Misalignment Isn’t the Problem. Broken Communication Is. #ChangeMyMind

Brandi Starr [00:00:35]:
Welcome to another episode of Revenue Rehab. I am your host, Brandi Starr and we have another amazing episode for you today. So, misalignments, silos, missed expectations. Leaders love to blame structure, strategy or the wrong tools. But what if the root of all the chaos is is actually just broken communication? Our guest today believes that most business problems aren't about org charts or okrs. They are about the words we choose, the tone we use, and the assumptions we never question. And whether it's internal politics, poor cross functional execution, or even off brand marketing, they all trace back to the same issue, which is how we communicate or fail to. So if you've ever said we're just not aligned, this episode will show you the real problem and why your fix hasn't worked yet.

Brandi Starr [00:01:37]:
So today I am thrilled to be joined by Brittany Hansen. Brittany is a powerhouse in marketing, sales and leadership with a deep passion for fixing broken communication in business. As a SaaS executive, she knows first, firsthand the challenges of scaling a company, navigating industry shifts and driving revenue, all while balancing transparency, trust and strategy. Beyond the boardroom, she's an advocate for authenticity and leadership, a sought after speaker on the intersection of empathy, business growth and brand trust, and a fierce believer in the power of clear communication to drive results. Brittany, welcome to Revenue Rehab. Your session begins now.

Brittany Hansen [00:02:23]:
Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here.

Brandi Starr [00:02:26]:
I am excited to talk to you because Lord knows we have all had those experiences where things just feel really off in business. But before we jump into that, our fan, you know, our industry loves its fancy jargon, but let's be real, some of these buzzwords are just fluff and they can hold us back more than they can help. So tell me, what overused buzzword would you like to get rid of forever?

Brittany Hansen [00:02:56]:
You know, I had to think about this for a minute because there's a few, right? But I think number one on my list is viral.

Brandi Starr [00:03:03]:
Ah, we just had a buzzword banishment to support March Madness a few weeks ago and viral made it pretty far in. So tell me, why do you want to get rid of the word viral?

Brittany Hansen [00:03:21]:
So everybody wants to go viral on the Internet, but it's because they want to be known. What isn't being discussed is when something goes viral, is it being seen by the right people? Is it true to who you are as a person? Is it true to who your business is? Just because lots of people saw something doesn't mean it had the impact that you wanted it to have. And for so many of the people who went viral for the wrong reasons. Right. It doesn't mean it's good. There's not, there's not a true equation for going viral and it's probably not what brands should be searching after right now. You need to niche down and know your people.

Brandi Starr [00:03:58]:
Yeah, it definitely seems like one of those things that is just this sort of unicorn goal of like, oh, we gotta go viral. And generally going viral just kind of happens and it isn't really something that you should aim for. So I am with you, am good to banish viral and throw it away. So now that we've gotten that off our chest, let's transition into today's topic because I think this issue impacts pretty much every company and communication, and the impact of it is often misunderstood or overlooked. And so when we think about communication and misalignments, what's the most damaging myth about the problem that is holding companies back?

Brittany Hansen [00:04:49]:
I think the most. Oh, man, there's so many. But one of the most damaging is that revenue is like a math problem. Right. And I think the other is that we are. We are who we display publicly and that's all there is to it. Because when you don't have internal alignment on who you are and what your messaging is, that's reflected to everybody. That's all of your consumers are aware that you have an issue internally.

Brandi Starr [00:05:19]:
Okay, so let's, let's talk about this a bit because I know just from doing a little research on your background and looking at things you've Talked about on LinkedIn and other places, you tie a lot of our issues that we can see as misalignment of goals or, you know, a structure that doesn't work or, or all these other things that I would, you know, deem more traditional business problems. You see that a lot of those are directly tied to, you know, communication, how we communicate, etc. So talk to me a bit more about that.

Brittany Hansen [00:05:59]:
I have. You're absolutely right. So one of the things that I do at the company that I currently work with is help them move into other companies and hone their messaging. And the reason that's important is you have no idea how many times I have sat down with a company and asked what they do. And around the table you get all different answers. If, if client success believes that, that you do one thing, sales believes you do another, and marketing believes you do another, then you're messaging externally sucks. Somebody is getting sold something that then when they come to your company and, and, and the purchasing actually happens, they move through the process. It's something totally different.

Brittany Hansen [00:06:47]:
And I've seen it happen time and time again. I've seen arguments around, that's not what we do. I've seen people give different elevator pitches. And potentially most damaging is what's happening online when somebody goes to check out your business. We know there's seven to eight touches, soft touches, before something bigger happens. If customers can't find alignment with what you're doing, they don't want to work with you. We don't need surprises as consumers. We don't want to be surprised by what we've just purchased or what we're doing.

Brittany Hansen [00:07:21]:
Trust is built on being able to predict what comes next.

Brandi Starr [00:07:27]:
Okay, so what I'm hearing is that in this communication, excuse me, it is really about consistency and alignment of everyone who is distributing a message. Is that a fair statement?

Brittany Hansen [00:07:44]:
Yeah. But also, even your developers, if they don't understand what your product does, how will they meaningfully develop that product? How will they make sure that your customers are getting what they want? You have to have internal alignment.

Brandi Starr [00:08:00]:
Okay, so let's dig more into why this is happening. So why do you feel like people, you know, organizations are really struggling with this communication gap and struggling to get that internal alignment?

Brittany Hansen [00:08:15]:
You know, that is a great question. I think communication across the board is something humankind is struggling with right now. And I think that we see it in business as a reflection of what's happening in the broader community. Now, a really great piece of everybody going remote is that everyone can work in the environment that makes them feel most effective. What can also happen is siloing. We go heads down, we know the work we're supposed to do, and we move forward with it. And some of that communication that was happening inside of businesses isn't happening anymore. So one lead from a meeting takes information to their team, they silo up and they go heads down and they get their work done.

Brittany Hansen [00:09:01]:
It's effective along the short term, but if we don't continue to align as we move forward, that process becomes completely ineffective because we're not building together. One person like Dev feels that we're building a web app, and somebody else thinks that we're building a way to deliver forms to people, and someone else thinks something else. So your messaging becomes Totally off. And it damages your whole company because now somebody has done work that they have to go back and do again because it wasn't quite right. And that's frustration that comes from a lack of clarity. And clarity comes from good communication and from having a feedback loop.

Brandi Starr [00:09:47]:
And I definitely support the importance of communication and a feedback loop before. I'll dig into feedback loop in just a second. But one of the sort of the pieces of feedback or pushback that I hear that leads to some of the challenges is there's already so many meetings. People are already so stretched thin that there is a need to allow different groups to have that autonomy. And I think that quest for, you know, everybody needs to get done. What they need to get done is where some of those conversations get sacrificed. And so where you've seen companies be effective in this, how have you seen them balance? The fact that we can't spend all day aligning, we've got to do some doing, but that we also need that communication and opportunity to communicate so that we do have alignment.

Brittany Hansen [00:10:50]:
Yeah. And you're right, nobody wants another meeting. That could have been an email and I have things I have to get done during the day. So the ways that I see companies really executing well on this is by making it safe for employees to say when they're concerned about something. And one of the best slogans I ever heard is strong opinions loosely held. So you make the opportunity for everyone to voice their own concerns and make it safe for them to say when they don't agree with something, have the conversation, and then everyone needs to be ready to move forward with unity. Whether you fully agree or not, you're willing to move forward with this experiment and see how it will work. For that to truly work, there has to be established feedback loops.

Brittany Hansen [00:11:38]:
So times whether it's once a week or once a month, where you're reviewing what is working and what isn't with the people who are there. And there has to be a designated post mortem meeting where everybody can say this is what worked and this is what didn't and this is how we'll change it for next time. Without post mortem meetings, communication is just a bunch of fluff. It's just a bunch of gut instinct. It's learning after the fact that creates that full circle for any business and allows you to move forward with more confidence next time.

Brandi Starr [00:12:11]:
I am definitely you're getting an applause from me on the post mortem meetings. And you know, I would venture that if we took a survey and asked that it would only be a very small percentage of organizations that have post mortems. It's like everybody is so focused on the work that's ahead of them that, you know, taking the time to actually reflect. And then even where those meetings do happen, I see it's, you know, a note document that is saved somewhere, never to be reviewed again. And it's not necessarily implemented. And so, you know, let's talk about what good looks like, because I know, you know, just having had some conversations with CMOs and other marketing leaders, it's like one of those things that sounds great in theory but rarely is implemented. And so I'd love to hear your take on, like, digging a bit more into that feedback loop and those postmortems, like, who's involved? What are we talking about? How is, you know, how are things getting actioned after the meeting?

Brittany Hansen [00:13:24]:
Yeah, I love to talk post mortems, so this is great. And ideally, everyone who wants to have a voice at a postmortem should be invited. And that comes from. I work at a fairly flat company. We always invite people to come to meetings. And so I think the more voices you can get there, the better. That said, you have to, as a company, make sure that people feel comfortable owning up to their own mistakes. And that sounds weird, but if people don't feel safe to have made a mistake, what you will get in a post mortem is a whole bunch of toxic positivity bullcrap.

Brittany Hansen [00:14:00]:
Because everybody wants to talk about what went really well and take ownership for that. And nobody wants to talk about, even if your launch was a success, even if things are moving forward, there's negative things, things that could have been better timing, loops that were off, problems you butted up against. And those have to be discussed with real truthfulness. And we have to make it safe for people to say, you're right, I did that wrong and I will fix it next time.

Brandi Starr [00:14:29]:
Yeah, that psychological safety is. I mean, it's important in an organization culture for a lot of reasons. And this is a big one because we can always do better. And I do think, you know, we do post mortems internally. I wouldn't say 100% of the time, but we do do them both for internal work and client work. And you're right that there is a natural. Even when you have that psychological safety in an organization, there's a natural inclination to lean towards the positive, especially when an initiative, you know, actually went well. One of the things that I have found that has helped to get people to start talking about where we could have done better is exposing the places where I personally recognize that we could have done better and sort of that fall on the sword, so to speak.

Brandi Starr [00:15:29]:
Tell it to open up with a bit of self awareness to let people see me as the leader. I, you know, I'm not perfect. I'm aware of where I hindered this project to try to get them to do the same about themselves and then ideally about each other. And so I'd love to hear other techniques for organizations where they struggle because, you know, that's often how people stop doing postmortems because they do just end up being great job meetings, which feels pointless. So what kind of advice can you give to the leaders who have to try to pull this feedback out so that it can be meaningful and that we can improve?

Brittany Hansen [00:16:12]:
Absolutely. So one of the concepts that we have been trying in our business for about a year and that's been really helpful is the concept of a pre mortem. It's also a really fast way as we, we talked a little bit about earlier about how you have those meetings, make sure there's not a whole bunch. A pre mortem is the opportunity for you to sit down with whoever needs to be on the team and say, what could go wrong here that we're not thinking about when we visit at the end of this, what are we going to be saying? I wish we'd thought about that. That gives you the chance to get some extra alignment to make sure everybody's on the same page. And it gives you a list of bullet points to go through when it's time for a post mortem. What did we not see coming? Right. It aligns with accountability.

Brittany Hansen [00:17:00]:
It allows still for people to have that cheerleading moment, which is important. It's important to celebrate our wins, but it's not important at the expense of learning from those things. I mean, that's expensive tuition that we pay when we fail, but it's less expensive if we get to use that education moving forward. So I like to use all of the notes from the pre mortem as the opener for a postmortem. And at that point we do what's, I mean, it's very familiar to most businesses. Start with what went well, get the energy high and then allow people to say, amazing, you've all done an amazing job. And what's coming next doesn't distract from the fact that you've done an amazing job. But we need to openly discuss what could have gone better and take ownership of that as a team so that we're better Prepared to move forward because we're about growth, because we're about forward movement, and because we want to execute better every single time.

Brandi Starr [00:18:00]:
I absolutely love that. And that is a great way to like, even the way that you just phrase that in talking about the negative, it is still in a way that like makes me feel excited about talking about what didn't go so well. Because it's like we are moving forward, we are growing, we are doing these things and recognizing that this is how we collectively get there. And so once you have these conversations, how do you make sure that everything that was communicated doesn't just get left in that meeting? How do we make sure that we do better moving forward?

Brittany Hansen [00:18:46]:
That's a great question and something that we worked with a lot. One of the things is to figure out what new processes we need. Those immediately go into ClickUp and over to our operations team to make sure the processes are ready for next time. And all of our new processes come with a three to six week feedback loop where we're getting information from everyone and to avoid the crappy meetings that nobody wants. And we use ClickUp. It doesn't matter what you use, but make sure that there's notes in the margin from everyone who's communicating. Everybody gets 10 minutes to read those before your next meeting and then you're just visiting about what's already been stated. So you're not wasting time.

Brittany Hansen [00:19:25]:
You're coming to a conclusion and to a series of decisions. You're not just discussing ideas, because discussing ideas is valuable at a creative point. It's valuable during brainstorming. But when you're actually trying to move forward with ideas, that value is diminished along the creativity. If you're not moving forward into a decision and nobody wants to get paralyzed in brainstorming and some businesses do.

Brandi Starr [00:19:54]:
And so in that, I think sort of the opposite part of that is how do you not get caught up in over operationalizing? Because if you're doing, you know, depending on speed at which your business moves, if you're doing postmortems, weekly, monthly, you know, whatever that is, you have a lot of input and feedback. And if we try to create or change process coming out of every one of those, we can over engineer ourselves and actually work against ourselves. So how do you strike that balance for us?

Brittany Hansen [00:20:31]:
And we are a small company, but I feel with all of my experience that I've seen as we've gone global, it works much the same. Your lead should take much of the feedback before a meeting starts and then they can decide what needs to move forward. Now the argument against that can be that it creates siloing. But as long as employees underneath the lead feel that they are able to voice their concerns to other people or that there is safety there and you really trust your leaders, it's safe to allow them to receive feedback and bring only the most important things to a team meeting. So a leadership style meeting. The other piece is that feedback loop. Like let's say we didn't time track well enough so now we need everybody to do a T shirt size and do. I mean efforting is kind of the same and keep track of all these things.

Brittany Hansen [00:21:28]:
If nobody uses that for three weeks, safe to say that wasn't effective and you don't need to move forward with that initiative now, whether or not you need to change that and evolve it so that it works better for your team, then falls to the team lead and the leaders in your organization. And I'm trying, I'm trying to be so careful right now because I want to. It's easy to pick out large corporations that it feels like aren't doing things right without, without the understanding that of what they're trying to do. And you're right that over operation, over operational, operational, operationalizing, all of the syllables is something that we're absolutely at risk for. Most companies are and it's known as red tape. Right. We have to get through all the crap before we can do something that's innovative. I find that keeping highly innovative people in a leadership role helps a lot with that.

Brittany Hansen [00:22:32]:
And having an innovative mindset and growth mindset helps a lot with that. Also, I as an individual, am much more at risk of under operationalizing something and, and not putting things into a way into a schedule where someone else could see what I'm doing. That's a skill that I'm still learning about because I have always led creatives because I work with creative teams. We lean towards, oh yeah, how can we operationalize this so it's easier next time rather than overdoing it the first time? So I may not be the best person to speak to what happens when something is overdone. But I am familiar with red tape and it bothers me so often I find that I ignore it. And sometimes that works really well. It works especially well when you have a partner like our COO who can pull you aside and say, hey, I'm missing something here. I need you, I need you to go back and re engineer what just happened.

Brittany Hansen [00:23:38]:
So it's really for us and for some of the people that we've worked with. It's really about having a team that can catch each other and knows each other's strengths and weaknesses.

Brandi Starr [00:23:49]:
Yeah. And listening to you talk, I'm definitely hearing a need for some form of checks and balances to be sure that, you know, we've got both, all the right people involved, all the opinions accounted for that we're able to actually action without over engineering it.

Brittany Hansen [00:24:09]:
Because no amount of sort of gut instinct really accounts for the amount of experience someone has. So you do need checks and balances, which can be hard for someone in an entrepreneurial situation. So make sure that you're not inviting only like minded people to talk with you. Make sure you're surrounding yourself with other people who think differently than you, who have a voice at your table so that you can track where your weak spots are and fix those.

Brandi Starr [00:24:39]:
Okay. Stepping back just a little bit into communication and trying to get that alignment. What advice do you give to leaders who are experiencing pushback? Which sounds odd because it doesn't seem like anyone would push back on alignment. And it's usually not direct, like I don't want to be aligned. But it, it usually is pushback on the process around getting everyone aligned and making sure that we've got that consistency. And I've heard that as a hurdle to accomplishing what you're talking about. So what advice would you give there?

Brittany Hansen [00:25:22]:
Get curious. And the reason I say that is because so rarely in life is there somebody who is just an anarchist and wants to burn your company down for the sake of watching it burn. If there are concerns among your ranks, you need to know why. Because people in places you would never have even thought of have valuable insight into what you're doing and why it might not work. So, and a great example of this is kids who feel like problems inside of classrooms, who are actually the gifted kid that aren't being challenged enough. That's what you're looking for in your workforce is somebody who has insight and who's going, this doesn't feel right. Invite that and ask the questions. Why don't you feel like this is aligned? What is missing here? We do it with our, our customer service success team all the time because as a, as a C suite, so often we get focused on how to move us forward.

Brittany Hansen [00:26:26]:
And if our, we're finding that if our customer success team says hold up, this doesn't feel right, it's because they're the people working with our actual customers. They're seeing who are how our tech is actually used and they see A misalignment. Nobody just wants to cause problems. Well, few people just want to. There's always that one, you know who they are. But the curious leader has so much above like the tyrannical leader. And nobody thinks of themselves that way. But get curious, ask the questions more often than not in a 15 minute discussion, you can get to the bottom of what someone is concerned about and either a figure out that they're right in what they were saying.

Brittany Hansen [00:27:14]:
And this does not have to be a meeting with everyone, it can be a one on one. So you don't. A huddle session. Right. So you're not wasting everybody's time. But never dismiss concerns, especially early on, because for sure you're missing things and maybe someone else is seeing them.

Brandi Starr [00:27:32]:
I love that. And one question I like to ask because I don't know what I don't know. And so is there anything I haven't thought to ask you about that you feel important to share?

Brittany Hansen [00:27:45]:
Yes. See, and I feel like that speaks to who you are as a leader and that invitation for your team or your, your team is so important. And I'm curious, like, how do people react to you when you ask that question?

Brandi Starr [00:28:02]:
I ask it quite often and generally they react the same way that you did. Like, yes, there is this key point or this key gotcha or you know, and that is, and that's why I always ask it, because if it's not my area of expertise, I know that, you know, for this podcast, for example, there's no amount of prep work that I can do that's going to give me insight into all of your experience and, you know, your brain. And so it's like, okay, I don't totally feel like I've exhausted this discussion, but I also don't know what I haven't asked you about that would be important. So for me it is a good way to just open it up and say if there's something critical related to this that you want to share, you have the floor. And generally it's very well received.

Brittany Hansen [00:28:54]:
I'm sure it is, because it's a beautiful question. It says I'm humble, I'm curious, and I want your insight. That's what people need in a leader. So kudos to you for that. I love hearing that because it gives me hope for the future.

Brandi Starr [00:29:09]:
Oh, well, awesome. And so we have talked about the problem. Now is time to fix it. So welcome to the lightning round. So this is four questions, fast answers only. Let's make sure our listeners leave with actions they can take. Right now to start making impact. Sound good?

Brittany Hansen [00:29:30]:
Let's do it.

Brandi Starr [00:29:32]:
All right, finish this sentence. If your company has an alignment problem, the first thing you should do is get curious. What's the one red flag that signals a company has an alignment problem and might not realize it yet?

Brittany Hansen [00:29:50]:
Oh, there's so many silos and silent, silent conversations. Like. Like the when nobody's showing up on slack and there's elephants in the room and you can feel it when the.

Brandi Starr [00:30:06]:
When the most common. What is the most common mistake people make when trying to fix this problem?

Brittany Hansen [00:30:12]:
Getting forceful about it and demanding answers.

Brandi Starr [00:30:16]:
Ah. And what's the fastest action someone can take today to make progress?

Brittany Hansen [00:30:21]:
Have a conversation. Ask someone the questions.

Brandi Starr [00:30:26]:
I love it. Every good session ends with a plan for progress, because talking about our challenges just won't solve them. Well, Brittany, I have enjoyed this discussion. Before we go, tell us, how can our audience connect with you? And definitely do the shameless plug for the tech.

Brittany Hansen [00:30:46]:
Wonderful. I would love to talk to anyone. And the easiest way to find me is on LinkedIn. I'm Brittany A. Hansen. I'm there. Also, if you have communication issues with your consumers, we'd love to visit with you. About that.

Brittany Hansen [00:31:00]:
Our website is viiision.com. it's V I I I S I O N, 3 'i'. And I am always excited to talk to people about the way they're communicating and how they can tell their story. So please, please come and find me and let's have some meaningful conversations.

Brandi Starr [00:31:18]:
Awesome. Well, we will make sure to link to both your LinkedIn and to vision. So wherever you are listening or watching this podcast, check the show notes so that you can connect with Brittany. Well, Brittany, again, thank you so, so much for joining me. I have truly enjoyed this discussion.

Brittany Hansen [00:31:37]:
Well, I have enjoyed you. Thank you for what you're doing and for making business easier.

Brandi Starr [00:31:42]:
Thank you. Well, thanks everyone for joining us. I hope you have enjoyed my conversation with Brittany. I can't believe we're at the end. Until next time. Bye. Bye.