Hinton

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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.

External communication

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?

Tags: Collaboration, Employee communication, Innovation, Social media

Deborah Hinton Monday, September 6th, 2010
Permalink Change Management, Communication, Corporate communication, External communication, Internal communication No Comments

Random Posts:

  • From conversation to joint creation
  • Learning from the Vatican [part 3]
  • What can we learn from Chef Gordon Ramsay?
  • Oh dear, what can the matter be?
  • Not all jobs are in cubicles

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:

  1. Institutions can be other than authentic
  2. 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?

Tags: Authenticity, Brand, Communications, Creating meaning, Culture change, Ethics, Transparency, Trust

Deborah Hinton Wednesday, September 1st, 2010
Permalink Communication, Corporate communication, Culture, External communication, Internal communication 1 Comment

Random Posts:

  • From conversation to joint creation
  • Getting back to basics – Who? Why?
  • Friendly. Not familiar.
  • “Can organizations be beautiful?”
  • Two solitudes

The hidden language of communication

As communicators we like to believe that the communication begins once we send the news release, change the banner on the intranet, distribute the communications tool kit for all managers, host the CEO in a virtual or real town hall, send the survey, publish the newsletter, or post the blog.

The truth is that for most important change or announcement the communication started well before, often [and sadly] long before the professional communications team was even involved.  The communication started when:  the President cleared their agenda for a week with no notice.  Or, when the GM started having way more/fewer than normal meetings behind closed doors with her most trusted advisors.  Or, when men in suits turn up unannounced at one of our distant locations.  Or, when shouting is heard coming from a boardroom during a strategic planning meeting.   Or, when the Director of Marketing who is due for a promotion is seen smiling for no apparent reason.

The bottom line is that communications in your organization are happening now with or without you.

Do you know what’s really being communicated in your organization?

Tags: Authenticity, Communications, Cultural norms, Culture change, Employee communication, Message control, Trust

Deborah Hinton Sunday, August 29th, 2010
Permalink CEO, Change Management, Communication, Corporate communication, Culture, External communication, Internal communication, Management 1 Comment

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  • The PowerPoint addiction
  • What can we learn from Chef Gordon Ramsay?
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  • Great idea #1 – Mayo Clinic’s roving video reporter
  • Innovation culture & internal communications

Management innovation = Communication innovation

Another wake up call.

I just tuned in to Gary Hamel’s recent webinar [ironically - given the closing line to last week's post - called]: Lighting the Fires of Management Innovation.[1] In it he describes how Management innovation was once the source of significant competitive advantage.  But, most management innovation took place in the very late 19th and very early 20th century.

So, if we are going to effectively tackle the urgent challenges of today, we need a fundamental reinvention of underlying management principles and practices.  And, we need to create this ‘management advantage’ at a time when the pace of change – political, economic, social, and technological – is increasing.

How?  Well according to Hamel it will take courage.  The courage to:

  • Take on big and noble problems
  • Question dogma
  • Learn from positive deviance [he refers specifically to the ethos of the web and the values that he believes must infiltrate management]
  • Start small – we need to be able to be both revolutionary and evolutionary at the same time.

[echos of Grassroots thinking]

Innovation in communication – the communications function and the communications themselves – will be absolutely fundamental to the reinvention of management.

As communicators it’s sometimes easy to be a little complacent around the idea of communication innovation.  After all the past decade has brought significant and important innovation to how we do communications.  The number and kinds of navigation tools, distribution channels, communication tools and tactics that are available grows exponentially.

But the kind of innovation that Hamel is calling for asks us to fundamentally rethink what we do.  Are we taking on or encouraging our organizations to take on big and noble ideas?  Do we question dogma – ours and others?  Are we learning from positive deviance?  Do we start small or are we caught up in one system wide campaign after another?

Are we ready to take this challenge on? As a profession?  As executives and managers? As advisors to leadership?  As employees and as voices for employees and other key stakeholders?

I’d love to hear what you think.  [the conversation continues]


[1] You need to be registered on the Management Innovation Exchange to access it, but it’s well worth it.

Tags: Behaviour change, Communications, Innovation

Deborah Hinton Monday, August 2nd, 2010
Permalink Communication, Culture, External communication, Internal communication, Management No Comments

Random Posts:

  • Sometimes the words do matter
  • Waffle words
  • Innovation culture & internal communications
  • “Where everybody knows your name”
  • “Resistance is futile”

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.

Tags: Communications, Cultural norms, Culture change, Employee communication, Engagement

Deborah Hinton Wednesday, July 28th, 2010
Permalink Change Management, Communication, Corporate communication, Culture, External communication, Internal communication, Management No Comments

Random Posts:

  • The good. The bad. And the ugly
  • Social media are rocking our world
  • On being authentic
  • Learning from the Vatican [part 2]
  • Communication is not about transportation!

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.

Tags: Authenticity, Behaviour change, Best in class, Brand, Cultural norms, Culture change, Employee communication, Ethics, Transparency, Trust

Deborah Hinton Wednesday, July 14th, 2010
Permalink Change Management, Communication, Corporate communication, Culture, Customer, External communication, Internal communication 1 Comment

Random Posts:

  • Starting with nothing
  • Innovation culture & internal communications
  • Making the case for employees first
  • Two solitudes
  • On being authentic

The music of internal communications

I’ve always thought about the design side of what I do as a musical composition and the implementation side as conducting.  It’s not something I talk about that often but I was reminded of today as I read a draft of the new introduction for Robert Fritz’s book Managerial Moment of Truth.

There Robert describes the ‘composed’ organization:  “Just like a musical composition, the company can have major themes, secondary themes, accompaniment, counterpoint, balances between sections, and the overall integration of the parts to the well-structured whole.”

And that’s exactly how I think about the work I do. Internal Communications is not about pushing the right message/information to the right people at the right time.  It isn’t separate from External Communications.  It isn’t about implementing the right campaign or change management program.  It isn’t about telling stories.   It isn’t about knowledge management.   It isn’t about the tools and tactics at all.

It is about how all of this is orchestrated and what that looks like from an individual employee’s – executive or not – point of view over time.  It is about how all the communications aspects come together to support the institution in achieving their goals while making it easier for their employees to do their work and feel pride in the work and the organization.

When employee communications is done well it is as beautiful as a sonata and as compelling as a tango.

Is that how it is for you?

Tags: Creating meaning, Disciplined approach, Employee communication, Knowledge management, Message control, Relationship, Robert Fritz

Deborah Hinton Friday, July 2nd, 2010
Permalink Change Management, Corporate communication, External communication, Internal communication No Comments

Random Posts:

  • Sometimes the words do matter
  • Social media are rocking our world
  • Getting grassroots
  • Lessons from the newsroom
  • Are we really in a social media wasteland?

Waffle words

“I’ve challenged our team to end this year at the No. 1 [sales] position in the marketplace.  If that doesn’t happen. . . my thoughts are simple:  If you’re the most profitable No. 2, it may be a better position in the marketplace.”

Yes, this is a reported quote from a real executive: Kevin Williams, the new CEO of GM Canada, at a press breakfast yesterday.  Do you have any idea what he was trying to say?  I didn’t so I asked a handful of professional friends what they thought.

In general they did not have a clue what this CEO was trying to say though one person actually thought it was a veiled threat of downsizing directed at employees.  And, they all gave a kind of resigned sigh and shrug after they’d thought about it for a few seconds.  It’s just not that unusual in the business world to read or hear statements like this.

So, in the tradition of this blog, this is less about GM and more about what it may reveal about the challenges institutions – especially public institutions – and their leaders face when their executives are out talking to the media or industry analysts.

Any of you who have worked close to a CEO knows that a team of people probably worked on this ‘positioning’ for weeks.  So it’s generally not for lack of expert advice and support.   And, it is highly unlikely that the whole event including this statement wasn’t scripted from beginning to end.  Even so:

  • The statement is unclear – Our goal is to be No 1 in sales or No 2 in sales but No 1 in profit? Why isn’t it No 1 in sales and profit?
  • The statement is pretty tentative – We might or might not make No 1.  Why?  Is it our strategy or our team?  We don’t know what the best position in the market is – No 1 in sales or No 2 in sales and No 1 in profit?  Is that because we think our competitors will have to buy the No 1 in sales position?

So, what is going on?  Why waffle?  Why not take a stand and clearly state the goal:

  • “We will be No. 1 in profit by the end of the year”?   In that case, you’d need to signal to investors that you’re also planning for growth.
  • “We will be No. 1 in sales by the end of the year”?  In this case you’d want to signal to investors that you won’t achieve the growth in sales at all costs.

So, why all this signalling?  Why wouldn’t you just state the goal completely and clearly.  Well, you need to give yourselves a little leeway, a little gray zone.   Despite all the talk after the economic meltdown in 2008 big investors are still focused on the short-term.  The next quarter is only 3 months away…  And even for potentially decisive, bold and imaginative leaders the risk of a fickle and volatile market is just too high.

And, that leaves you and me and 10s of 1,000s of customers and employees [and potential customers and employees] scratching our heads and wondering what our  business leaders are smoking?  Is it any wonder employees and customers don’t trust big Corporate?

What do you think?  And, perhaps even more importantly, if you agree with me, what can we do to change the game?

Tags: Authenticity, Employee communication, Message control, Relationship, Transparency

Deborah Hinton Thursday, June 17th, 2010
Permalink CEO, Corporate communication, Culture, External communication, Management No Comments

Random Posts:

  • The good. The bad. And the ugly
  • “Can organizations be beautiful?”
  • Waffle words
  • Friendly. Not familiar. Rules.
  • From conversation to joint creation

“Chevy”: Going, going… well, not quite

This summer will you might “See the USA in your Chevrolet?” but you wouldn’t be “Driving your Chevy to the levy” if GM had their way.

Earlier this week, the New York Times reported on a memo GM sent to Chevy employees in Detroit.  The message was clear.  Stop saying “Chevy”.  From now on their beloved product will only be called Chevrolet.

“We’d ask that whether you’re talking to a dealer, reviewing dealer advertising, or speaking with friends and family, that you communicate our brand as Chevrolet moving forward,” said the memo.

The logic: consolidated and consistent branding.  One product.  One name.  No nicknames.

What?

Why would a company with the brand experience of GM want to try and reverse out of a nearly 100 year love affair between Americans and the “Chevy”? And, how could they think they could?  Chevrolet “… continues to hold its position as General Motors’ highest-selling brand to the present day, with “Chevrolet” or “Chevy” being at times synonymous with GM.”   It’s “…one of the world’s best-known, longest-lived product nicknames.”

And, how could a company with the history and size of GM think that a memo like this would stay ‘inside’?

Just 3-days after the memo leaked and increasing public pressure, the company reportedly “…called the memo “a rough draft” and “a bit of fun.”  And, “…explained that there would be no “massive change of direction.”

What do you think ?  A clumsy attempt at a viral campaign?

Tags: Authenticity, Employee communication, Message control

Deborah Hinton Saturday, June 12th, 2010
Permalink Corporate communication, External communication, Internal communication No Comments

Random Posts:

  • Oh dear, what can the matter be?
  • Houston. We have a problem!
  • “Always look on the bright side …”
  • Actions speak louder than words
  • “Open book policy can inspire staff”

Are we really in a social media wasteland?

I don’t know, maybe it’s just been a strange couple of weeks, but I’m starting to think that employee communications is a vast social media wasteland.  At the very best, we’re nowhere near the “garden-of-Eden”-promise of these tools.

With the exception of one very interesting conversation with Rex Lee at RIM about their plans for ‘\”drinking their own champagne” and the occasional case study it seems to me we aren’t making much progress.

Shel Holtz is still making the case he’s been making forever against blocking.  Not blocking is so basic that it’s pretty discouraging to think that more than half of organizations still do not allow, never mind encourage, access to social media.

And over the past few weeks, I’ve been reading about and speaking to people whose organizations are doing amazing things using social media externally.  And, after a little investigating discover that there’s little institutionally-driven and supported use of social media inside these same organizations.  In other words, these organizations have created a powerful b2b strategies based on Web 2.0 and social media while their employees still can’t access Facebook from their desks.  And, they are still getting a flood of one way corporate and departmental communications by e-mail and or posted on their Intranet 1.0, punctuated by the occasional video conference or virtual town hall.

That doesn’t mean that person-by-person employees aren’t microblogging for work using StatusNet [full disclosure Evan’s a friend], or project-by-project managers aren’t implementing wikis and blogging, or department-by-department that teams aren’t using YouTube to post training videos.  It just means that I’m not seeing or hearing about too many integrated internal and external social media strategies.

Why aren’t these smart customer-focused organizations being as smart about their employees?  Has it just been a bad couple of weeks, or are you seeing what I’m seeing?

Tags: Employee communication, Engagement, Innovation, Knowledge management, Message control, Social media

Deborah Hinton Friday, June 11th, 2010
Permalink Corporate communication, External communication, Internal communication No Comments

Random Posts:

  • Friendly. Not familiar.
  • Spin is still in
  • Management innovation = Communication innovation
  • The good. The bad. And the ugly
  • Friendly. Not familiar. Rules.
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Recent Posts

  • Social media are rocking our world
  • On being authentic
  • Houston. We have a problem!
  • The hidden language of communication
  • Starting with nothing
  • What can we learn from Chef Gordon Ramsay?
  • Great idea #1 – Mayo Clinic’s roving video reporter
  • Oh dear, what can the matter be?

Recent Posts

  • Social media are rocking our world
  • On being authentic
  • Houston. We have a problem!
  • The hidden language of communication
  • Starting with nothing
  • What can we learn from Chef Gordon Ramsay?
  • Great idea #1 – Mayo Clinic’s roving video reporter
  • Oh dear, what can the matter be?
  • Management innovation = Communication innovation
  • Creating extreme competitive advantage

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