, I, I was thinking
Amanda Berry: about this cuz I, I see the stuff you do. And I think that creativity takes a lot of courage. Absolutely. Yeah. Because for, for, well, for any number of reasons, right?
It could be, you know, if you're working with leaders, they're used to doing this or you're used to doing this way and not thinking outside, not doing it different ways. So, so help me give me some fun and easy ways. If our listeners may be nervous about trying something new or nervous about talking to leaders, you did mention data, which I love.
We, we talk a lot about this on the podcast, using data to bring leaders into the fold and sort of convince them to try new things, but what are some of fun and easy ways to be creative, you know, to, to dip your toe in that water for internal communicators, just to try and see, see what it feels like and how it works.
Beth Collier: You're absolutely right, Amanda. Like, you've got to be courageous if you wanna be creative, because it is hard to put ideas in front of people that by definition, they're gonna be new and different because even people who say I've known leaders like this, who are like, I want new ideas and think outside the box and nothing's off the table, blah, blah, blah.
Like they say that stuff. And then when you give them something that is new and different, they're like, whoa, whoa. We can't do that here. That's not gonna work. Or, you know, we tried that once. It's kinda like a newborn baby. Like you've gotta be so gentle and protective. Of that new idea. And so when it comes to, to sharing those ideas, it takes a lot of courage.
And one of the things that I like to use with people is stories and examples to talk about. Let's look at an idea that somebody thought was crazy, that they said that will never work, you know, Netflix or wonderful examples of Netflix, of like, you know, DVDs in the mail. That's never gonna work, especially at that time.
When you think of, if you can remember back to when blockbuster video. Just dominated the market and Netflix, I find so interesting because they weren't afraid to change, you know, to move from. We make DVDs, we send them in the mail to we stream content. We, we stream movies online to then we actually create our own content like that.
Would've taken massive courage to make those changes, particularly when they were successful as a DVD. Company. And so using those examples of when you could talk about ideas that people said that will never work and how you can be creative I'm, I'm writing a story about the movie jaws. So jaws in 1975 was the highest grossing film of all time when it came out.
But jaws was also. A disaster when it was being filmed, like everything was going wrong. It was over budget. It was off the shark shark stopped working and yeah. Yeah. The three sharks didn't that didn't work. And the editor who, again, someone, I think nowadays, maybe in the seventies, people would've had more recognition.
She did win the Oscar for it, but her name is Verna fields. And her role in jaws' success is not really well known, but she decided to edit the film to put it together. Again, got creative. And instead of showing this shark that people thought was cheesy, she decided to cut scenes where you didn't see the shark to create that tension just by, you know, you hear John Williams score and you see the camera moving through the water.
Like that's ver that was Vernon's idea to like create tension. There's a great scene. It's like a four minute clip of when you know, they're on the beach and the shark architects. You barely see the shark in four minutes. And so, again, it's these examples of where have people gotten creative to say like, and you know, I don't have the footage, I can't use the footage, so what can I do?
How can I solve this problem? So using those examples of where people did do something different and it worked, I think is really important. And also there's a whole education piece around the path of creativity. We'd love to talk about the success. Like we'd love to say, look at Lynn Manwell, Miranda, heated Hamilton, and it's like the toaster Broadway.
We don't talk. The seven years it took to get to Broadway. We don't talk about, you know, when he didn't get the, a scholarship at Jonathan Larson scholarship that he tried to get as a musician, you know, as a composer and also Steven Sonim, who is, you know, kind of on the, the top marks of that Broadway community.
When Lynn Manuel pitched the idea to him for Hamilton, Steven Sondheim. Who's had so many Tony's for his, his projects on Broadway said, I just don't think it's gonna work, you know, wrapping for two hours. Like it's just not gonna work. So that's where we have to fight that bias of like, I've never seen it before, but maybe it could.
And there's so many stories of things that our life that are wonderful innovations that would not have happened if people were not brave enough to put those ideas, not have the courage and then had the persistence to carry on. When people said. I need to
Amanda Berry: switch gears here, Beth, cuz something you said earlier stuck in my brain and I wanna, I wanted to come back to it cause this isn't important.
I think this is super important. It's about words, words matter when you were talking about that re Wilson. I wanna talk about that for just one more quick second. We don't just specifically talk about that example, but talking about communication, right? You can sit down and write. I, I know sometimes I pain, stake and legal switch words.
Like that's not the word I'm looking for. And I I'll, I'll get the so out and I'll, you know, Google things. And, and I remember growing up and in college, they said 20% of communication is verbal. And I think we've had this conversation before. And you said, you said you read it from a UCLA study that says 7% is verbal.
You disagree with this. Can you talk
Beth Collier: about why. I can't. Oh, I, I like that this came up because I think this is like one of those pieces of information that is spewed in leadership courses and by trainers and people who work in communication more than anything else. And it's just absolute nonsense. And.
It really drives me crazy that people will take this site, these statistics and say research says, which are two of the most dangerous words to see when you're reading. People's, you know, thought something, you know, research says like, well, tell me more about that research. Like, who are we talking about?
Who are these people? How many people, how did you do the study? Like, I need more than just research says, although a lot of the CSU, they really like that research says, cuz they're like, Ooh data. Okay. But I heard this from someone at a big leadership event and I was just. That just doesn't sound right to me that there was this whole thing of like, you know, it's 55% body language and 38% tone, but your words are only 7%.
And then I read it in a book not long after that. And I was like, here it is again. And so I'm a very curious person, as you may know, from the fact that I have a newsletter called curious minds. and I just started to Google and I found like, I think it was 25 million at the time, 25 million search results in Google for this, this thing, about seven words or 7%.
It's credited to a man named Albert Merian, who was a professor at UCLA in the sixties. And so I thought, okay, I wanna know more about this. And I found the actual research paper I had to pay for it, which is why I think no one really knows details cause no one's gonna be bothered. By this research paper from the sixties.
But when I read it, it was so interesting because I actually learned what his study was about and how it was conducted. So when it was conducted, he had 37 female psychology students and they, they started out by talking what their hypothesis was. So it wasn't by, you know, research methodology. It was not done in a way that would be advised to actually do a proper study anyway, but they wanted to look at how we communicate, liking our attitudes, our emotions.
So if I say to you. That's a great shirt, Amanda, the way that I say it and like my face, and my tone are gonna communicate something to you that could be different than just the words themselves. So that's what they were looking at. And they looked at pictures of facial expressions to judge, is this positive?
Is this negative? Is this neutral? And they listened to voices as well of people saying the word, maybe, you know, if I say the word, maybe, oh, is she positive? Is she negative? Is she neutral? And based on this research, they found that people, when they looked at the picture. They could identify the, the emotions more accurately than when they listened to the voice, but they did not measure the words.
So how they came up then with this. Oh, it's more about body language. well, that was because people looked at the pictures, but we're talking about a very small sample in a very flawed study, but a study that most importantly was not about communication in general. And Mera has talked about this. I actually contacted him after I read this because I still had some questions and bless him.
He's in his eighties. And he responded to me, which was so nice. And so that's why I feel, I could say this on very good authority, that this is not what his study was about. It was about our liking and our attitudes. And of course, if I say to you, you know, I love you, Amanda. Like, you're gonna. Something from the way my face says this, or think about, you know, your partner.
If he says, I love you. Or like, I don't love you. Like, those words are gonna hit us pretty hard, you know, one way or the other. And he never intended to be taken the way it's been taken. And this is where I think critical thinking, which is another skill. I'm pretty passionate about the need for, if you think about it, like when someone says words are only 7% or even if they said 20 in your case.
Well, if that were true, why would we learn language? like I could travel the world and just make facial expressions back in the old days where they
Amanda Berry: were just grunt, you know, you know, like shave from achievement and
Beth Collier: keep human. Exactly. It's one of those, but this is again, why I think curiosity is so important, again, as a skill for everyone to, to hear something and not just take it as gospel, but to go.
Tell me more about that. Like, help me understand your thinking on that. If you think about it, you're like that doesn't sound right and it, and it's not, but you'll, I guarantee you will hear it again in your lifetime, but now you can you'll know. Actually, I know someone who read the paper and that's not what the reason and talk to the,
Amanda Berry: to the, the researcher.
Exactly. So the example, the example I used to give with this when I used to teach public speaking in grad school was nonverbal does matter because I could, I could say to you, oh no, I'm not mad. And I could go or, and it's, it's hard to convey this over audio, but I, you know, I'm just like, oh no, I'm not mad.
Or you go, oh no, I'm not mad. Not mad. Yeah. You,
Beth Collier: I'm not mad. I'm not mad. And, and, and you know, this is why communication is so important and why I tell people as well, that writing is so important because people have nothing but your words to go on. So if I sent you an email. Only thing it said is where is the report?
She's mad.
Amanda Berry: She's so mad at me. I mean, reading so much into that.
Beth Collier: Yeah. And we all do that. Yeah. And we, you know, people get upset about things and then you might find out that someone's like, oh no, I just didn't know where it was. I couldn't find it in the SharePoint or something, you know? But that's, that's why this stuff matters.
Yeah.
Amanda Berry: Yeah. I mean, you're out there listening. Raise your hand. If you're one of those people who agonizes over someone sent you a text or you get an email from your boss and you're just like, oh
Beth Collier: no, what's. What's that frustration made, you know, like Amanda with a dash versus hi Amanda, a comma. Yeah, absolutely completely different.
Completely different expectation. Yeah. This is probably
Amanda Berry: why I have used using exclamation points, you know, just like I never want anyone to miss some sort
Beth Collier: print and all cap. And smiley faces, you know, be like, Hey, just ask it. Yeah. How's
Amanda Berry: it going? How's your Thursday going kind. Yeah, I totally get it onto the next segment seat at the table.
Beth Collier: First, get seat the table, get seat the table. You want a seat at the table?
Amanda Berry: Walk us through the process of creating effective, better leaders cuz their words do matter. Right? Yeah. So, so how, how are you working with leaders to make sure it's not just their words, but they're they're good. Effective engaging empathetic leaders. Yes.
Beth Collier: Yeah. Oh, I'm so glad you said empathetic. Cuz that's a big thing working with leaders.
I mean the first thing I think you've gotta come into. With curiosity and humility. Like I've been doing communication work for 20 years and I've done roles around the world and I've worked with people like lots of different areas, but everybody is unique and they've got their own situations. So it's important to know where they're coming from and how I can best support them.
So it's taking those people that have brilliant ideas and then helping them get 'em across in a way that's gonna connect with their audience. So, you know, it's understanding how they can bring curiosity, how they can bring empathy also, how they can be better listeners. I mean, that is an underrated communication skill.
Just actually shutting up and going. Hey, talk to me. I'm I'm the leader, but like, how are you feeling?
Amanda Berry: I think there's such a good, I think I just wanna point this out cause I love what you're saying this cause I, I had this discussion with a coworker, the difference between listening and actually hearing.
So anyway, I, I just wanna point that out cause there's a difference. People can listen, but if they don't hear you and act based on that, are they really good at listening?
Beth Collier: Yeah. And, and to, to your, you mentioned earlier about body language. I used to have a boss who, back in the day of the Blackberry, every time we met, he had his Blackberry out and I would say.
Should we meet later like that? Should I come back? That was a way of communicating to me that you are not important to me right now. I need to do this. It's like that subtle thing that, you know, he thought, if you ask him, I guarantee you, he would think I'm a great communicator, but it it's about my experience as, as the audience.
And that's what I think a lot of leaders need to understand. It's not about them. it's about their audience. And not only do they need to improve their communication, but they need to think about the kind of culture that they are encouraging and allowing to thrive. This is why I talk about creativity.
When you have a culture where creativity can thrive, where people feel like they have the courage to say, look, I got this idea. I know it's different than what we've done, but what do you think? And when people will let that sit before they, oh, no, that's not gonna work when they'll, they'll treat it like a newborn baby and just kind of, okay, let me and or, or just change their phrasing of like, How might that work?
How, how could we do it? You know, kind of the improv. Yes. And like, instead of going no, but yes. And like, yes, we do have that situation. And what if we did this? Cuz that's where communication and creativity cross over so much. And that's why the leadership is there as well. These things cross over and there's such valuable skills for everybody to strengthen because we've all had those days where something a boss has said to us, you know, an email or a convers.
Like we come home and we tell our, our friends or our partners or family, like, you know, you have the, the ability to make someone feel really great or make them feel really lousy. And a lot of that comes down to the way you communicate and the way you lead.
Amanda Berry: Absolutely. Let's get into our last segment, asking for a friend.
Who's asking for a friend.
Beth Collier: Hey, asking for a friend, asking for a friend for a friend.
Amanda Berry: What advice would you give a first time? Communications professional.
Beth Collier: Okay. Well, I've come up with three cuz I love the rule of three. Obviously I've even got this as the ABCs. Okay, so you ready for this? So I'm ready writing it down.
Hey, always be. Always be learning. And you need to know not just about communication, but you need to know about your business and you need to know, like, what are the business strategic goals. If you don't understand things in the financials. I remember buying financial terms, this red dictionary when I've had my first job in banking, because I wanted to understand every acronym I wanted to understand anything.
I didn't know. I looked up because then I could speak from an educated standpoint when I was talking to people to show them like, I'm, I'm not just, you know, the comms girl quote unquote, which is a really annoying way. That a lot of women are, are framed, but actually I'm here as a strategic business partner.
And I understand the goals you're, you're trying to reach. So always be learning and about lots of things, not just the business, not just communication, but just feed your brain. You always be learning, never stop. Doesn't matter where you went to school and what fancy degree you have or don't have, there's always an opportunity to learn.
The second B is to be curious, and this kind of flows in with the, the first thing where I talk about learning. Like, again, get to know the business, get to know your stakeholders, get to know the audience groups, understand their goals, ask those questions. Don't come in with like, I, I did this before. It'll work for you, you know, ask questions and listen.
And then my third tip, and this is gonna, this might sound a little Midwestern. Amanda , um, is to care. And I think we need more people who care and they care about the work they do. They care about the quality of the work they do, and they care about the people because when you are in internal communication, You have an opportunity to be an advocate for people and you need to care.
So that's it always, always be learning, be curious and care. Those are my three tips.
Amanda Berry: Beth. This has been so much fun. I, I just love talking to you. Oh likewise. Otherwise it's always a highlight of my day. What I'd like you to chat with you, but before I let you go, let our listeners know where they can find you.
yes.
Beth Collier: So LinkedIn, I, as Amanda, as you mentioned, I do share a lot of content about communication, creativity, and leadership on LinkedIn. Also, I have a newsletter that comes out every Friday called curious minds, which is always with a story that I have just been something I'm curious about. So it's a mixture of business and pop culture stories and things we can learn from them.
So that is Beth collier.dot. and then my website is Beth hyphen Collier. Don't forget the hyphen, or you will get someone who does something totally different. Beth hyphen collier.com. I also tend to write a story usually every week about something that's happening in, you know, the business world with, again, things that, that we can learn about.
So the website, my newsletter and LinkedIn, you can find me on those three places.
Amanda Berry: Awesome. Is there anything that we didn't cover today that you'd like to let our listeners know before we go?
Beth Collier: I think we've covered quite a bit, but I, I would say to people who work in communication, just take your job seriously.
It's an important service that we offer. So, you know, be courageous and, and share your ideas cuz the world needs, needs more of your skills. Thank you for joining
Amanda Berry: me today about this has
Beth Collier: been. Thank you, Amanda. It's been my pleasure. Thank you again for listening to this episode of the Cohesion podcast brought to you by Simpplr the modern internet software that simplifies the employee experience.
Learn more about how Simpplr can help you build a future of your employee experience at Simpplr dot. That's S I M P P L R.com
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