Tuesday, January 03, 2017

Consistency & Simplicity: Keys to an Effective Message

In a recent New York Times Corner Office column, Adam Bryant interviewed John Lilly, a partner at Silicon Valley venture capital firm Greylock Partners.  Lilly offered this leadership lesson that he learned early in his professional career.  I find it particularly useful as a new year begins.  Many leaders will be trying to offer explanation of their vision for the coming year.  It's worth heeding Lilly's advice.  

I didn’t understand the role of simplicity and messaging early on. One of the things that happened at one of my start­ups was that I would get bored saying the same thing every day. So I decided to change it up a little bit. But then everybody had a different idea of what I thought because I was mixing it up. So my big lesson was the importance of a simple message, and saying it the same way over and over. If you’re going to change it, change it in a big way, and make sure everyone knows it’s a change. Otherwise keep it static.

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