Glossing the hard truth to keep morale up? Usually backfires.

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Melcrum, a leading research and training organization specifically designed for the senior-level communicator has recently reviewed a study in the UK that showed many employees were wary and disengaged by corporate messages that they felt didn't ring true.

As they titled it: "Internal communicators hiding the truth, says survey":

"The YouGov survey of 524 white-collar workers, commissioned by financial comms agency Financial Dynamics found that only 15 per cent of respondents felt that their employer had communicated news about job security “very well”, while 37% said communication had been poor or non-existent.

Key findings:

• 15% felt their employer had communicated news about job security “very well”.
• 37% said the communication had been poor or non-existent.
• 48% have a clear picture of their company’s performance.
• 33% will look for another job if their manager or CEO fails to address concerns.
• 36% agreed they were able to voice recession concerns.
• 67% do not have common face –to-face contact with bosses."

Link: http://www.melcrumblog.com/2009/06/internal-communicators-not-telling-the-truth-finds-survey.html

If, as they say, the internal communicators are helping to hide these hard truths, it is a true shame.

Our job as internal communicators is to enhance the understanding, faith and positioning of the company within the minds of our associates. This covers the span of both good news and bad at times. Companies are not infallible. Decisions made do not always yield the hoped-for results. Acknowledging this can be a more powerful connector than any 'glossy' story we can contrive out of humbling facts.

Time and time again it has been proven in a 'down and out' scrap, when motivated, connected and informed, the plucky under-dog or team can stretch beyond themselves and reach levels they had never anticipated before.

I am thinking of the story of the US Men's Hockey team going into the Olympics in 1980. The "Do you believe in Miracles" story... For years, the US has been beaten by Russia in hockey. The Russian team were looked at as demi-gods. The US team also walked into the ring with the knowledge that they had been beaten a week earlier in a play-off game.

But Coach Herb Brooks didn't allow that to linger in the minds of his men. He knew what they were up against. He gave them a common goal. He let them understand what they were up against. He pushed them to their limits. He didn't allow for infighting. And in doing so, he turned a mixed group of kids, newbies and seasoned hockey veterans into a winning team that worked with eachother and accomplished something no one thought they could.

Addressing the realities of business is tough. But losing the hearts and minds of your associates is even tougher. The communicator has a duty to yes, care for the morale and internal health of the organization, but also to lay-out hard truths so that real thought and decision-making can occur. They must stand in the gap when an executive would wish to not cause 'worry' among the troops - calling for authenticity over mild duplicity.

Eight Steps for Successful Change in Organizations

Enabling Change through Communication

Change is a necessary part of our business environment. If we don’t change, we f

Image by Creativity+ Timothy K Hamilton via Flickr

ade away. As General Eric Shinseki, Chief of Staff for the U.S. Army once stated “If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.”

Organizations are being compelled to change, especially in our current economic environment – identifying cost-cutting opportunities and tracking new markets. To survive and thrive, organizations need to ensure they are motivating their employees to participate in these changes.

In their business management book ‘The Heart of Change’ authors John Kotter and Dan Cohen conducted empirical research in an attempt to identify the key factors of influence for change in organizations. Their main discovery toward affecting successful change was:

“feelings alter behavior”

Their research provided evidence of a core pattern surrounding excellent change within organizations of:
1) seeing in a compelling way what needed to change (SEE)
2) feeling the urgency around the need to change (FEEL)
3) initiating effective change (MODIFIED BEHAVIOR)

Kotter and Cohen discovered that highly successful organizations have learned how to embrace change and influence feelings when it comes to change. The significance is that it the changes weren’t embraced through data or metrics alone, but when combined with ‘feelings’, dramatic change took place.

The Glove Story
Take for example their story of the gloves on the boardroom table. A manufacturing c

Cover via Amazon

ompany with dozens of different locations had a decentralized purchasing process – allowing each location to purchase their own necessary equipment, such as gloves. A manager in the purchasing department began to feel a keen need that effective purchasing wasn’t being accomplished across the company. He hired an intern to look into one thing: the purchase and distribution of gloves across the company. His discovery? 424 different types of gloves were being purchased with every factory having their own supplier and their own negotiated price. The same glove could cost Factory A $5.00 and cost Factory B $17.00. And the company bought a lot of gloves. The manager and intern collected a sample of all 424 types of gloves, tagging each with cost and factory information. They gathered them and placed them on the boardroom table one day, inviting all division presidents to view them. The Division presidents were at a loss staring at that table. The variety, amount and costs were sinking in – and they were in shock. The display soon became a road show – traveling to all sites and providing a sense of ‘how bad it really is’. People said “We must act now!” and they did, saving a great deal of money. Even today, in that company, people still talk about the “Glove Story”.


Eight Steps for Successful Change:
Step 1: Increase urgency
New Behavior: people start telling each other “Let’s go, we need to change things!”
Step 2: Build the guiding team
New Behavior: a group powerful enough to guide a big change is formed and they start to work together well.
Step 3: Get the vision right
New Behavior: the guiding team develops the right vision and strategy for the change effort.
Step 4: Communicate for buy-in
New Behavior: people begin to buy into the change, and this shows in their behavior.
Step 5: Empower action
New Behavior: more people feel able to act, and do act, on the vision.
Step 6: Create short-term wins
New Behavior: momentum builds as people try to fulfill on the vision, while fewer and fewer resist change.
Step 7: Don’t let up
New Behavior: people make wave after wave of changes until the vision is fulfilled.
Step 8: Make change stick
New Behavior: new and winning behavior continues despite the pull of tradition, turnover of change leaders, etc…

Communicate for Change
I read this book and was excited to see how simply, clearly and easily the steps were laid out, as well as impressed by the studies and stories that Kotter and Cohen shared. But one thing I found not clearly stated in the book, was that these eight steps of change each have an implicit requirement for effective internal communications to be occurring. In fact, the words “and effectively communicate” could be added into each step.

Communication is a change agent. The underlying impetus for a message to be sent, especially in a business environment, is to inform and influence message recipients to modify their thinking or behavior in some way. A knowledgeable communicator can have significant positive influence on change within their organization. They can leverage good story-telling skills being mindful of the ‘story’ being played out around them. Through this, they can engage the hearts, minds and efforts of the people in the work being done and the work to be accomplished, as well as connecting knowledge seekers with knowledge workers.

My Blog is My Holy Grail, So I Can’t Drink Out of It

I was very excited the day I started this blog. I was very excited but I was also writing and spending ages of quality time with my thesis. Starting this at the same time and being called to focus on the thesis provided a lovely way to say “I want this, but I can’t have this right now”. I finished my thesis one month ago, and my blog remains… somberly active.

I am a communications strategist. When called upon, I can communicate, strategize and plan. I create time lines, topic starters, concepts and ideas. I plug them all into a calendar and then work off a check-list to ensure I don’t lose a thing. Everything works according to plan, efficiently and effectively.

It Should Be Simple
You would think for a corporate communicator unwrapping a blog and then writing in it as often as possible would be like the icing of a great many glorious chocolate cakes (chocolate being my favorite). Finally! A chance to express myself, express ‘me’ - the way I choose to and not confined within the spaces of politically correct corporate jargon. Not only that, but in the course of my career and studies, I have dozens of fantastic possible topics I can choose from.

And what does having too many options, wanting the best out of yourself and a true desire to be sure not to ‘under-serve’ your calling do?

Why, it places the very thing you profess to love in such an unattainable place that you tremble to walk there. I have made this blog a Holy Grail. And now I can’t even drink out of it.

I know I have a point of view. I know I have something to say. But where do I start? Of course, this is a silly question. We all know where to start. We start right here, right now with the tools we have available to us. I’ve set myself up in this regard. Created these expectations that hinder rather than help me. A Holy Grail I can’t even touch.

The Beer Stein of Blogging
I am pretty sure I need to exchange my Holy Grail for a beer stein. Beer steins… if you are in a culture that uses them, are worn a little with constant use. They are impressive not for their rarity but for their practical usefulness. They gain a patina over time and a solid connection with years of reliable service. Not perfect. Not so beautiful you cannot touch it, but reliable and effective.

This isn’t the only Holy Grail in my life. But it is definitely one that is limiting me and I want you to know… I am aware of it.

So, three cheers to the Beer Stein of Blogging.

What is your Holy Grail?

The Hidden Cost of Poor and Ineffective Communications

Image by Roby72© via Flickr

by Sharon R. Rode
(an excerpt from the Development and Future of Corporate Communications in a Disruptive Age - Master's Thesis, '09)

The owner of a mid-sized business is experiencing positive growth. His employee pool has just exceeded one hundred and work continues to flood in. There’s just one problem. This mid-sized organization is secretly losing up to $524,569 annually as a result of ineffective communication.

An annualized $524,569 is the estimated cost to small and mid-sized businesses (SMB) in 2008/09 for poor and ineffective communication as found by SIS International Research and Siemens Enterprise Communications in their recently published white paper, SMB Communications Pain Study: Uncovering the hidden cost of communications barriers and latency.

Key study findings showed the top five pain points for the SMB are:

• inefficient coordination of communication
• waiting for information (inability to find it)
• unwanted communications
• customer complaints
• other barriers to communication

These costs were not isolated to a select few either. More than 70% of the study’s 400 respondents indicated that they experience all five of the top pain points and said they spent on average 17.5 hours a week addressing them. Further, they determined that what is true for the SMB is also true for the larger enterprise (LE).

The Value of Communications
If these findings are true - then the value of communications to an organization is rising exponentially. Corporate communication is a fundamental principle of 21st century organizations. The purpose of strategic corporate communication, particularly internal, is to create and distribute consistent messaging across departments that reinforce corporate objectives, enable a healthy flow of information and allows for promotion of the corporate brand. It is getting the right message through the right channel to the right audience at the right time and with the right effect. All too often, a true understanding of the value of the communications role and its place in an organization is lost, especially during times of upheaval and cost-cutting. Communicators are necessary and can be strategic leaders in an organization, helping the business succeed through messaging that is simple, relevant and repetitive, enabling associates to do their jobs and do them well.

A review of literature shows that as a society we have had an interest in the communications process for thousands of years (beginning with Aristotle) and though we have had all this time to understand and define it, experts acknowledge that there is still a struggle ensuring the intended message sent is the intended message being received. The constant evolution we face socially, technologically and economically along with varying levels of education and perception create a rapidly moving target when it comes to ‘understanding’. A ‘perfect’ communication strategy in the face of all this is improbable. The goal then must move toward improved communication and strategies.

A Communicator's Most Significant Challenge
There is no more significant challenge facing the corporate communicator than that of showing in a clear and measurable way the return on investment strategic, comprehensive, engaging and objectively-aligned communication offers to an organization. In a well-run business every functional area is expected to demonstrate how their efforts relate to the bottom-line and deliver ROI. Strategic communicators are no exception, but they face a higher challenge of quantifying the impact of their work, much of which is intangible, on the organization. Most organizations, even to this day use "soft" measurements such as employee awareness, understanding, and satisfaction to evaluate the success of their communication initiatives, programs, and channels.

Communicators must educate themselves and begin to employ the use of "hard" measurements like productivity, behavioral changes, employee turnover rates, and the reaching of business goals. These measurements are necessary because they link specific communication functions to tangible outcomes. This does not mean soft metrics are not still useful. Both “hard” and “soft” metrics are needed to show a holistic picture of communication in action within an organization. The linking of communication strategy and metrics to business strategy is critical in an environment where every dollar counts.

Explaining the value of good communication in a way that executives can understand has to do with understanding and conquering two ‘powerful concepts’namely; intangible assets and human capital. Intangible assets cannot be found on the books in terms of numbers and dollars. They include assets such as the brand, positive employee and community relations, loyal customers and an agile and engaged workforce. Results and findings showed that these factors have significant influence on profitability.

Fraser Likely is a public relations/communications professional who works as a consultant incorporating full scale measurement programs. He is a member and regular contributor to the Institute of Public Relations in Canada. In his submission, Performance Measurement: Can PR/Communication Contribute to the New Bottom Line of Intangible, Non-Financial Indicators? Likely lays out a series of considerations for the ‘new’ measurement of communication. Professional organizations across the fields of communications, public relations and media are beginning to sound the drum more and more insistently, that we need a new valuation system to measure the contribution of communication. The current one is clearly outdated.

Fraser Likely states that we can measure communication products, communication programs and organizational positioning through efficiency, effectiveness and cost-effectiveness (a combination of efficiency and effectiveness). Measuring communication products involves measuring inputs and throughputs for the effectiveness and efficiency, and thus productivity, of the production process. Measurement of the effectiveness of the delivery of outputs (for example distribution, reach and coverage) and measurement of the outtakes or impact of outputs for quality (attractiveness, accuracy, believability, etc. in the eyes of the receiver), audience recall/retention of the message, and finally audience attention or response to the communication product (did they pass it on to a friend, or did they go to a web site for more information).

A communication program is a collection of products with the same or similar messages aimed at the same target audience. The communication program should have objectives that are tied to relevant corporate objectives. Following that, the desired outcome for a communication program is generally a long-term effect; ‘collective changes in levels of awareness, knowledge, understanding, preference, attitudes, opinions and behaviors’. Rarely can one single communication product affect the desired level of change so there is need for message repetition, and a variety of communication products and channels that reach the intended audience repeatedly. Assessing effectiveness and recalibrating can be accomplished through a collection of measurement tracking tools, such as:

• "Pulse" surveys
• Focus groups
• Employee and/or management communication advisory teams
• Customer/client input
• Benchmarking and trend analysis
• Web usage data
• Event feedback and attendance data
• Readership data

When measuring the efficiency of a communication program, we look to project management, resource utilization and internal client satisfaction. By combining effectiveness and efficiency measures, we arrive at a cost-effectiveness measure. Finally, measuring the overall effectiveness of communication programs, their intended effect and actual effect can determine positioning measures like relationships, reputation and leadership. These effects and outputs generally show themselves as concepts like corporate reputation and organizational leadership organization-stakeholder relationships.

[this post is under edit]

The New Social Contract

Image via Wikipedia

Moving beyond the paycheck and understanding employee needs - a communications perspective
by Sharon R. Rode
(an excerpt from the Development and Future of Corporate Communications in a Disruptive Age - Master's Thesis, '09)

The ‘new social contract’ in a business perspective is referenced primarily within the human resource function, but it is no less relevant to strategic communicators in understanding the drivers behind employee engagement and their subsequent expectations in the workplace. The “collective agreements” formed between a company and an employee include economic, legal, social, and psychological ‘contracts’. Economic and legal contracts relate to receiving a fair wage for a fair days work as well as legal protections for both the employee and the company. The social contract has to do with an employee feeling as though they are part of a community (often referred to as a business ‘family’), and the psychological are the expectations carried into work place around inherent promises, obligations, career trajectory, and the potential for promotions.

Social and psychological contracts are less tangible but have proven to be extremely important in attracting and keeping quality employees and are seen as key drivers of employee engagement.

Researcher Dr. David Sirota came to a similar conclusion after he reviewed employee data spanning 1994 to 2003 including 2.5 million employees and 237 diverse organizations in eighty-nine countries. Sirota and his coauthors declared that they had found three key drivers of employee engagement, which he states more simply as “the primary goals of people who work”. These are, in no significant order, achievement, equity and camaraderie. By achievement, what is meant is that people want to take pride in their work, and want their achievements to be acknowledged. They also want to feel proud of what the organization as a whole achieves. By equity, Sirota, et al found that people are motivated by fair treatment, and they want their company to provide an environment that respects their physiological, economic, and psychological needs. And finally, the presence of camaraderie in the workplace; when people go to work, they want to enjoy themselves. This makes interpersonal relationships very important and a work culture that supports and encourages cooperation, communication, friendliness, acceptance, and teamwork is critical for maintaining enthusiasm.

Barbara Glanz is a former human resources trainer and professional speaker, but not a researcher. Even so, her book Care Packages for the Workplace arrives at the same conclusions as Bratton, Gold (2003) and Sirota (2005).

Barbara Glanz calls for a ‘regeneration of spirit’ in the workplace saying there is a great need for careful attention around creative communications, atmosphere, appreciation for all, respect, reason for being, empathy, and enthusiasm (CARE).

This need for ‘care’ is not to be overlooked. In partnership with human resources, the communications strategist should understand the importance of what they do and how it plays a direct role and impacts the ‘social contract’ and primary goals and needs of the workers in their organization. If possible, it is even more important now than before, for an organization to honor the social contract. The business world is in turmoil and reshaping itself. Employees are finding it harder and harder to find a sense of achievement, equity and camaraderie, as they face concerns and competing priorities on all levels.

The communications strategist can, through leveraging tools and channels, help to keep employees informed, share achievements across the organization, promote equity through partnering with management and human resources, ensuring fair and agreeable practices are adhered to and communicated and within camaraderie, through the regaling of “only in our industry” type stories, which showcase funny or amazing examples of achievement that provide comic relief and sense of bonding. Again, sharing “funny or amazing” stories may seem somehow outside the scope of a serious business endeavor, but it would be a misstep to assume it provides no return value. Consider how often employees are already going to YouTube and related sites to catch a few laughs each and everyday. They stop and share with their friends, increasing their sense of bonding over a shared joke. These same principles and human desires and be leveraged to increase bonding in the workplace, and should be. The communications strategist can play an integral role in owning and promoting the new social contract in the workplace, if they can step above the role of ‘tactician’ who simply acquires data and sends it out as efficiently as possible.

References:
Bratton, John, Gold, Jeffrey, 2003. Human Resource Management, Third Edition: Theory & Practice. Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK. Palgrave MacMillan. p96, 222

Gillis, Tamara L., Editor, et al, 2006. The IABC handbook of organizational communication. San Franciscso, California: John Wiley & Sons. pxxxi, 20, 93, 235, 462, 479, 480-487, 511-13, 529, (also: Sparrow, J; Duratta, N; Woodall, J; Baron, A; Gayeski, D; Garrett, K; Grunig, J; Grunig, L; Testard-Ramirez, S; Holtz, S)

Glanz, Barbara, 1996. Care Packages for the Workplace: Dozens of Little Things You Can Do To Regenerate Spirit At Work. Columbus, Ohio, McGraw-Hill Professional

Sirota, David, et al, 2005. The Enthusiastic Employee (excerpt); Sirota Three-Factor Theory.
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMM_57.htm [Accessed February 28, 2009]

You TWITTER? Titter....(hee hee)

Okay. Yes. I twitter.

Image via CrunchBase

When I first created a Twitter account, I was in the middle of my MBA courses, and writing a paper for e-commerce on being a consultant in a web 2.0 world. That paper never got submitted as it turns out - not because it wasn't actually pretty groovy but because my professor thought it was too much of a stretch for true 'e-commerce'. I think she may have been right, and I ended up writing a whole new paper - on something I can't even remember right now. But I remember the first, and I kept it.

I was doing all this research and all the research pointed to "blogging, twittering, digging" and any other number of potentially painful sounding things. Yes, I am a communicator, but this web 2.0 stuff was even giving me the big question mark.... what? I don't get it...

But I'm starting to. I recently met a person I wished to network with who, instead of asking if I was on LinkedIn (which is now virtually a standard), asked if I was on Twitter. I said yes, but I'm not sure how active I would be - because I hadn't yet defined in my own mind Twitter's value or 'fit' along with my use of Facebook, LinkedIn, Gmail, Gchat, Yahoo Messenger, and whatever else is it that we use to communicate and connect. So why ANOTHER one?!

I got asked this last night too. Why Twitter? And why is it getting so popular? Taking a step back, first, let's recognize that our circles of community have changed. I keep talking about paradigm shifts, and I will probably continue to do so. Ray Kurzweil (a noted futurist) says that these shifts have moved from being thousands of years apart - to merely decades apart. Think of how astounding this is. Our grandparents developed their sense of community at local townships, in churches, at potlucks. Yes, we still have all those - but if you really pay attention - you'll see that it's mingling more and more with an online community, presence and awareness that we simply cannot deny.

So why Twitter?
I can now tell you. We're voyeurs. Each and every one of us. We're intrigued with other peoples lives and we want to know what's going on. We want to feel 'a part of it', connected, community. We want to have opinions and think "Ha! at least it wasn't me!" or the other "Darn! I wish it was me!".

Twitter gives us the power of voyeurism in a simple, non-invasive way. Twitter has done something pretty special. They have connected a strong inclination that resides in our human nature with something that is easy and okay, admittedly fun... giving us the challenge of being witty or intriguing by allowing no more than 140 characters at a time... Come on!

There are other ways to view and value Twittering though. They say the Congress spent more time 'tweeting' (the act of posting on Twitter) than they did listening during the Presidential speech this past February. Not quite true, but Twitter they say 'took Congress by storm'. The senator for Missouri, Claire McCaskill is one of the most avid 'tweeters' and says that for her, it is an ability to stay connected to the people in her state -- without being edited or mis-represented by reporters. CEO's are twittering now (see Zappos.com CEO, Tony), and while his are fun and light-hearted, they go a long way to offering his organization and the world a unified perspective on Zappos culture and brand. Transparency is something they take seriously, and having Tony twitter only says "Yes, we said it, we're doing it, and you can check-up on us... we are who we say we are". That's a valuable thing in this day and age.

So yes, I tweet. Excuse me now, I have 140 characters to burn letting you all know how much I enjoy a good cup of java, on a lake, in a park, in a tree, with a bee...

Read more on Congress Twittering: http://www.newsmax.com/politics/congress_twittering/2009/03/02/187220.html

ADDENDUM (3/23): I just found this -- and while I still believe there is an underlying human side as to why Twittering is popular - here is a thoughtful, qualified posting by Tony, Zappos.com CEO on why and how he uses Twitter and what it does for him and the company (as posted on the Zappos.com CEO / COO Blog. I find it relevant: How Twitter Can Make You A Better (and Happier) Person.

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Navigating and leveraging Social Media - Where to start?

Image by Matt Hamm via Flickr

There are many swept up in the hype and buzz of ‘social media’ and ‘web 2.0’. But in a recent sojourn through my new fair city, I realized there are just as many if not more, still left standing at the crossroads of brick and mortar meets www.

There is a paradigm shift occurring now around social media and web 2.0. Technology has changed the shape of our lives and how we interact with each other. Like all change, it began as the new ‘unknown’, grew stronger within the realm of the new ‘known’, and is now, especially for the younger generation, the new ‘norm’.

Change is not an option when it comes to an organization staying current, viable and sustainable. Change is a requirement. Social media is here, and it isn’t going away. Organizations would do well to begin to navigate and leverage social media, becoming early adopters, and leaders among their peers.

Own Your Own Brand
Owning how you are perceived in the marketplace, ensuring your brand and your name are known and well respected, offering something of ‘value’ that gets your clients talking about you and talking you up – these are all things that social media can do for organizations and for little to no cost. Developing a sustainable strategy, selecting which social media tools to use, and then working against that strategy are really all that is needed.

The Basics
The basics for social media, social responsibility and corporate transparency, (and these are now linked and cannot be overlooked) now include:

• an online presence (website)
• LinkedIn profile (also perhaps a LinkedIn Group)
• a Facebook ‘Page’ – mirroring and affirming online presence (website)
• a Blog (a web log) - offers and opportunity to create interesting, transparent commentary on something of concern or opinion. Typically relates and promotes organizations perspective in their field.
• a Twitter Feed – this is more optional, but a unique way to keep early adopters engaged. Related news of the day or tips in the field can be ‘twittered’ to clients, customers and potentials.
• a wiki presence – either creating entries, owning entries or developing a wiki community related to the organizations core purpose.
• defining and declaring a statement about community involvement and pr related news surrounding that
• defining and declaring a statement about corporate sustainability, activities in the ‘green’ space or sustainable earth space

Additional food for thought:
Some companies, excelling in these areas already are stepping forward into a new corporate responsibility space. One recruitment company has what they are calling the “Hero” program. A program designed to help our returning military serviceman find appropriate work upon their discharge and re-entry into the workplace of the country they have served. This cannot be easy, so their efforts are thoughtful and timely. It is also a great way to ‘give something back’.

Sites referenced: www.linkedin.com; www.facebook.com; www.twitter.com

Great sites to check out for how they utilize the web, social media, and corporate transparency / community - this is just a small sample:
www.zappos.com (an online retail shop)
www.moranbrownpc.com (a brick and mortar law office)
www.higherout.com (a recruiting firm)

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