This blog is about 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 September, 2010
It’s got to be a two-way street
My last post made me think about the way that trust, loyalty and pride work. We act as if they flow one-way. But they simply don’t. If trust, loyalty and pride aren’t reciprocated, it’s pretty hard to imagine how they can even exist.
Does your organization trust employees? If it does, how is that trust expressed?
Is your organization loyal to employees? Is it proud of employees and the work they do? If it is how is that loyalty and pride expressed?
Do your managers trust employees? If they do, how is that trust expressed?
Are your managers loyal to employees? Are they proud of employees and the work they do? If they are how do they express their loyalty and pride?
If not, how can we possibly expect employees to trust our organizations or management? How can we expect employees to be loyal to our organizations or management? How can we expect employees to be proud of the organizations and the people they work for?
So, where does that leave us? If we want employee trust, loyalty and pride then we’re going to have to change.
Random Posts:
A dirty little secret
I watched a talk by Diane E. Ragsdale, who was then at the Andrew Mellon Foundation. She was talking about Surviving Culture Change in the Arts. Somewhere about half way through this great talk she referred to the ‘depth of loyalty and the quality of engagement’. Now she was talking about external stakeholders. But it got me thinking.
It’s an interesting thing, but we don’t hear very much about employee loyalty. We hear about building trust, employee engagement. And very occasionally about encouraging employee pride: pride in their work and their organizations.
When it comes to loyalty, the focus tends to be on customers. Why is that? Is it because we think that since we pay the employee that they are loyal? Or that since the job market is tight employees are loyal.
I find it a funny thing. Loyalty is something so tied to trust and pride and engagement and it’s virtually absent from the general discussion.
I think it may reveal something that makes me pretty uncomfortable. And that is that even with all the talk of humanizing organizations and the workplace there’s a dirty little secret. Underneath all this nice talk about building relationships there’s an assumption about employees. And that is that it’s really all about the transaction. We can buy loyalty. Or we get “loyalty” because employees have limited choices.
Is your organization’s employee experience “cultivating true fans” and advocates? Is designed to build employee loyalty? And, if it’s not, is it because after all they get a pay cheque. Are all our good intentions built on this assumption: in the end the employee ‘relationship’ is ‘short-term’ and contractual? Not a relationship at all.
Random Posts:
If it wasn’t there would you miss it?
A month or so ago, a tree in Westmount Park [another gem of Frederick Olmsted’s here in Montreal] was hit by lightening. Anyone who lives in downtown Montreal knows ‘that’ tree: A beautiful gnarly hundred year old weeping willow.
It had been tipping over and held up with a metal brace for the 30+ years we’ve lived in Montreal. And, many of us felt a real sadness to hear this news. I couldn’t explain my reaction. Someone I met on the street near there recently told me she still hasn’t taken her dog back to the park since it fell so great is her sorrow. Rumours have it that the City of Westmount cut it down in the middle of the night to reduce the emotional impact. Huge pieces remain and will be made into benches for the park.
For those of you who’ve visited my home, you know that I live on the 3rd and 4th floor of a condo where “the tree” is a major feature. It’s there in different guises through our four seasons. It’s like a moving piece of art. As it has grown from a sapling to a full-fledged tree, our place has grown into a “tree-house”. And I know how bereaved I would be if anything happened to it. My emotional reaction to the City’s “trimming” it a few years ago was out of proportion to the reality.
On the weekend CBC ran a brief segment – so brief I can’t find it for you – with someone talking about our emotional connection to trees.
All of this has made me think. We can have strong emotional connections to inanimate things like trees. When we care, we care. And, sometimes it’s rational, but lots of times it just isn’t. Is there anything in your workplace that you care this much about? Are there ‘trees’ in your work life? If so what are they?
Random Posts:
How not to do internal communications
It’s been one of those days where it just hits you over the head. There’s a lot of bad communications going on in organizations.
It started when a friend sent me this note that had arrived in his in-basket this morning:
Dear colleagues,
This is to inform you that the payments for all professors this term has been delayed due to delays related with the reserve courses. The Associate Dean of Academic Relations signed and gave all the necessary paperwork to XXXX in late August. However, he had to keep all contracts (extra teaching and reserve) until all issues related to the union were resolved, which is now the case.
XXXX is verifying that all contracts are now on the system. If they are, you should be paid in the upcoming pay run. My sincere apologies for any inconvenience and thank you for your patience.
All the best,
A few issues just haven’t been dealt with in this communication:
1: Why is this the first time you’re hearing about it? It’s already a few weeks into the term. My friend has been working since mid-August.
2: If you’re contract isn’t in the system, then what? Wait until another pay run? Wait until hell freezes over?
3: What are they doing to make sure this never happens again? Well no sign of anyone thinking about that here.
Sorry, sincere apologies just don’t cut it.
This is the kind of communication that leaves everyone feeling cheated. The person who wrote had to write the letter and who ends up defending the boss who did “all the necessary paper work”. The boss who looks completely ineffectual. XXX who sounds like they are hopelessly caught in an unrelenting bureaucracy. The union whose fault it clearly is [?]. And, my friend [and all the other profs] who have mortgages to pay and no pay in the bank.
“All the best”? For who?
And here’s the kicker. I just heard that this whole issue is actually only about 4 or 5 profs. Wouldn’t a phone call have been a bit more human?
The second happened at a very high end retail outlet here – Holt Renfrew. Before anyone gets the wrong idea, I wasn’t there to buy something swish, just lipstick. The business section this morning had another article about their new president. He’s focused on making the place more friendly – hot pink name badges and greeters in pink tartan suits are part of the plan. And he’s increased sales 15% in women’s wear, so something is working, but for how long?
I happened to be there over lunch. The person that was serving me seemed to be the only one working after one sales clerk after another drifted off for lunch – all with a friendly wave goodbye and mumbled reasons why they couldn’t wait.
Now, I’ve run retail operations before and lunch is a pretty busy time. And this is a high end shop where service is key. The woman that was serving me – proudly wearing her new bright pink badge – Magali told me in frustration that this issue comes up again and again at their weekly meetings. “And, nothing changes. Same girls every time.” And no consequences I said. “No consequences.” She confirmed. All the communications in the world and no consequences for bad behaviour aren’t going to add up to much.
The focus on new pink badges and a greeter aren’t bad in and of themselves, but if the same energy and money were focused on fundamental service issues, well then you have lift off. It’s hard to be friendly [or familiar] when you’re not there.
Magali you deserve a star! And I’m just glad that I arrived when you could serve me. The line was growing as I left.
How ’bout you? Have you got any ‘how not to do internal communications” from this week that you can share?
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The challenge – Change the profession!
We’ve heard it all before. The traditional approach to corporate communications – tightly “scripted messages delivered by the chief executive, first to investors, then to other opinion-formers, and only later to the mass audiences of employees and consumers“ has got to go.
And it needs to be replaced by vibrant “peer-to-peer and horizontal discussion across stakeholders. [Where] the employee is the new credible source for information about a company, giving insight from the front lines. [And], the consumer has become a co-creator, demanding transparency on decisions from sourcing to new-product positioning.” [Ref for these quotes]
And yet, even as Web and Intranet 2.0 are about to become 3.0 we’re still working through 1.0 [ok maybe 1.5]. And if you have any doubt, just pop into CommScrum to check out the animated discussion going on there over what and how our main professional association IABC is or isn’t serving the needs of our profession in this new world.
As early as 2007, Arthur W Pages’ publication, the Authentic Enterprise in 2007, presented recommendations for transforming “our profession, open[ing] up new and meaningful kinds of responsibility and learning, and creat[ing] exciting new career paths for communications professionals. If you haven’t read it, it’s a great starting point for thinking about the revolution of our profession.
And, in June, after months of online consultation, The Stockholm Accords were published. Their aim “… is to articulate and establish the role of public relations in the “communicative organization” within a fast-evolving digital and value-network society.” [I think the authors would do well to refer back to the Authentic Enterprise].
We know what we need to do, so what’s stopping us?
Random Posts:
Just do it!
You’ve heard it before… Actions speak louder than words.
So, are we just making all of this institutional communications stuff just way too complicated – for ourselves and the people we work for and with?
Why don’t we just do it? Set up the conditions that allow our employees [including managers by the way] do the best possible job ….
Well because… organizations are changing their mission, vision, values and strategies every year or two or with every change in leadership depending which comes first? It’s like clockwork.
And the same time their employees are trying to keep up.
Realigning key business systems and processes – operations, technology, finance, HR.
Realigning the organizational structures and reporting relationships.
At the same time as they are being more innovative, collaborative, nimble, engaged, customer-focused, – all faster…
And the organizations we’re in aren’t designed for all this change.
We’re wrapping ourselves up in knots. Putting in more hours. Doing more stuff. Creating Rube Goldberg Machines of our organizations?
It just can’t be that complicated.
What do you think? Can we stop all the madness and just do it?
Random Posts:
Learning from our past
“Will the [internal communication] function be needed? No, and that’s a good thing. In fact, that should be our professional aim – to restore our organisations’ ability to communicate to the point where our services are no longer required.”
So said Adam Hibbert in a comment on my last post.
I love this aspiration [although I’m not sure about "restoring"]. And, I know it’s shared by many of you who are following the discussion on CommScrum where our frustration concerning the function is often the basis for “the scrum” and on Kevin Keohane’s blog – “Death to internal marketing” – where the blog’s name speaks for itself.
I think we all agree that – good, bad or indifferent – employee communications have and do happen with or without a function called internal communications. So, when did the function come into being? Why? And what was work life like before and after?
We actually don’t need to go back very far to find a time when the function didn’t exist.
According to my resident economic historian, Michael, since the multi-divisional corporation was only invented in the U.S.A sometime in “the 1920s” when it was first introduced by Alfred Sloan at General Motors (“Sloan’s Revolution”), the employee communication function, as a function, couldn’t have existed before that.
A quick look at Sloan’s book “My years with General Motors” and the organization charts that are produced there show something very interesting. The beginnings of a human resources function are there as early at 1921. At that time, General Motors had a position called General Advisor Staff. This position reported to the VP in charge of operations and was responsible for 15 functions wide ranging functions from the cafeteria to real estate. One of these which was called Organization – Line and Staff and another called Personnel Services [Welfare, medical and San. Serv.]. The beginnings of Human Resources are there. But nothing that suggests a specific employee communications function.
By 1963 the biggest corporation in the world still did not have a Public Relations function. The closest thing to that seems to be advertising and market research function that reported to the VP Sales and Service. Oh those Mad Men! That’s the biggest company in the world. That’s 1963!
By that time the Personnel and Labour Relations function with its own VP. And, there are three places within this function that start to look like employee communications. The first two are the General Motors Suggestion Program and Employee Research functions [both reporting to Personnel Relations] and the second is the Appeal Hearings and Arbitration [reporting to labour Relations]. Perhaps even more interesting from a communication point of view is that they all are potentially about listening. They certainly don’t sound like mass communications.
To understand our present and prepare for our future I think we need to understand our past. This brief look into the past has made me more curious.
- When did organizations decide they needed to influence employees with more than hours and wages? Was it when employees began to unionize and take action against their employers?
- What motivated the creation of an internal communications function?
- When did the first internal communication function show up on an organization chart?
- What impact did internal communications have? Did the work of the first internal communications functions improve the workplace or not?
- When did internal communications become a professional communications function rather than a Human Resources specialty? Or did it?
- When we expect the function to be a humanizing force in our institutions are we asking it to do something it was never designed to do?
If you know the answer to any of these questions, I’d love to hear from you?
Is it time to scrap the current structure and start from nothing? I know where you and Kevin stand Adam. Anybody else?
For more you might want to check out:
Micklethwait and Wooldridge, The Company, 2003, pp. 104-109
Alfred Sloan, My Years at General Motors, 1964
Alexander R. Heron, “Sharing information with employees” , 1942 is considered the first book on employee communications
Random Posts:
Social media are rocking our world
Social media are changing what we do and how we do it. With our families. With our friends. With strangers. With our colleagues. At play. At work. Social media haven’t even come of age and they are already rocking our world.
Nowhere will these changes be more profound than in our workplaces. Social media are changing basic assumptions about how we organize to get things done.
| Was | Will be [if it's not already] |
| Centralization | Decentralization |
| Formal hierarchy | Informal networks |
| Chain of command | Collaboration |
| Central planning | Collective learning |
| Bureaucracy | Community |
| Departments | Tribes |
| High control | High accountability |
| Machine models | Complex adaptive systems |
I don’t for one second think that it’s as clear cut as this conversation makes it out.
I don’t believe institutions of the future will operate fully one way or the other. They will need to find the right balance – their right balance – given the nature of the work.
And, social media create institution-wide opportunities for connecting that simply didn’t exist for large organizations before. Social media are already driving changes in behaviour, attitudes and expectations. They are already having a profound effect on our institutions and the role of the managers who run them.
What is certain is that the function of management is changing. The days when power and authority based on hierarchy alone is gone. Instead, managers will need to be influencers. Facilitators. Consensus-builders.
And, it is certain that this will change the function of institutional communications especially internal communications. In a world where managers are influencers, what is the role of internal communications? In a world where employees will have access to what they need, when and how they need it [thanks Bill Jensen, Work 2.0], will the internal communications function even need to exist?
Random Posts:
On being authentic
The first time I ever heard the term authentic used in an organizational setting was only a few years ago and it might have been the last time it made any sense.
I was doing a small project for Nike’s Marketing team at their head office in Portland, Oregon. They often referred to authentic Nike. At first I thought it was some meaningless corporate jargon [there’s generally a lot of that going around at HQs wherever they are]. It took me a while, but I finally realized that for them a product was authentic Nike only if it had been designed with a world class athlete to improve their personal performance. Now, that’s authentic.
Three years ago, The Authentic Enterprise concluded that “…authenticity will be the coin of the realm for successful corporations and for those who lead them.” And, that “Communicators are uniquely positioned to become experts on the new art and science of organizational trust.” Now, I need to say up front that I generally find this whitepaper interesting and compelling. And not surprisingly I’m pretty keen about their conclusions for communicators.
The problem I have is that this paper and the discussion that has followed is based on two flawed assumptions:
- Institutions can be other than authentic
- Being authentic is always going to be good.
I don’t believe either of these assumptions are true.
First, how could an institution be anything other than authentic. They are what they are. They do what they do. Their behaviours and actions, the decisions they take or don’t take reflect their underlying beliefs and values. And, whether you like them or not they are a totally authentic.
Second, authenticity has lost its meaning. For Nike it was real and good. The challenge for many institutions today is that what is authentic is not that good. What’s real is not good. Think of British Petroleum or the Vatican. Their behaviours and actions tells us much about their authentic institution and it’s not good.
Importantly, though authentic and transparent are often talked about in the same breath, you don’t have to be transparent for anyone to get who you really are and what you stand for. Here’s an example:
A young friend of mine, a recent MBA grad, got a job offer from a fortune 100 global high-tech company early this summer. He was told that his candidacy had to go through the CEO. He stopped his job search – he’d received and accepted a formal offer [reflects his values]. It’s been weeks and still no word. This one act tells us a lot about this organization. And, perhaps more than my young friend would like to know. First, even though one of their 5 values is respect they have put a young debt-ridden new grad in this position. Second I believe my friend can be confident that control will be one of the most important underlying values – not innovation or accountability. Two other values that are listed on their site.
On being authentic. That’s easy. Now how to make institutions authentic and forces for good?
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