New and inspiring steps forward can keep your people connected with your company’s purpose and core values. In his fireside chats, he always walked people through its details in a comprehensible and simple manner. Take FDR’s New Deal, which was, in my opinion, one of the most forward-thinking social policies in U.S. Innovation isn’t enough, though one must also effectively communicate it. Some innovations may even serve long after the trying times have ended. As new challenges arise, we need new modes of addressing them. Close the gaps between managers and employees, and build the belief that the decisions you’re making are indeed for the good of the whole and that your team’s hard work is being seen.įear and anxiety have a way of halting creativity, but creativity actually gains importance in a crisis. This was not a time for grand speeches this was a time to humbly sit down and talk as a team.īeing personable and grateful goes a long way during a crisis. Many believe the success of the fireside chats can be attributed, in part, to the conversational tone. People must be able to dream again and connect with the purpose for which your company is striving, while also being realistic and equipped to face the challenges ahead. To get people to reengage in the economy can carry the same rules as those to get people to reengage with your company.

When people are afraid, they can easily lose focus and personal initiative dwindles. But he also recognized that “unjustified optimism” could be equally harmful. President Roosevelt recognized the power that hope can have. The famous line spoken by FDR during his inaugural address, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself,” best explains the strategy of cautious optimism. We say things like, “If I were in their shoes, I’d want X.” But everyone responds to a crisis differently, and one of the most effective tools you can implement in internal communication is your ears (and surveys can also be helpful). Often we assume we know what people are worried about. Those concerns varied month to month, and the only way to properly address the fears and rumors was to sit down and listen intently to the people. This isn’t the time to shelter your team members making promises you can’t keep is a surefire way to destroy faith in leadership.įDR held these fireside chats to address the country’s concerns. Tell them the truth: why you made the decisions you made and the challenges that undoubtedly lie ahead. In hard times, and especially after making difficult decisions such as mass layoffs, your people may not look at you in the same way. FDR was informative, detailing each challenge and step in the planned road to recovery. The “everything is fine” type of optimism does little to promote hope in times of crisis. In order to gain that trust, radical honesty was required. The justifiable erosion of trust was crippling recovery efforts. One of Roosevelt’s missions was to restore the faith of the American people.

Here are some lessons we can learn from FDR’s communication strategy. He started his regular radio broadcasts, later coined “ fireside chats,” shortly after his inauguration, and they were meant to inform and comfort the public and confront rumors that slowed the recovery of the U.S. While millions of Americans to whom he spoke were not a part of a business, they were a part of a collective unit that needed to work together to pull the country out of economic ruin. Elected in 1932, FDR was presented with a difficult challenge: to pull a country out of the worst economic crisis it had ever seen and restore the American people’s confidence in their financial institutions.

Fdr fireside chats impact