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.
Brand
If the US Army is embracing social media, you can too!
Imagine this paragraph from the opening letter to the US Army’s social media policy - Army social media – Optimizing online engagement - written for your organization:
The US Army isn’t embracing social media as a nice to have. It’s a critical element of their operational strategy.
If the US Army is embracing social media, isn’t it time you did too! And not as a nice to have but as key to your operational strategy.
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The ultimate question & employees
I just listened to my favourite podcast, Mitch Joel’s “Six Pixels of Separation”. In this episode, Mitch spoke with Fred Reichheld. Not surprisingly, since Mitch is a brand marketing expert and Fred is a customer loyalty expert and author of the Loyalty Effect and the Ultimate Question, their conversation focused on the customer and the ultimate question: Have I treated you in a way that is worthy of your loyalty?
So, what does that have to do with employees and employee communication? Imagine asking the ultimate question to employees. I did. And, it made me think that perhaps we should be scrapping our annual employee surveys and instead start tracking the employees answer to this one question.
What could we learn by knowing whether our employees were “Promoters, Passives, or Detractors”? Would an employee net promoter score actually tell us more than we’re learning from our annual engagement and job satisfaction surveys? Would it be easier to administer and manage? Would the results be easier to communicate and act upon? Could that deeper understanding help us better achieve our business goals and build toward sustainable success fast?
Even if you don’t think this is the ultimate employee question, the idea of the one question employee survey is an idea who’s time has come.
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From campaign to composition
Let’s face it, we live in an event, event, event world. One event after another. Big events and small events. A new brand. A new executive. A new policy. The latest quarterly results. A new acquisition. A divestiture. A new product. A flood of separate moments. From an employee point of view it can all look pretty disconnected and confusing.
The challenge we have as leaders is to have these discrete events build momentum toward the business results we’re after.
But in an event, event, event world here’s what usually happens. A big shiny new brand launch. A month or two of hints about what’s coming. Lots of energy and hoopla focused on the day of launch. A campaign. Internally all goes incredibly well. Better than expected in fact. Then nothing. Or maybe a little something. And then nothing.
Communications based on discrete events will only ever be just that. What’s missing? The composition, “the plan, placement or arrangement of the elements” in relationship to each other. The same events communicated in the context of the whole will build momentum and action toward the business results we’re after.
To move from a series of campaigns to composition takes a change in perspective. It means looking at the events in context and understanding how each event impacts the other as well as how separately and together they support the overall business objectives over time.
It means understanding what these events separately and together look like from an employee [insert any other important stakeholder here] point of view. What does success look like? If the new brand [insert any important business event/announcement here] is a success, what will we see? Specifically how will it advance the business? What are the proof points? How and when will we know? How will we tell that story over time?
As business leaders isn’t it time to insist on integrated communications strategies that will help build business momentum. Isn’t it time to move from communications campaigns to composition?
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Great brands are more than marketing
Imagine you’re an Apple employee in 1997. It’s over a decade since Steve Jobs was ousted from his position as CEO. You know you’re part of a team with “good people”. But, despite strong “brand loyalty” and “millions of dollars of investment in research and development”, Apple feels like it’s “standing still” and the business you love is being described as the “failure story of wall street”. [quotes]
And, now, Jobs is back. And, he’s describing Apple’s core values: “We believe that people with passion can change the world!”
In this short video, he talks about the Apple he’s come back to, gives a primer on the power of core values to create great brands like Nike. He’s talking about marketing and introducing an ad campaign.
But, great brands, like Apple are about more than marketing! And, Jobs knew that.
Great brands capture the imagination of people inside and out and then they deliver.
What are your core values? It’s a question that has been asked before. It’s a question worth asking again.
How do you describe who you are and what you stand for? As an institution? As a CEO? As a leadership team? And, how do you translate that into an experience for employees and customers?
Thanks to Lisa Barone for the inspiration.
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Making “magic in the marketplace”
Today, thanks to Mitch Joel’s Six Pixels of Separation, I came across this key note address by Bill Taylor, the founding editor of Fast Company Magazine and author of Practically Radical: Not-So-Crazy ways to Transform Your Company, Shake Up Your Industry, and Challenge Yourself.
Here’s what really caught my attention: ”You can’t build something special, compelling, distinctive in the marketplace unless you also build something special, compelling distinctive in the workplace… Strategy is your culture. Culture is your strategy. Success today is about so much more than just price, performance, features, technology, pure economic value. It’s about passion, emotion, identity, sharing your values… Real magic in the marketplace is when you make your organization more memorable to encounter.”
And that my friends can’t happen when the relationship with employees is the last thing on the C-Suite’s agenda! It can’t happen when leaders do not trust employees [though they expect employees to trust them], where leaders are not loyal to employees [though they expect loyalty from them] and where they are not proud of employees and the work they do [though they expect employees to be proud of the leadership and the organizations they work for]. Broken cultures on the inside will always show on the outside sooner or later!
Recommend you take the 20+ minutes [Bill comes in at about minute 4] to watch it. Some great stuff on bench marking too!
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Great idea # 3: Building pride – The Hudson Bay Company story
An occasional post on a really great idea for employee communications
– simple and high impact.
For those of you who don’t know, The Bay was incorporated “…by British royal charter in 1670 as The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson’s Bay” making it “… the oldest commercial corporation in North America and one of the oldest in the world.” [source] I grew up knowing it as The Hudson Bay Company. Somewhere along the line it became HBC and The Bay.
And somewhere along the line the adventure was over. The Bay had become a tired and dowdy department store owned by venture capitalists. You couldn’t even find a Hudson Bay Company Point Blanket anywhere in the store.
And somewhere along the line over 70,000 employees and millions of customers had lost the spirit. Products were uninteresting. And the service was nonexistent or surly.
Enter Bonnie Brooks, Chief Adventurer (aka President and CEO), The Bay, Hudson’s Bay Company. The store, here in Montreal, looks the same from the outside. But inside there’s a lot going on and it’s all good.
In the two years since she was named, Bonnie Brooks has managed to transform this dying department store. And she’s done it by going back to basics: Building pride in the founding spirit of adventure and discovery. The things that connect the business to this incredible 400 year history that had been lost. And, she’s managed to take mostly hourly minimum-wage employees with her by building their pride – in the institution, in leadership and in the work they do for customers every day. Genius.
She’s “invited employees on a mission”. A mission to engage with the business and their customers. And they are. Their pride in the company and what they are doing is palpable.
She’s managed in a very short time to reignite pride in the institution and the heritage and tradition of the past. She’s changed the employee experience. And in doing so she’s changed the customer experience.
A simple idea. Incredibly well executed. Good for employees. Good for customers. And good for The Bay.
Congratulations Bonnie!
PS: The iconic blanket stripes are now trademark protected and you can now find the Hudson Bay Company Point blankets, pillows and other gift items that reflect the traditional bay colours and spirit in their in-store boutiques.
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Places worth caring about
“The emersive ugliness of our everyday environments… is entropy made visible. We can’t overestimate the despair we are creating…”
James Howard Kunstler
Wow! ”Entropy made visible.” ”Despair we are creating.”
Nowhere is that more true than in our places of work. These are mostly soulless places. Nothing that would build hope or confidence. Nothing of the brand experience we talk about and expect our employees to be so proud of and to deliver to our customers daily. Not even a hint of the business you’re in unless the corporate identity on the wall behind the reception desk gives a clue.
And, reception areas where the receptionist is missing. They lost their job two rightsizings ago.
Long characterless hallways. Rows of cubicles [no personal items please]. ‘Art’ that isn’t or motivational posters or nothing. Overly sterile washrooms. Kitchens where everything that matters – cups and cutlery are locked up. [You have to pay for your coffee as a cost control measure - my God you’re working 60+ hours a week at wages that were designed when people in your position worked 38.5].
Common areas that aren’t. No one wants to hang out there.
Boardrooms filled with chairs and designed for PowerPoint presentations not for people or work we really do or the collaboration and innovation virtually every organization today is aspiring for.
By the way, this description is focused on white collar environments. But I have to say that I’ve been in smelters that were more human and more appropriate than most office spaces I’ve been in.
We say we want to engage employees. What is there about the place you work in that is engaging? We say that the employee experience of the brand is a key element of culture. How does the design bring your brand to life for employees? If it’s not, then isn’t it time to get this on the Corporate agenda? How?
__________
Thanks to Mitch Joel for reminding me about James Howard Kunstler’s inspiring and funny TED talk.
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Employee orientation. The essentials.
New employee orientation begins way before you think it does. It starts when an employee makes first contact with your organization. That could have been years ago if they use your product or service or if you’re a major brand with lots of advertising dollars. Or it could have been the job ad on Workopolis or Monster. Or it could have been at a booth at a job fair. It most certainly isn’t at that “onboarding” event you asked them to attend 2 months after they started working for you.
Orienting employees has more to do with introducing employees to your culture: “The way we do things around here” and the brand experience than it does all the rules and regs that are the usual focus of employee orientations.
Nordstrom’s employee handbook may do this better than anything I’ve ever seen. It’s certainly the shortest. Here it is in its entirety.
Welcome to Nordstrom
We’re glad to have you with our Company. Our number one goal is to provide outstanding customer service. Set both your personal and professional goals high. We have great confidence in your ability to achieve them.
Nordstrom Rules: Rule #1: Use best judgment in all situations. There will be no additional rules.
Please feel free to ask your department manager, store manager, or division general manager any question at any time.
What do you think? Does this say more about their culture than a full-day briefing and a 300-page orientation binder?
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Great idea # 2 – Netflix on building a great culture
An occasional post on a really great idea for internal communications – simple and high impact.
““I will not lie, not cheat, not steal,
nor tolerate those who do.”
All of us are responsible for value consistency.”
What a simple and obvious way to ensure that values are valued. And that behaviours reflect values. Well, it may be obvious, but how many organizations do you know where employees are really responsible for ensuring values consistency?
Netflix CEO Reed Hasting’s “Reference Guide on our Freedom & Responsibility Culture” presents their current best thinking about maximizing Netflix likelihood of continuous success.
I’m a little behind in seeing this. But thanks my good friend Christine Pietschmann I did.
This deck is one of the best things to cross my desk in a long time. It’s well worth the time it takes to flip through the 128 slides. It’s clear. It’s concise. It describes the kind of culture Netflix is building and practically what that means for employees and managers on a day-to-day basis.
It describes in a comprehensive way ‘how we do things around here’, why, and what that means for you – if you are already an employee or if you’re considering joining Netflix. And it has clear implications for you if you are an investor or a customer or potential customer. No ambiguity. No gray zone. No corporate jargon. No acronyms.
Well done Netflix! You’ve set the bar very high indeed.
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Learning from Indian royalty
I just saw an amazing exhibit at the Art Gallery of Ontario – Maharaja: The Splendour of India’s Royal Courts. The role of the royal procession in Indian culture is a key element of the exhibit. It is at least as rich and opulent as you would imagine. Stunning.
In the first room a Maharaja talks about the power of the royal procession. I admit that I expected him to talk about how the procession is designed to position the Maharaja as a powerful god-like being. Whether the turbaned and bejewelled Maharaja is riding in a gold and silver ‘howda’ on the back of an elephant dressed in highly embroidered ornaments or in a silver and enamel landau carriage [yes silver!] or in a aluminum on saffron and Phantom II Rolls Royce, the royal procession is a spectacle. And, it’s designed to be spectacular [start at 3 minutes on this video].
But, what the Maharaja said made me stop. He said that the real power of the procession isn’t the spectacle. Instead, it’s a profound reminder of his responsibility to the people in his kingdom.
Now, I know your CEO is no Maharaja. And our organizations are not feudal kingdoms. But, are there any events or moments in organizational life that connect senior executives to employees in a way that gives them a powerful and direct understanding of their responsibility? If so, what are they? And if not, should we be thinking about how we can better make that connection?
For those of you interested in what it took to dress an elephant for such a procession [no irony intended]:
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