Impossible to Describe: A Letter Home, from the Leadership Communication Academy

What is executive communication precisely, and what all do you need to know to be great at it?

Exactly a half-decade since the founding of the Executive Communication Council—and at the beginning of yet another deeply disorienting moment in institutional leadership communication—this seemed like a very good moment to dig deep.

And deep, these 20 exec comms pros dug this week at the University of Chicago’s Gleacher Center in downtown Chicago, with master teacher and communicator Helio Fred Garcia, who has for almost 40 years taught leaders of major institutions how to communicate—many of those years along with his daughter and co-teacher Katie Garcia. Now, the Garcias brought this wisdom for the first time to a cohort of serious executive communication professionals, at the first-ever session of the Leadership Communication Academy.

Of course it is impossible to describe 16 hours of instruction covering thousands of years of leadership communication, beginning with Aristotle, drawing deeply on early warfighting theorist Carl von Clausewitzand pulling from Warren Buffett (who believes he owes his career to Dale Carnegie) and acquainting ourselves with our professional founder, PR pioneer Edward Bernays, with whom only a couple of the 20 participants claimed familiarity. “Name rings a bell,” one said.

The Garcias also drew from contemporary thinkers like Simon Sinek, Nancy Duarte, Brené Brown and Richard Restak—and the revolutionary research in neuroscience that has changed fundamental understandings of how persuasion does and does not work.

It’s impossible to count the number of sometimes unpleasant but undeniable truths dished out so articulately by these instructors. But then, as Fred Garcia also said, quoting John Dewey, “A problem well-defined is a problem half-solved.”

It is impossible and (and would be a betrayal of confidence) to describe the level of anxiety and frustration and borderline bewilderment expressed by many of these exec comms pros from corporate, higher-ed and nonprofit sectors in quiet conversations over beers at the nearby Billy Goat Tavern. I summed it up in my notebook the next day, “It feels like persuasion isn’t persuasive anymore.” The feeling is: Every professional knot is Gordian and words don’t work and leaders are damned if they do and damned if they don’t in the middle of an existential quandary for every institution in the room. In such a crisis, a leader’s minimum role is to express caring for troubled stakeholders—and even expressions of caring can draw fire from newly empowered members of an opposition. Where have you gone, Ed Bernays?

And still, it’s impossible to describe the disciplined work earnestly delivered by these participants in response to rigorous homework and in-class assignments. They applied Leadership Communication Academy concepts to the current communication problems faced by their far-flung organizations operating from both sides of the Atlantic. And if they did not solve all those problems, they clarified their thinking and they will help the leaders they serve—did you read yesterday about the barbed-wire fence American CEOs find themselves perched upon at the moment?—clarify their own.

And it’s impossible to describe the emotional camaraderie that bonded these strangers …

… over two days of drinking together from a deep and nourishing cup of leadership communication wisdom, to become the very first of what we hope to be many, many executive communication professionals to call themselves …

… and more importantly, to be more equipped to meet the challenges of work that has never been more difficult, nor more important, than it is right now.

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The Executive Communication Council hasn’t yet opened registration for the second class of Leadership Communication Academy, but to join a waiting list, write to Jennifer Mazurek, at [email protected]. —ed.