Radio Show #645 Using Communication Intelligence tools and tactics to Collaborate better

Speaker A: Foreign. Raising the profile of employee engagement and shining a light on good practice for people who believe there's a better way to work.

Speaker B: Hello and welcome to Engage for Success radio and show. Would you believe it, 645 in the weekly series, Engage for Success is a not for profit movement and the UK's leading voice on the topic of employee engagement. We are out there raising awareness and running events through our, uh, area networks right across the country and our topic and sector specific thought action groups are developing research, publishing case studies and highlighting all the best practice that's going on out there. To find out more, please visit engageforsuccess.org and while you're there, why not sign up for our weekly newsletter, ensuring you never miss out on any of our excellent free resources, events and updates. And yes, I'm Andy Gorham, your host for today's show and the founder of Biz Juicer, the employee engagement and culture change consultancy that helps growing organizations become stickier from the inside out by helping them attract, keep and develop great people. Now, today, today we're talking about something I reckon we all think we're marvellous at communicating. Yet despite spending hours every day talking, emailing, messaging and meeting, many organizations still lose enorm amounts of time and money through misunderstandings, unnecessary conflict and conversations that simply don't land the way they were perhaps intended. So perhaps communication isn't actually the problem. Perhaps understanding is the problem. And my guest today believes that communication intelligence, or cq, is becoming one of the defining leadership capabilities of the modern workplace. Alexandra Lemanska works with technology leaders to improve engagement using her proprietary CQ leadership method, which is built around the internationally recognized process communication model, helping leaders understand why intelligent, well intentioned people so often misread one another, particularly when they're under pressure. So in what is going to be an incredibly packed 30 minute conversation, we're going to try to explore why smart people misunderstand each other, how better communication drives engagement, and why understanding people may become one of the greatest competitive advantage organizations can develop. Alexandra, welcome to the show.

Speaker A: Hi Andy. Thank you for having me so excited.

Speaker B: Oh, I mean, I can tell. I mean, no one else can see this. I can see you and you've got the biggest smile on your face already waiting to communicate, which is your hot topic. So I don't want to waste too much time, uh, going on about what we're going to talk about. Let's just get on and talk about it, if that's okay. You, um, have built a career specifically helping technology leaders Improve engagement. Right. Um, but your work, your work isn't just traditional engagement stuff. It's focused very specifically and starts with communication. Right. So what first led you down this path? When was your light bulb moment going, hey, this is a thing for me and I can help people. What, what happened?

Speaker A: Yeah. So funny. Not funny story. I'm going to use 30 seconds of our precious time to, to go through a history line down the line and, and uh, and tell it because I, I discovered it, it wasn't very, it wasn't something that I've, I, I've, I was aware of at the very beginning because, you know, the tech part and the technology and it and uh, engineering came afterwards. But, but um, because I'm an engineer from my first degree and um, a psychologist and business psychologist from the second. But um, I'm a violinist from my previous life, so I was a violinist and I already actually started a study, uh, on the Academy of Music here in Poland. And I always was a eighth straight A grade student, of course, of course. Uh, and uh, it wasn't possible for me to not pass with the best grade. And I had two schools, the regular school and the musical school. 12 years of musical education before I head to the University of Music. So it was, it was very complex for a kid and then teenager. And um, when I started to, I started to be a musician, uh, a professional musician at the university. Uh, I've, uh, I've, I had a great grade. Of course, I was leading orchestras. I was playing out in different orchestras all around Poland and in Europe as well. But to be in Poland at least to be a great orchestra player, you need to be a great solo player as well. And back then, it was years ago, I had a tremendous stress, paralyzing stress level while playing solo, uh, that I didn't have while leading, playing in different orchestras and great scenes, uh, in different cities. So I didn't have tools that I have today to cope with that. So I failed one exam, I failed the other exam having the greatest grades from other exams and dean of the university. So the third semester of the university, the dean, she asked me to meet her and she told me, hey, you know what? I think you should quit.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker A: And I was like the first thought in my brain, I'm not a quitter. How dare you talking to me like that. And um, it was a dean in university that you should support your students, you should ask them questions, you should see what is happening, why they're struggling and find solutions together with them. But she was like, hey, Maybe we should, you should quit. And uh, then I say, hey, watch me. Right? So then I went to the other exam and I failed again. And then I started to. And I was 22 back then. I was, I was young, I had, I had my whole life in front of me. And um, long story short, I decided to quit at the end of the day. And then the University of Technology came. So I started to. Because I was using my engineering brain all of my life. Because music is very much algorithm, right. So it is very much repetitive and patterns and everything. So I decided to go into engineering more. And then I went and started my HR career, um, in engineering as well. Because I was the only HR person that actually spoke the language of IT and technology. So that's why I was, you know, I was working with it. Because you speak the language, they are going to work with you. And then it hit me and I decided I don't want for anybody to experience something like that that I experienced. Mhm. Maybe you should quit. Maybe you're not good enough. Maybe a different career is for you and that it appears that the different career is there for me. But the way she communicated that it should never happen to anybody in any career or industry, you name it. So I combined those experiences and right now I'm running the agency, ah, that is helping leaders mostly in tech, uh, in leading teams and organizations and startups as well that don't experience that and they love what they do and the uh, environment that they work in is so is there for them, not burning them out?

Speaker B: Well, I mean the. Goodness me, I mean the whole episode. We could just dig into what you've just talked about. I started off feeling incredibly uh, inadequate with 2 degrees and a violinist of some quality. Uh, and then I felt like uh, sad and emotional when someone told you to quit. Um, and then we think about it and the work that you're doing now, why it is it because they're not necessarily people, focused people and so very technically gifted. Is that why there was a sort of focus on it particularly you saw a big issue with communication and engagement here.

Speaker A: I see the patterns. Mhm. And um, yes, the social skills, we are not naming soft skills anymore, of course social skills, the power skills, ah, were neglected in engineering and in tech for years. And we are recording at the very end of June 2026 and we know what is happening right now, that social skills, power skills are actually a huge leverage when it comes to being in tech and being human. And compared to what is what tech is doing is doing to the market right now, on the market. So, um, yes, it was neglected, so I saw the gap, but I also saw, and I'm seeing it all the time, a lot of patterns in behavior. Um, how people react is very repetitive. And it is connected with how you, how your personal structure looks like and how, uh, you see the world through what kind of lenses you see the world, what kind of beliefs you have about the work, who you should be, what the work environment should look like for you, who your boss should be, uh, and, uh, around that. I've decided to use my algorithmical brain that was created years ago to give people algorithm tools for humans. So people are very algorithmical and their behaviors are repetitive and there are solutions to address that. And people love that because it is not putting people in the, in, uh, the buckets. It's more like awareness about what is happening for me, what is for happening with them because of some stimuli or some situations or some environmental pieces that they are in and making something and doing something with that. Because this is the role of the leader, especially right now, to create environment for people and uh, and be with them. Not from the empathetic perspective, because we know eq, emotional intelligence. And for some leaders, especially in tech, the emotional part is not very much adequate because they don't have access to that in their personality structure. So data language of data language of information, struct, structures, processes, is better, uh, shaped, better tailored for them and this language they speak. So this is, this is what I,

Speaker B: what I, I like it. I mean, you're ticking so many of my boxes, Alexandra. I, I, I'm, we were talking about

Speaker A: efficiency of the conversation.

Speaker B: So, hey, now listen, so you've dropped in a couple of bits and pieces here already. So look, we're all for, Well, I say we're all. I don't want to make the assumption, but, uh, if I speak personally, I'm very familiar with iq. I'm very familiar with, um, eq. Um, and so you've introduced in this conversation and in the world this idea about, um, communication, intelligence, if it's not being rude, why do we need another intelligence? What's, what's the difference with this one? Um, what, what are we trying to get at here? I, I think you started to lead into this already, but just tell us a bit more about that, please.

Speaker A: Of course. So as I mentioned, people are very much algorithmical when it comes to communication as well. So people are repetitive in their behaviors, in their reactions and thoughts. That, that we, all our brains, even when we don't say it out loud. So we think things about other people, their behaviors, what they do or don't do. And uh, communication intelligence is about recognizing those patterns and using solutions and adequate uh, tailored answers or um, approaches a blueprint to get in contact with other person. Because we never, and I never saw it anywhere before that uh, they're talking about communication like it is not about speaking or writing as you mentioned in the intro, to somebody the way we like. Because this is the easiest thing for us to do because of course I communicate as I like and as I want for other people to communicate with me. And this is the most natural thing in the world because this is the easiest one. But the thing is that most of the miscommunication, most of the conflicts, misunderstandings, emails, slack messages, teams messages, you name it, that actually is a waste of time because we are just bumming each other within messages is sufficient because we are, I'm talking with, from my needs, you're talking from your needs, and we're not speaking the same language. And the interesting thing is that the same part of the brain is biologically is responsible for speaking foreign languages. Like we are speaking in uh, in, in English right now. We both know the language. But if I start speaking to you in Polish right now, you're like, I'm screwed. Uh, you know you're screwed. And the same is with that communication intelligence. If I speak to you with data, uh, information, structure, logic, and you speak the language, you're nodding, means that you're speaking my language like English. But if I start to speak to you, Andy, I don't feel that, um, I, I don't, I don't feel very well. And you're like, oh, come on, I don't understand you because this part of my brain, uh, it doesn't have those tools to understand you. It's the same thing. So on the neurological level, biological level and psychological level, we need those tools to be self aware, to recognize those patterns in others and then once we have it, to tailor the communication to what people need, not what we necessarily need.

Speaker B: This is really interesting because it feels like there are some links with work around like um, personality, behavior, preference. So even if you took kind of broad Jungian theory, we like to communicate in different ways, we like to receive information different ways, like to behave, we have preference, we have access to other skills, some in short supply, some in great supply. This is perhaps though a stronger framework or more supporting scaffolding to uh, talk the right language in a way that someone is going to understand Here and then be able to kind of act. Act on.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Ultimately, which, which is, which is a little bit more detailed. Right. Which is a little bit more supportive, um, than just, well, this person's a red. Um, so they like things in short and sweet. They like it in bullet points. You know, move on. This feels like there's more of a construct behind it than, Than that. Right?

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: Um, one of the things I think in the, in the bit of research I got to do, uh, on you, which I, whenever I say that out loud, always sounds really creepy. It's not meant to at all.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Um, is that you're very clear that often people are communicating perfectly clearly, but just not in the way the other person can kind of comprehend. And why, why do we still. When we're smart people and yet this is happening all the time, are we just in our own heads, uh, are we not thinking enough about the other person? In all the work and research you're doing, what are the common pitfalls that we seem to be just hurling ourselves into?

Speaker A: Yeah. Yes, we are super intelligent. And this is iq, right. So highly intelligent. When, when it comes to the regular intelligence, let's put it that way. And a lot of people are very well educated, are very, um, open even to do it. But two things are happening. The first thing is that they just don't have the skill. Easy, simple. Because nobody ever taught us at school, for example, that maybe we know people are different. Whoa. It's a rocket science. Right. But as you mentioned, it is so much more than you're red, I'm green, or I'm, um, blue. And nothing wrong with like the, the easiest way to, to go into this world. Because if nobody ever showed you that, that simple insight or disc or something like that, it is great to get familiar with that because that way it

Speaker B: lifts the mist immediately. Right. Gives you some bigger perspective.

Speaker A: Yeah, good. That process communication model that you mentioned. So PCM and the whole communication intelligence is so much deeper because it m. Says to you what is happening, but most importantly, why is it happening and what to do with that, Especially under stress and pressure. Because if things are okay, we are good most of the time. You know, you can use your brain and uh, you can figure it out, of course, with the goods, you know, knowledge part and then tools. But under stress, under pressure, in distress, as we say. So in the negative stress, you don't have connection between your brain and your spine. So you are out of, you know, you're just behaving like a completely different person from time to Time. And after you combat yourself, you're saying something to yourself like what the hell just happened? I meant I. I don't even recognize a person that I. I've been. Did you ever had a situation like that, Andy? Just me? No, never. About those people who are doing that. Right. And this is because we are different people under stress. And then when things are okay because um, something is, it's not just working with our, within our brain. So communication intelligence is not about being nuts. Don't have. Not having it. Not smart enough. But we just don't have skills. So this is the first thing that I see. And the second thing is that just our brains are overloaded all the time with everything that is happening. Endless task lists, endless hats that we are wearing. Changing, uh, changing subjects, changing context. So if I need to add another thing to my plate, I need to observe myself. I need to be more observant about and curious about others. I need to recognize the patterns. Sometimes this is just too much. And uh, our brain is just resigning and quitting whatsoever. So people are just coming back to old habits. It's like with any other habit.

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker A: Because our brain knows it because you repeated it for years now. So I think those two.

Speaker B: Okay, well I'd uh, maybe come back to that stress thing. I'd like to dig into that. Um, if I haven't got this wrong. Uh, as a communication expert and listening to these patterns. Right. I think I read somewhere that in just a very small amount of time you can work out how people need and like to communicate. So what are the sort. What are some of the patterns that you're looking for? What are the, what are the little clues that you're picking up? The tells that perhaps the rest of the audience could really do with understanding? Alexandra.

Speaker A: Yeah, of course. So actually um, the simplest thing that you can do is to take an email or a uh, slack or teams message from person that you cooperate with. So you can just do it right now, 30 seconds and then you need at least three sentences. Let's say two. Three sentences is a good first part of the analyzing. Uh, who is there, uh, at the other side to make a strong hypothesis who on who is there? From the personality based perspective, we all have six parts of personality that are linking their condo. Uh, and one is always the strongest one. So in practice what you can do is to follow the breadcrumbs. So you are looking for keywords that are most, most, most repetitive when it comes to especially the written communication that is just in front of your friends. You don't need to listen even not going to listening part yet so easy. And there are six, only six options. So it's like not infinite. Uh the first one mentioned already data. So if you have bullet points, information, um, uh, keywords like I think uh the data says the uh information that we have the chart is saying as the numbers are the deadlines in an information straight to the gate that's like well designed, no bs, no emojis or anything like that. Clear communication like just computer to computer. So this is the first. The second one is more about opinions and values. So it's going to be something like in my opinion, in my view for me personally or the question what kind of value it can bring. Shoulds and musts are there as well. Uh, so we should do something or we must do something or mustn't do something. This is the second one, the third one the language of actions. Okay, no more talking. Let's do things. Let's try it out and we are going to iterate and we will see what is going to happen. Chop chop. Just somebody like that just try to change. Let's do things. The fourth one, emotions. So I feel or I have a feeling or we need to take care of other people because it's going to influence the atmosphere or how they feel or how they treat the environment that they work. So emotions harmony work environment connected with humans and actually putting the human in the center of everything. But the language of emotions is pretty pretty well um what is the sign? The fifth one reactions I like something or I don't like something, I hate it or I love it so very were very quick reactions to what is happening. 01 no shades of gray. I lost something or I hate something. And a lot of um language connected with slogans or cursing sometimes so those people who are very much into into contact sometimes they are just fooling around or sometimes something like. And the sixth one, the language of reflections. So I imagine in my head I can see uh, I have this picture in my brain that and they see things sometimes they are visionary but not always especially if they have a lot of analytical perspective. So I see three options to resolve the problem that we're talking about. For example so I see it in my brain so only 6 the question is in those short email or short message which language repeats the most is the m most repetitive. And this is your hypothesis easy.

Speaker B: I mean it is. I mean when you break it down like that it sounds really really simple. The thing is I think we just take the communication element of Our lives for totally for granted. Right? Um, we just don't even really analyze it or think about it. And like you said, most of the time if you're someone like me who talks while they're thinking, you've got no idea what's coming out anyway. So most of the time you're surprised, which is a lovely state to be in. Uh, unless you say things where you really shouldn't, then that's a bad place to be. Um, but in this, maybe this is where um, some of the issues come out. Right? Because if we did spend a little time analyzing or perhaps a little bit more consciousness about what we were talking about and how it was coming across, maybe the issues associated with all the poor communication, um, would be less so. Right? Because there must be, I mean you must see loads of it in your work. The amount of frustration caused by poor communication that leads to work that isn't needed, done or in the wrong area. And frustration then leads to animosity and conflict between people in teams and that ruins performance, shatters cultures and everything goes from there. Right? So this is right at the heart of it all.

Speaker A: Yes, that's true. And the truth is that uh, we all do it, myself included, that we assume a lot. So we assume that people should do things because for example, I have a senior person in my team, so they should, should know better, they should, what they should do. And uh, it is, it is almost never the truth because we assume so much that we expect for other people to do that, but it is not happening. And then we are frustrating that people are not behaving in a way we actually want them to behave which is way outside of our influence zone. Um, and uh, the vicious cycle continues because we know we are not speaking directly with. Okay, okay, with good intentions, not in an aggressive way or uh, pushy way, but to actually say out loud what we mean. And there is another layer of cultural differences of high context and low context. Here we go. Even between us, um, myself from Poland, yourself from uk and we have our differences when it comes to saying things directly or saying things more middle context, let's say. So it is another layer that especially if you're leading in a, ah, multi, um, cultural environment and global organization or even having a local team but made of people from different cultures. It is another thing for another conversation.

Speaker B: Of course we've had those, we've had ah, those conversations on cultural differences before with guests. And it sounds obvious about the, how you say what you say being a thing, but I mean it really is. I Mean, um, I've worked with some wonderful people from Poland who have no problem at all being very direct with me and me being a soft, lovely man, uh, will take that to heart, sometimes unnecessarily. So you know, it's, and then that, that causes all sorts of uh, behavioral issues that again, not intended, just misinterpreted or perhaps a lack of understanding.

Speaker A: And good, good news is that communication intelligence is immune to cultural differences. So, so from the perspective of personality structure, it is as you mentioned in the intro as well. PCM is a global tool and actually uh, is talking about how we are constructed from the personality perspective and what kind of advantages and uh, risks are there connected, especially with the behaviors under stress or pressure. Um, of course we need to take uh, into consideration the layer of the cultural differences. But if um, somebody is in, the audience is listening and you are leading uh, a global team or people who are from different cultures in different countries, you're going to actually put one umbrella on, um, everything and zoom out and use the communication intelligence muscle to manage different situations, different contexts and different perspectives by using the same tool. And I think it's a huge relief.

Speaker B: Yeah. I wanted to ask you before we run out of time and it feels like a bolt on question. It's not. It's linked to what you've just sort of said. Because using this piece of muscle as you've just sort of said, in the world of AI, there's a danger, I guess we just chuck a sentence into Claude or ChatGPT and say communicate this to someone for me and we don't build that muscle. And um, I don't know, it feels like in the age of AI this stuff's even more important, not less important. What would you say to that?

Speaker A: Yeah, I agree and I will say um, even something, maybe it's something unpopular. Unpopular. But hey, uh, we are as we are here for saying unpopular opinions as well. So I'm going to use this airtime to do it. People are asking me all the time during workshops or mentoring sessions or after keynote speech. Alex, can I put everything into my LLM and M, teach it how to communicate and essay. Hey, you can do whatever you want. You can use it to create a brief for the conversation. Uh, you can create a draft of an email, you can create a draft of the difficult conversation feedback conversation you need to run, for example. Of course use it. But you need to run this conversation. You need to uh, talk with your people. This is not something that the uh, tech is going to replace you anytime soon, let's be honest about it. Right, so you can send an email, but then you need to have this conversation because this is your job as a leader. It is not going to be done for you by a, uh, tech stock that you are using in your organization. So use it for, to not start with a blank page, but this is a, uh, uh, framework, ah, that you can use and you can use a piece because this is something that I've done in my book as well. Checklists, pieces of framework, a blueprint. This is for you, use it. But then you're the person who needs to talk with others and this is something that, that AI or any other tech that is going to come in, uh, the following years is going to replace you.

Speaker B: So there's the tip for tomorrow, gang. When you go back to work, listen to Alex. And you've got to be the one to have the conversation, not plug it into a bot. Um, Alex, I can't believe the half an hour has just gone already. Thank you for going. I've loved, I've loved listening to you and talking to you. If people would like to find out a bit more about you, pcm, uh, cq, the book. Where can they track you down, my friend?

Speaker A: Uh, I think the best, um, the plus place is my website. Everything is going to be there. So lemonskills.com as a site, I'm super, uh, active on LinkedIn as well. So you can find me over there. Um, uh, and there's a podcast as well. So if you are more interested in listening to, uh, more info about cq, about how to use it, about, um, case studies and different things. The Lemon Tech Leadership Podcast. Information about it is on the website as well. So one step shop for everybody.

Speaker B: Brilliant. Well look, um, thank you so much for coming on. Unfortunately, that's all the time that we have today. Um, don't Forget, everybody, visit EngageWithSex.org uh, check out the show notes from this show. Explore all the free employee resources. Download this show or any of the previous shows for that matter. We're going to be back at the same time next week. I'm Andy Gorham and thanks for listening to Engage for Success Radio.

Speaker A: Engage for Success Radio. Raising the profile of employee engagement and shining a light on good practice for people who believe there's a better way to work.