I have a new series on Youtube I’ll be doing highlighting some of the things managers like to say that are often misplaced, tone-deaf, and lead to trust and respect issues. Not that these things can never be said, there’s a right and wrong way

Golden Ginko Tree - Wikimedia commons cc3.0

Japan's second-largest tourist agency was mystified when it entered English-speaking markets and began receiving requests for unusual sex tours. Upon finding out why, the owners of Kinki Nippon Tourist Company changed its name.

The saga of the Golden Tree travel agency was a memorable lesson in my college marketing class. As was the Chevy "Nova"'s entry into Latin-American markets ("No Va" means "doesn't go in Spanish). And Vicks cough syrup in Germany (Vicks is a dirty word there).

The lesson is simple: listen.

Ugly Sonic. Pic used under Fair Use Doctrine

How is it that companies put all the money and effort into building out a marketing strategy in a country and never think to talk to the people who live there and could easily warn them long before they created confusion (or offense)? It would be like a major movie studio taking a beloved video game character and creating a model of him that looked like a frumpy middle-aged resident of the deepest and most forgotten corner of the "uncanny valley" and then being surprised when there was severe public backlash.

It's honestly absurd and amateur to make these kinds of mistakes and each of them come from the same root cause: lack of a listening culture. You hire people because they're professionals at what they do so why wouldn't you listen to what they have to say? Why wouldn't you seek out their expertise before making a critical mistake that requires damage control from simple embarrassment to millions of dollars of wasted money?

Bottom line, companies are going to keep making these kinds of mistakes and we'll continue to laugh at them when they do, but if your goal is to be an effective and respected leader, not only hearing what your people are saying, but making proactive efforts to get their input is the basics of the basics. After all, how are you a leader if the only voice you hear is your own?

Employees are allies, not the adversary

Inside the US’s most secretive spy agency, dedicated employees protect our national security interests while suffering a level of toxicity that could send nuclear lizards tap-dancing through downtown Tokyo. From multi-million-dollar boondoggle contracts to therapy-inducing tools and processes, employees stood silently by while the agency measured waste in seven+ digits.

"But why? Why – when managers and execs are authentically doing everything they can to be open and approachable – do employees insist on keeping their distance? Why do they stay silent on critical issues until it's too late? And how do they then justify scoring leaders down for 'communication' on the company survey year after year?!"

The answer is simple: if you had succeeded in building a culture of collaboration… one where employees feel invited and safe to openly raise objections and issues, then they would.

In Are You LIstening? I explain how easily despair and dysfunction are overlooked when leaders – no matter how personable, charismatic, and well-intentioned – assume they've made every reasonable concession to an endlessly demanding workforce when, in reality, their efforts create an "us vs them" gap so wide, it could draw paying tourists (and waste enough dollars to fill it back up again).

Using stories and examples cultivated from 16 years with the National Security Agency, I will demonstrate the difference between what is and isn't listening. I will share the significant consequences of treating your workforce as an adversary instead of an ally.

Part of our dysfunctional culture is that dissent too often is regarded as form of disloyalty, of not being a team player. Yet to say nothing is tacit consent. Those who desire deep and durable change in our “corporate” culture need to gain the mature understanding that sometimes one’s most harsh critic is one’s most sincere friend.

–E. Writer

Sign up for mail updates for the publishing of Are You Listening, Lessons in Waste, Abuse, and Mismanagement from the Agency that Doesn't Listen and get a complimentary copy of my promotional mini-book, Reflections on an NSA Career!

Get updates!

Read more about the book here • Read a preview of the mini book here

Reaching out to the public openly is a good leadership trait

(Image is in the Public Domain)

I've seen this before with other famous people like Shigeru Miyamoto, but this is the first member of Congress I've seen. Perhaps this marks a shift in our leaders to using technology to help us interact with them. We can hope.