Lisa Bloch Helps Us Mix Candour with Communications at Work
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In this episode of Relationships at Work, Russel chats with communications expert and candour advocate Lisa Bloch on intentionally bringing candour into workplace communications.
A few reasons why she is awesome — she is the senior director of population health communications at Mount Sinai Health System with more than 30 years of experience in the communications field.
Connect with, and learn more about, Lisa on Linkedin
“When you’re working on candour, it’s good to focus on the facts of the story and not all of your emotions around it.”
Lisa Bloch
Russel Lolacher
And on the show today we have Lisa Bloch. And here’s why she is awesome. She is the Senior Director of population health communications at Mount Sinai Health System. And she’s got more more than she probably doesn’t want me to say this. But it’s, it’s, it’s a big deal more than 30 years of experience in the communications field, and most of its in the medical field. But truthfully, communications is communications, if I’ve learned that one thing. Hello, Lisa.
Lisa Bloch
Hi Russel. Glad to be here.
Russel Lolacher
Now, I started this a couple of shows ago where I want to start off every episode a bit with defining things. We’re gonna get into that because we’re talking candour today. And I’m really curious about how you define candour. But before we get there, we have to start here, which is the first question, which is what’s your best or worst employee experience, Lisa?
Lisa Bloch
All right, well, I’m going to go back in my time capsule to the late 90s. When I was in my, I guess, you know, mid to late 20s. I was working for a publishing company that was based in New York City International, though. And one of our sales executives came into town from England. And we were friendly. He he asked me when he saw me when my big day was, and I had recently gotten engaged. So I thought that’s what he was asking about. And I said something like, Go, we haven’t set a date, maybe in a year or so. And he said, No, not that. And he pointed to my belly, and he said, your big day for the baby. So you’re shaking your head. I was not pregnant, I put on a little weight. But I was not pregnant. I was mortified. And I explained to him that I wasn’t pregnant, he apologized. And I thought we were done. I thought that was the end of the story. Yet, it was not me, you know, we had a kind of jokey relationship with each other to begin with. But every time he came into New York, he asked me how the baby was and joked about it. And it wasn’t funny. It just it wasn’t funny. So it was a small company that I worked for, there was no HR department I could go to I went to our general manager to discuss it with him because I didn’t feel like it was something I could discuss with the executive. And the general manager was a very kind of honest, straight shooting guy. He reassured me that he would take care of it, I felt better, until he took care of it. When he took care of it, he sent an email to the sales executive and blind copied me, I guess, to show me that he was taking care of it. And I will never forget what the email said. It said, Dear so and so please refrain from commenting on the expanding girth of my employees. Anyway, that’s the end of my story.
Russel Lolacher
Oh, my God. There’s so much horribleness in that just to unpack.
Lisa Bloch
There is there is there. There’s a lot in there. And I you know, I I’d say I probably learned two things at the time. Well, obviously, I learned never to wear that outfit. Again, the one I was wearing when he thought I was pregnant. But the second lesson I didn’t learn until years later, which is, you know, if you’re if you’re if you’re going to be candid, if you’re going to be honest, authentic, you know, with your employees or with you know, with the people around you, like have some sensitivity and and compassion for the people that you’re you’re working with, you can’t have candour, and I guess we’ll talk about defining candour. But candour doesn’t mean you can say anything you want. And because you’re being honest, you know, and I truly don’t think that this person meant ill when he was speaking to the sales executive about not commenting on my expanding girth. I think he thought he was doing the right thing. I mean, it was horrible and inappropriate, and certainly wouldn’t pass muster today in today’s world. And I felt terrible about it at the time. And for a very long time afterwards. So much so that I will never forget what was said.
Russel Lolacher
Did they think they were being funny or with the email or was it like it? Was there any follow up from that email?
Lisa Bloch
No, there was no follow up and I don’t think he thought he was being funny. I think he was. That is That was how he saw things and that is how he communicated. he prided himself in telling it like it is and he always told it the way he saw it and the way he saw it wasn’t wasn’t always the most appropriate way to tell it. So…
Russel Lolacher
You just brought up one of my favourite phrases when it comes to masked candour, which is I’m just telling it like it is or I’m just being honest. And oh, I want to dig into all that. But before we start that path… “candour”. Now we always seem to have different definitions, or the Oxford dictionary or whoever dictionary seems to be really bad at defining things. Ie I looked up leadership the other day, and I kid you not, the Oxford Dictionary of leadership is to lead people, I’m like, you just repeated the word again, it’s not defining anything. So every organization is different, sometimes very personalized. But I like to set the table on what we’re even talking about. So Lisa, how, how do you define candour?
Lisa Bloch
I mean, I would say define candour as being honest and authentic, when you’re when you’re communicating. But again, it’s got to have that compassion component, that empathy component added onto it, you know, at the end, so it’s, you know, being being honest, clear, authentic, and conscious of who you’re communicating with, and the impact of your honesty, authenticity. And, you know, on on, on who you’re communicating with,
Russel Lolacher
Well, you gave a perfect example of how not to do candour, is there any experiences in your career that you can share that were candour was really well delivered and received?
Lisa Bloch
I’d have to say that, you know, in my, in my current role at Mount Sinai, we have a brand messaging toolkit that we use, and it kind of describes what our brand voices and it’s got things like, you know, we are clear, when we communicate, we are compassionate when we communicate. And speaking clearly means being as, as we were just talking about being honest, authentic, accessible. And this toolkit, you know, is for communicating with everybody, whether it’s employees, whether it’s you writing an email to the person sitting next to you, it’s communicating with our patients, or doctors. And I’ll just, you know, I’ll just give one example of, you know, how we how we can communicate more clearly, and when the, when our marketing department rolled this out, every communicator had to attend a session, where we actually sat together in small groups, we were given a paragraph of, you know, something to talk about, and we were asked to write it, you know, using this brand messaging toolkit, and we learned a lot of things like, speak, you know, clearly and honestly and use pronouns, you can use the word “I” when you’re, you know, if you’re a corporation, and communication is going from one person to other you can use the word “I”, you don’t always have to say “we”, there’s not this thing we behind everyone, but to speak with, you know, authenticity and say, you know, I, you, you’re thinking about how things affect, you know, the people that you’re talking with. And I have to say that, you know, the fact that the organization went through this, and when it’s a big organization, we’ve got a lot of people that are communicating and marketing and the fact that the organization took the time to make sure that everybody went through this training, and actually had a writing session where you got three minutes to write a sentence about X-Y-Z or, you know, and that can be unnerving to do to do that quickly and with other people, but I think that just speaks to the organization’s wish and desire for everyone to be authentic. And, you know, certainly during pandemic, we had a steady drumbeat of communications to staff, you know, from the organization, that were all candid about what’s going on within the health system, how many people are in the hospital with COVID? You know, that sort of thing. And I’ve I’ve really seen not to say that we weren’t candid before pandemic, but the organization became a lot more candid, like during those during those three years, and really making sure that, you know, we speak clearly and honestly and authentically, with our employees and all our constituencies.
Russel Lolacher
Is there a good and bad time for candour in the workplace? Sometimes it’s not always well received. So I’m just curious of your thoughts on candour. Here’s a great time for candour and here’s maybe, ya… no.
Lisa Bloch
There are definitely bad times for candour, you know, that expression where they say, you know, praise your team publicly, but give them criticism privately. If you’re in a meeting with a lot of people and a colleague, or someone who reports to you make some mistake or says something incorrectly, jumping in right there to say, You’re wrong. It’s not this, it’s that or, you know, what the heck are you talking about? That’s not what we discussed. That’s not what we discussed last week. That is not something that you do publicly in a meeting with other people. I think that there are tactful ways to correct someone in a meeting. You know, the expression where you say things like, let’s take that offline, or we’ll talk about that later. One place where I try not To be too candid, is in large meetings, you know, if I have an opinion that really differs from everyone, I’m not afraid to express it. But if I have an issue with someone or something that said, I don’t go at it like a dog with a bone and a meeting with other people, that’s not the place to have a frank conversation, when you could always talk to the person afterwards and say, like, what’s going on what happened? That’s not what we talked about. So that’s one place where I would definitely.
Russel Lolacher
When I when I hear when I hear the word candour, I also can’t help but think about power dynamics in an organization, because it sure seems like executive can be a lot more cancerous than somebody speaking, lower, quote, unquote, lower in an organization. So how do you handle that when we’re talking truth to power, or colleagues that might have a step up? Because the phrase that I’ve heard before, which is it’s a, it’s a career limiting move, if you are a little too honest, and I’m like, that’s a broken culture, if you’re starting to use terms like that. So how do you feel the power dynamics influence?
Lisa Bloch
Yeah, I’m glad you asked that question. Because it’s, it’s it’s come up and you know, it’s come up with my communications team, we we’ve discussed this quite a bit. Because a lot of our the people that we work with are physicians at Mount Sinai. And when you’re, you know, a senior communication specialist, and you’re sending, sending something to a physician saying, Hey, look at this, what do you what do you think? Do you approve this? We’re putting your name on it, and they give you edits? It’s hard to say, Hmm, can I rephrase that thing that you wrote just a little bit? Or can I Is it okay, if I tweak that. And, you know, I’ve spoken to my team about really making sure like, giving them like permission to say, I like what you said, I like what you did, I’m gonna you know, since we’re communicators, I’m just gonna gonna tweak it a little bit, and just maybe give you two ways, we could say it a different way. Because what can happen is you’re afraid to challenge or speak to someone because they’re, they’re a doctor, and number one, and, you know, uh, you know, here in America, we’ve all grown up to, you know, not challenged positions, and, and, frankly, when a physician or an executive rewrites something, and says, Can we say it this way, and my team comes back to them with a couple of other options or tweaks, they’re always fine with it, it’s really never been an issue. And really, it’s depends on what you’re being candid about, too. You know, with an executive, I can give somebody at a higher level than me feedback gently.
Russel Lolacher
People forget that candid, or any type of communications as a fellow communications nerd. It’s all relationship based, too. And I’ve seen some people start an organization and come out with a hammer, when it comes to being way too candid, and way too honest, when they don’t know how somebody’s going to receive that information or understanding as, as we both know, it’s all about the audience as much as about the community, the message being shared. So candid, as you said, is not a blanket, we’re just going to be honest, not realizing how the other person may or may not receive it. And that’s, that immediately also makes me think of culture. Because what’s candid to North American me is not the same of what candid means to say somebody from another country or another upbringing. So how do you approach that?
Lisa Bloch
You know, there’s something that we talk about at work. And on the leadership leadership team that I’m on, we talk about facts versus story. So when you’re being candid about something, try to stick to the facts. The facts are things that are directly observable. If somebody recorded a situation, the facts are the things that you can hear and see. And the story, the story is our, you know, interpretation of the facts is the way we put structure and meaning around what’s happening. And often the story can be the drama, you know, a facts could be. I mean, it could be something simple as the fact is that you do I’ve sent you three emails about something and you didn’t get back to me. The story I put in my head is that you’re not answering my emails, I’m taking it personally. You never answer my emails, you know, you don’t take you don’t take the work that I’m sending you seriously. Right. You know, why should I have to remind you three times to answer my email. So it’s best not to it’s best to think about, you know, what the facts are when you’re communicating. Candidly, you know, at work so you could say something like, I noticed you haven’t had I noticed you’re very busy and haven’t had time to review this email. Can I get 10 minutes on your calendar and we can we can just discuss this together, you know, rather than as per my previous email, emails of January 3 And February 7, Please review the test. Yeah, kind of like look at, you know, the facts versus story. Everybody’s got their stories, and we all have stories in our head. And we all you know, we all have our triggers and things that get our goat. But when you think about when you think about being candid and being straightforward and communicating, if you, if you stick to the facts, that you know, I’m in marketing, communications, I love to tell a story. That’s my job. But when you’re working on candour, it’s good to, it’s good to focus on the facts of the story, and not all of your emotions, you know, all of your emotions around it.
Russel Lolacher
I love that because, as you said, off the top candour being so much about truth, but truth is different for people based on their narrative based on what they believe in their experiences. So I love the idea of just if you stick to the facts, we can have our own interpretation of those facts. But the facts are the facts. And you did mention Mount Sinai had their own like branding, and I was immediately thinking you meant external, but really interesting to have it as an internal tool, that brand tone, and so forth. But who sets the tone when it comes to candour in an organization? What sets the model of behaviour for an organization does it need to be a branding toolkit? Because some organizations aren’t that big, some organizations are not feeling like they need to be as established when it comes to that tone. So who’s setting it?
Lisa Bloch
Leadership, the leadership sets the tone, if you have leadership, that is able to say something like, I screwed up, I screwed up. Sorry about that. Let me let me correct it. You know, it’s if you have leadership that are real, and can and, and, and approachable, and and, you know, are honest themselves, like they they set the tone, they set the tone. And one thing that I really like about Mount Sinai is that our leadership is accessible. I’ve worked in organizations where, you know, if you’re a manager, you talk to other managers, or maybe you can talk to a director, and then the director has to talk to the senior director, and then that person can talk to the VP, it’s not like that. Where I work, my my team, you know, and others, we have access to senior leadership, there’s a certain level of accessibility. And when you have that it can be a good or a bad thing. You know, where I work, it’s a good thing, because you can see the leaders walking the talk, or whatever they say, and when the leaders behave with candour, then that that trickles down, because people you know, that sets the tone.
Russel Lolacher
there’s certainly been a shift with and you brought up the pandemic earlier, certainly a shift with what employees expectations are. And I’m not saying those expectations didn’t exist before the pandemic, we’re just more emboldened to tell you what those expectations are now, specially for people leaving organizations or demanding certain things. How are you feeling candour has changed based on say, we’ll do a big event, like the pandemic.
Lisa Bloch
Since the pandemic, with so many people working remotely? And, you know, I’m thinking, you know, in the workplace, you know, it’s not so easy to pick your head up and look around and talk to the person next to you or walk by somebody’s office and get a quick answer to your question a lot, you know, a lot of communication is via, you know, teams messages or items, texts, and via email, and I’d say like, tons more is via, like, you know, where I work is via teams messaging, and, you know, texts and stuff like that, because it’s, you know, there’s, you kind of get a more immediate response with that than with email, although there’s certainly a lot more email too. I guess, coming back to the candour thing, I’ve noticed that it’s just there’s, there’s so much more written communication, that I, honestly, I have to say, it drives me crazy sometimes. And I just say, Look, can we just get on a 10 minute video call? Because I just can’t have this conversation, you know, just can’t have these conversations on text or whatnot. And I find that you still have a lot of five bazillion zoom meetings a day. But when you’re gonna have those one on one conversations and stuff, I’ve noticed that especially since pandemic, we’re working from home, and being able to talk freely, it’s really it’s like, so hard to do that, when you’re typing it all. And, I mean, that’s just one of my personal frustrations. And, you know, I know people can say, Oh, well, you know, it really depends on your age. You know, millennials want to do this more and it doesn’t even it doesn’t even matter. It’s a girl just grow human beings. And we need to be able to either speak face to face even if it’s on Zoom, and speak in real time to have candid conversations than to have, you know, a 20 minute long text conversation with someone.
Russel Lolacher
Difficult conversations are very are fierce conversations hard conversations are always a lot harder when you’re like “smiley face emoji.” But as people are bringing their personal forms of what they’re comfortable with and communications, and thinking it might work in a professional environment or a business environment, there at least needs to be I agree with you there needs and I’m, I’m all for trying to understand everybody’s different former communications and personalization, but it needs to come down to connection. And I really feel that connection needs to have that you can hear the tone of voice, you can see body language there just that that human connection really levels, the playing field, if you’re going to have a hard conversation.
Lisa Bloch
It does. And I think that you know, also, you know, since pandemic with Zoom, and every you know, and everything, everybody using zoom, you know, it kind of gives you I’m looking into your you know, your office right now it gives you a look into people’s home lives, and not everybody wants their work colleagues to see their home, see what the environment that they’re working in, you know, especially in New York City, if you’re living in an apartment, tiny apartment, and you’re, you’re sitting on your bed for the meat, I mean, you know, I mean, thank goodness, you can blur your background. And we have backgrounds that you can use where you don’t necessarily have an eye on but there’s, there’s something that you know about pandemic that really has been can can demonstrate like, it’s almost like an equality thing. I’m getting on a call with a bunch of people in some of them have beautiful offices in their homes. And I’m, you know, I’m sharing my apartment with 12 people in New York City. And I’m calling in from the corner of my bedroom. And I don’t want you to see that.
Russel Lolacher
That’s a form of candour. I mean, that’s them showing up as their authentic selves. And we all don’t get paid the same. We don’t get all valued the same. We’re at different points in our career, and people shouldn’t be punished because they’re being honest about where they live and how they live. And, yeah, that’s an interesting angle. I hadn’t thought of that from a candidate perspective of how you show up at work. How would you suggest addressing those that hide behind candour? And we kind of hinted that at the beginning of the, well, I’m just being honest, well, you know, I’m telling it like it is. And they’re like, Well, I’m just being you know, I’m giving candour, candour is one of the values of our organization, it’s on the, it’s on the poster on the wall for our values. So, how, how do you address that?
Lisa Bloch
It’s rough. Well, what I was in my 20s, and the story that I told you, I was in no position, no position at all to do address that, that honesty. But now that I’m a seasoned, I’ll say, a lot older, you know, I would say that, if someone is honest and brutal, and is hiding behind why I just, I’m just saying like it is I’m just telling the truth. I mean, I think you have to have to you have to remind the person that, you know, as I said earlier, that you need to be sensitive and kind as well, you can’t just be honest, you can’t just be transparent and say anything, if you’re not thoughtful of who your audience is who you’re talking to, you’re speaking to another human being that has feelings. And I mean, it’s one thing, you know, to be honest, like, you know, Russel, if you had food on your face, I would tell you, you know, that a good food on your face, or your track some toilet paper on your shoe, you know, I whisper to you and tell you all about it. But you know, if you you know, if if if you put your foot in it, you know, in a meeting or said something that that I thought, you know, I would again, not publicly, but I would ask to talk to you afterwards. And I would say you know, I just want to I want to let you know what the impact is, on how you said what you said, and maybe, you know, maybe instead of saying it this way, there might have been another way to say to be honest and say and say what you said. And as a communications person, I have this like, free pass to give people feedback all the time. Because I can always say I can always say, ah, as a communicator, I just want to give you a little feedback. And the thing is not everybody wants feedback. I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna go you know, I before I give anybody feedback, I asked if they wanted to, you know, especially, I don’t give feedback to people I have no relationship with. Because if you have no relationship with someone, they’re not going to want your feedback. So it’s, it’s, it’s polite to ask if they would you know, if somebody would like some feedback before giving it and if the answer is the answer is rarely No, but the answer can be no. And then you have to respect that.
Russel Lolacher
I want you to put your leadership hat on and your communications head on, as I’m sure you have a lot of experience with onboarding. Stay interviews throughout exit interviews throughout as a leader how How can you demonstrate to a new new employee that candour is okay? In those conversations? What are some tips you can provide for that?
Lisa Bloch
Some tips I could provide when interviewing candidates is, be honest yourself, when they ask questions, every you know, every candidate has asked the question, don’t tell me what it what’s a typical day, your company or what’s, what are the challenges you face? What keeps you up at night? Those sorts of questions. I mean, I’m not saying that, you know, when you’re when you’re onboarding someone, or you’re trying to encourage someone to join your company, that you that you put all your dirty laundry out for them, I mean, you want them to join the company, but being candid about, you know, what some of the challenges are for the position that, you know, you could say, well, for, you know, for this position, some of the challenges are, you know, XYZ, and we’re hoping that you in this role, can help us do ABC to, you know, to help those those challenges. And, you know, I mean, this, the same is true for, you know, bringing new people into an organization. No place is perfect. You know, every place has their room for improvement, or, you know, opportunities to make things better. So, when you’re onboarding new people, don’t onboard them by saying, Okay, I’m going to have you meet with Joe, who runs this department, you know, he’s a real pain, you know, he’s not going to, you know, he’s probably not going to give you a lot of time and just make the best of it, you’re not gonna like, try and be that candid. I try and I try my best not to colour…, you know, when when people are coming in new, fresh and new and meeting other people, I try my best, I don’t always succeed, but I do try my best not to colour their impression, let them have their own first impression of a company and the people that they’re that they’re working with, you know, and again, I just, you know, I could say it again. And again, the best way to show that candour is appreciated in our organization is to demonstrate it yourself.
Russel Lolacher
And a bunch of those conversations probably get a lot more honest, as you go through that employee journey, because you have shared experiences, you’ve built the relationship even more between you and the person you’re talking to, through those state interviews, right into the exit interview, where everybody can be super honest.
Lisa Bloch
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. But, you know, I mean, with that, if you’re not candid, you know, if the, if there isn’t some level of candour, you know, with your employees, or your colleagues, like, people aren’t going to speak up when something’s wrong. If you don’t feel safe to speak up, when something goes wrong, you’re not going to like ring the bell and say, Wait a second, there was a mistake here, let’s see how we can get together and fix this. You’re not gonna say anything. Because you don’t feel safe, you don’t feel like you know, you don’t have that trust with your leadership. So it really behooves an organization to be as candid as possible. Because when when stuff happens, and stuff will happen. You want employees that are that have each other’s backs that have your back, and then I’m going to work together towards solutions.
Russel Lolacher
Candour is an absolute trait of a healthy organization, because if you don’t have it, then all those things like you said, if we’re not, if we don’t have candid conversations, then bad things are going to fester and fester and fester. Because nobody’s doing anything about it or know about it. Right. So Lisa, I have to finish by asking you the question I ask all of my guests, which is what’s one simple action people can do right now to improve their relationships at work?
Lisa Bloch
I would have to go back to the facts versus story thing that I spoke about, you know, when you’re when you’re being handed, and you’re you’re you’re you’re speaking with people, and especially when you’re addressing bad things, issues, problems. Think about how you can communicate the facts think about how you’re feeling what are you know, what is this problem bringing up for you? What’s your story, you know, around this and and try to stick try to stick to the facts around the situation. Without getting all of your emotions. I’m not saying don’t have emotions, we all do and you have to acknowledge your own emotions and those of those around you. But trying to start with the facts and not letting yourself get all heated up with stories is a good way to to be candid
Russel Lolacher
Self awareness. It’s a superpower. That is Lisa Block. She is a candour advocate. I’m adding that and senior director of population health communications at Mount Sinai Health System. Thank you so much for being here. Lisa.
Lisa Bloch
Thank you.
