This blog is about improving the relationship between organizations and the people who work for them. And, it’s dedicated to the millions of people around the world who go to work every day wanting to do a great job.
Archive for July, 2010
Creating extreme competitive advantage
Meeting people who really get communication is rare. So, I was pleasantly surprised to meet with Bob Weiler, founding partner of Brimstone Consulting Group last week.
It was a meeting that proved to be both interesting and provocative. Early in the conversation Bob suggested I change my business card to read Hinton : Communication strategies for extreme competitive advantage. Boy did he have my attention?
He pushed on. Reminding me of what, as an air force brat, I once knew, which is that the first thing you do when you go to war is take out or try to take out your enemy’s communications. Once you’ve got your enemy in the “dark” and unable to communicate with HQ or each other they start to think very dark thoughts. They will imagine the worst things possible about what’s going on. And this gives you a very critical strategic advantage. So the very first thing you go after is communications.
I felt like a light bulb went back on. Somewhere 100 conversations ago and in the constant fight for limited resources and budget my clients and I’d lost touch with reality. The reality that communications is not nice to have. It’s critical to have. And, great companies aren’t just OK at it. They are great at it. Individual, team and organizational mastery of communications is a top business priority. And, for the super great it is used as a weapon.
Bob suggested I go back to Kotter’s 8 steps of change model [it's a classic]. As a reminder they are: 1. Create urgency, 2. Form a Powerful Coalition, 3. Create a Vision for Change, 4. Communicate the Vision, 5. Remove Obstacles, 6. Create Short-term Wins, 7. Build on the Change, 8. Anchor the Changes in Corporate Culture. Every one of these steps requires not just good communication, but great communication at the individual, the team and the organizational level.
And since Kotter’s change model isn’t the only way think about change I pulled out some notes I had on a newer favourorite of mine – Viral ChangeTM . As Dr Leandro Herrero describes it, this approach takes “a small set of behaviours spread by a small number of people through their networks of influence to create massive behavioural tipping points, translated into new routines and ‘cultures’ (new ideas established, new ways of working, new process adoption, new culture).” What will it take? Great communications.
So, I went back and pulled out some other classics:
Remember the 5 elements of management from business school? What managers need to do to get things done through their people: Planning, organizing, staffing, leading, and controlling. What will it take? Great communication.
Or the 5 P’s of marketing, those things that marketing managers use to control marketing mix: product, people, place, promotion, price. What will they take? Great communication.
Or Jim Collins description of how to move an organization from “From Good to Great”. Remember: Develop level 5 leadership, decide first who and then what, confront the basic facts, use the hedge hog concept [know what you’re deeply passionate about, what drives your economic engine, what you can be the best in the world at], build a culture of discipline, be a technology accelerator, use the flywheel effect. What will each of these need? Great communication.
Or what makes for really engaged employees [this still rankles with me, but since it’s so loved by so many] – job clarity, materials and equipment, matching strengths to the job, recognition and praise, caring about the people you work with, mentoring, valuing employee opinions, connecting to a noble cause, one for all and all for one, creating the conditions so that people can have a best friend at work, regular conversations about individual progress, creating opportunities to learn and grow [based on Gallup G12 questions]. What will that take? Yep. Great communication.
So, why is it that so few organizations make mastery of individual, team and organizational communications an essential business priority? Seems like a no brainer. What do you think?
And thanks Bob for reigniting the flame.
Random Posts:
“Where everybody knows your name”
There are very few of us who would associate the place we work with the Cheers theme song.
In fact that was the point of the song. Cheers is the place where we can escape our worries. A place where we’re understood and appreciated.
You’d think that a place where we spend 50% to 60% of our waking hours getting to and working in would be a place “where everybody knows your name”. But it’s generally not. Instead, it’s a place where:
- An EVPs executive assistant for over 5 years told me that her boss didn’t know she had children until she had to stay home one day with a sick child.
- A manager reported that he’d never met his Director face-to-face even though he’d been working for him for over a year.
- [fill in the blank]
What is it about organizations? After all we’re all there working toward the same organizational mission, vision and values.
What is it about these places that:
- Isolate rather than integrate?
- Create internal competition rather than collaboration?
- Dehumanize rather than humanize?
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think that colleagues at work need to be your best friend. Or that a weekly beer with people you don’t really even like is a solution? I’m not really a fan of the drive for employee engagement [what's really being measured?, implication that employees need to give more?, etc]. But, I do think that organizations can be places that encourage courtesy and respect. And it starts by knowing some basic things about the people you work with. Who are they? What matters to them?
Is your organization doing anything to humanize the work environment? Is there anything you can do in your corner of the workplace?
“Making your way in the world today takes everything you’ve got.
Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot.
Wouldn’t you like to get away?
Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name,
and they’re always glad you came.
You wanna be where you can see,
our troubles are all the same
You wanna be where everybody knows
Your name.”
With thanks to Gary Portnoy and Judy Hart Angelo
Random Posts:
From the inside looking out
Earlier in my career I worked for one of the most admired brands in Canada. It’s the kind of thing that makes you proud. You walk into any situation and people are all over you about how great it must be. Except it wasn’t. The buzz and hype had created an external brand that didn’t match the internal reality.
What brings this to mind is that two more of the world’s most powerful and valued brands have taken big hits to their reputations in the past few weeks. And both of them for misleading customers.
DELL is accused of hiding significant and potentially dangerous technical issues from their business customers. Recently unsealed lawsuit documents reveal cover-up and purposeful deception that may have gone on for years.
Apple’s iphone customers have complained of dropped calls since the first iphone hit the market. They were told it was a network problem. A small problem of design which meant you just had to hold it a certain way. Then a software problem. Now, according to consumer reports the phone’s hardware is flawed. And it looks like Apple may have known about this problem for some time.
The thing is when we say DELL and Apple knew and have been misleading customers, we mean DELL and Apple employees knew and have been misleading customers. Certainly not all employees new. But, most certainly some of them did. And, no doubt many of them suspected the truth.
What’s it like to be on the inside of brands like these? To know that the customer’s brand experience is build in whole or in part on a myth. To know that if anyone really took a look behind the curtain they’d find behaviours that were questionable if not unethical or illegal. To know that your boss or your colleague is misleading you?
Rising employee cynicism and plummeting trust in leadership tell the tale. So the next time you’re asked how communications can help reverse these trends don’t start drafting new and better messages to push. Stop yourself from building a inspiring internal campaign or refreshing the intranet. Do start thinking about how you can help set the conditions for getting the right conversations going with the right people around where and how the employee experience is not aligned with the brand and discovering what needs to change.
Some additional reading
I went to see if I could find the values statements for DELL and Apple. Read in the context of what is in the news now, they are pretty interesting.
- Check out Dell’s official ‘Soul of Dell’
- Apples doesn’t publish its values statement on the web, but I did find a pdf post that looks pretty credible. If the actual values statement “customer empathy” is especially chilling.
And, I’ve been following the animated discussion on the smoke and mirrors of employer branding with Sean Trainor at CIPR Inside that adds another dimension to this post.
Random Posts:
Innovation culture & internal communications
There’s been a lot of talk about the need for organizations to innovate. But, since organizations don’t innovate, people do, there’s also been a lot of talk about building “innovation cultures”. My friends at CommScrum have taken the discussion further and begun a conversation about innovation and what the drive to an “innovation culture” means for Internal Communications. Here’s how I’m thinking about it. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
“Innovation culture” seems to me a lot like the next generation “leadership culture”. Then everyone had to be a leader. [how that was possible I have no idea.] Now everyone has to be an innovator? [makes about as much sense as everyone’s a leader.]
So, the challenge for Internal Communicators is not to get caught up in the organizational hype and feel pressured into delivering on demand tools and tactics [sound familiar]. Instead, we need get the answers to these fundamental questions.
What needs to be innovated? Products? Services? Systems? Decision taking? Codes of Conduct? Accounting procedures? Pay policies? You get my point. Some things really benefit from continuous innovation. And some things just don’t. In fact getting too innovative would be detrimental and perhaps even illegal.
Why? To improve our employee experience? To improve our customer experience? To make it easier for the CEO to brag on the golf course? To get a headline? Understanding what’s motivating the drive for innovation will tell us how important it really is to the organization’s strategy.
Who will be most impacted? And what will the implications be for what they do and how they do it? No matter how wide or deep the drive for innovation goes, not all employees [I include execs in here too] will be affected equally [see What? above]. As communicators if we assume anything different we may find ourselves creators or amplifiers of mixed messages.
What? When? and How? It’s important to get an adequate take on what’s already being planned/done to create an “innovation culture”? And to understand how those changes will support employee innovation. New processes? New reward systems? Training? Supporting tools and tactics? For an interesting take on what needs to change, check out Jon Katzenbach and Zia Khan’s book, “Leading outside the lines”, p.177. This should give us a clear idea of how seriously the leadership is taking the change and where their priorities are. It should also help us discover where, when and how we can be most helpful.
What do you think? Will the drive for ‘innovative cultures’ change the role of Internal Communications? And, if so, how?
Random Posts:
Tension that’s good for you
This past week two of my favourite blogs have posted about tension – In over your head and Six pixels of separation. They both refer to the need to create tension if you want to create. And the second, refers to a conversation I had with Mitch Joel the other day. I thought it would be worth expanding on that discussion here. Even Internal Communicators are creators at heart [and often in reality] after all.
So what is this tension? This tension isn’t emotional tension. It isn’t the kind of tension that’s caused by stress, anxiety, or fear. It is the kind of tension described by my friend and teacher Robert Fritz as structural tension. And, what’s great about this kind of tension is that once you know about it you can use it, design it into your life, your projects, your business to increase the likelihood of your achieving what you want.
Hmmm. Sounds a bit like magic doesn’t it. Well, it’s not. And on some level it will seem so obvious you will be scratching your head. And yet to master its force takes discipline and focus. Here are the basics.
First, know what you want to build, create, bring into being and by when [ Time is a powerful force for good in creating]. You can’t fake this part. You either really want it or you don’t. In the case of the discussion with Mitch that could be something like:
A fun, visually interesting blog for people like me who love baking and where I can share my favourite recipes ideas on healthy eating and observations on life [inspired by my friend Helen's blog]. My friends like it and are sharing it with their friends. I’ve posted [insert real number] posts and have [insert real number] followers by September 15, 2010.
Second, know where you stand in relationship to that end state. To me this is always the part that’s a bit tricky. We like to fool ourselves by making things a bit too good or bad about where we are in relationship to what we want. And that, can really muck up structural tension.
I have a cupboard full of recipes. I’ve got lots to say about my passion for baking and life. I have a handful of friends that I know will love this. I don’t know anything about publishing on line. I’m good at taking pictures but I don’t have a camera.
Now here’s the interesting thing. The more you really want and are passionate about the thing you’re trying to create and the more discrepant the end state and the current state are the more power there is in the system. And the actions you need to take just pop out [trust me, it's true. And that can create emotional tension. You'll get over it if you really want what you want.].
I need to start commenting on others blogs so I can get a feel for what it’s like. I need to find out about wordpress. Get a camera. And, get technical advice. And,….
So that’s structural tension. And that’s a very good thing.
In the conversation with Mitch we were talking about web analytics and how it can get you off track. How is that?
Well it doesn’t have to, but if it does this is what happens.
I want to create a blog that attracts my friends and people who love baking the way I do, so I create the blog and have a 100 followers.
And then you start tracking the analytics and realize that 100 isn’t a very big number of followers. After all Mr Big Blogger has 175,000+ followers and can get speaking gigs for $15,000 a time and…book deals and….
I want to get my numbers up, so I start doing things to get the numbers up.
Your focus shifts to building the numbers and away from the original spirit and intent of your blog. You start manipulating yourself and your readers. And when they’re not they create a structural conflict. Over time these competing forces will drive you away from the thing you wanted in the first place and kill the power of structural tension.
Now, here’s the good news. Once you’re aware of structural conflict you can choose. You can decide if you still want what you wanted when you started – a fun little blog with a few loyal followers. And if it is knowing where you stand against your end state is a good thing. Web analytics can help.
And, if not, it’s time to go back to basics and consciously build some structural tension.
Are your Internal Communications driven by structural tension or structural conflict? How can you tell? Something to think about.