Expert Kelly Watkins and the changing world of business communication
Kelly Watkins' recent trip to Dubai took her on a whirlwind tour of leadership guidance, from a session with the members of Dubai Business Women's Council (DBWC) to a panel before the student attendees of the Harvard Project for Asian and International Relations (HPAIR) conference.
Watkins, the president of Expressive Concepts and a leadership expert of 21 years who has led workshops on every continent and penned five books, is well equipped for dispensing leadership advice to all types of communities. As a Global Ambassador for The International Alliance for Women and the founder of both the online Leadership Academy for Global Women and the Leadership Foundation for Arab Women website, she has a particular focus on what it takes for women to succeed in the professional sphere.
Watkins began her journey to international leadership expertise as an outgoing student at the renowned Kelley Business School of Indiana University in the Midwest region of the United States. Following degrees in Marketing and International Management, and with a vision of being one of the first female CEOs of a multi-national corporation, Watkins launched herself into the corporate world.
"Two years of working in corporate America and I hated it," Watkins recounted bluntly in an interview with Capital Business. "I thought...oh know, what now?" Knowing her natural talents in speaking and her passion for teaching and sharing, Watkins dwelled on what she could do to change the corporate inefficiency swirling around her.
"One of the things that frustrated me so much about corporate America was how ineffective it was on communication[SO1] ," Watkins said. "Everyone was wasting time because they weren't communicating clearly. And I looked around and said, 'I could make such a different if I could just help them communicate better."
The thought formed the premise and goal of Watkins' now numerous articles and speeches. How can we, as professionals in any business environment, communicate more effectively?
She identifies our communication challenges as being both small and large-scale. "It's a lack of individual communication skills; meaning writing poor emails, speaking poorly, not adapting to your environment. These are the vital interpersonal skills, simply not being socially aware," she said.
"And then on a bigger picture its communication within the company. In other words, 'I have information, but I'm not going to share it with you because I can have my own little power'--we call those people silos," Watkins said, referring to solitary, stand-alone storage towers that are a frequent sight in Midwest America. "But that's harmful. Because if you share your information, and we share it together, then we can be so much more effective for the company."
The evolution of communication in business
Over her 21 years as a speaker and consultant, the needs of communication in business have changed drastically, as both new technology and new generations entered the professional world. "This whole buzzword of the 'global economy,' is true. We have in 20 years become much more global because of those two things; technology in general, but specifically email and tele- and videoconferencing, and how they allow us to do business," Watkins said.
"When I first started speaking about communication there was no email," Watkins recalls. As one of the first speakers discussing email, she wrote and published a book, Email Etiquette Made Easy, which she continues to update as new communication challenges come to the horizon. After email saw teleconferencing, then videoconferencing as new platforms of business communication.
Another unique challenge in communication springs up with each new age group entering the professional sphere. "Each time we have a new generation in the workforce we have a whole new set of problems," Watkins admits. "We have a strong representation from at least 3 groups in the workforce right now," she said, referring to the Millenials, Generation Y, and Baby Boomers. "But generationally, behavior styles are tools to help us understand how we adapt our communication to others. Once we understand ourselves, then we can understand other people and we can adapt."
Women in leadership
In her years as a speaker on communication and leadership, Watkins has taken a special interest in women's roles in the business sphere.
"All leaders need good communication skills, it doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman," she clarifies outright. "However...women, particularly in the Middle East, face perception challenges," Watkins said.
Yet in her advice to women striving to succeed in the workplace, Watkins is clear. "It's almost like a box. We can't change what's outside the box, but we push to the edges. What skills can you learn, what experience can you get, to push to the edges of the box?" she said. "In others words, focus on what you can control."
In the long run, the empowerment of women professionally and financially has a ripple effect of benefits. "When you give a micro-credit loan to a woman, there's a significantly higher return payment rate then when you give to man," Watkins notes. "And from an empowerment standpoint, women invest more of their income in the household then men do. Therefore, the children benefit, the wife benefits, the wife benefits, everyone benefits when the woman has income and economic power."
Nevertheless, Watkins acknowledges that the struggle for work and life balance is a universal theme for women. "I make conscious choices about the priorities," she says of her own struggle. "If I have to work 15 hours a day, I don't sit and stew about it. Make a decision, and go with the decision," she advises for women and men alike that are dealing with the crisis of work balance.
Ultimately, the challenges of business management and communication are an evolving process that even Watkins admits cannot always be perfected. No matter the trials though, "leadership development is absolutely something than can be learned,"
© Capital Business 2013
