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.
Cultural norms
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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Rest, renewal & the global situation
When you drive a big rig, the time you drive and rest is regulated for safety reasons.
When you fly a plane, the time you fly and rest is regulated for safety reasons.
When you’re a senior leader making decision that affect 1,000s, maybe 100,000s, of people – employees and customers and communities – you can, and likely do, work many more hours than the 40 hour, 5 day standard work week [at least that's what it is here in Quebec, Canada].
I recently read a post - ”How to accomplish more by doing less” - that brought the implications of this to my mind again. Here Tony Shwartz talks about the absence of regular rest and renewal during the day and a good night sleep on individual performance. And, that made me wonder about the impact it’s having on the quality of thinking and decisions that are being taken by leaders who are are working 60+ hour weeks. Not getting breaks or lunches away from their desks. Working evenings and weekends because they are in meetings from 8 to 6 or later each and every day. Not taking vacations.
Could inadequate rest and renewal have led to our current global economic and political situation?
How can we help our organizations focus and prioritize?
Do less [but more of the right things]. Do it well. And maybe we can change the world!
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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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Power to our people!
A while ago, I came across a post by Brian Solis – “We are the 5th P – People“. His argument is that the product, price, place, and promotion model that everyone whose ever taken a Marketing course knows is missing a key element – People. And, the people he’s referring to are customers. His “… bottom line is that customers are not necessarily looking to build relationships with brands. They’re, we’re, looking for solutions, direction, insights, and value… ”
But, customers are only one P. Employees are another. And they are looking to build a relationship with the brands and organizations they work with. Every employee I’ve ever known has begun their job wanting to be involved. Wanting to be proud of the work they do, the team they belong to and the organization they work for. Unfortunately many of them end up, sooner or later, disappointed and cynical. Maybe the P we should be focused on is the one that actually wants a relationship!
Brian goes on to critic current approaches to social media marketing: ”We’re not driving experiences, we’re reacting to them. We’re not introducing meaningful value, we’re pushing content and creative. We’re not designing programs around intelligence, we’re focused on monitoring.”
What about employees? Are we doing any better there? Are we driving the employee experience from it’s first moments to it’s last [when for B2C products and services the E remains an enthusiastic C] or are we reacting to them? Are we introducing value to employee communications? Or are we pushing content and occasionally creative? Are we designing employee programs around a deep understanding of what employees need and want to better serve organizational goals or are we monitoring their engagement levels and job satisfaction?
I’d agree with Brian’s conclusion that it’s time to ‘click to action‘, I just think we should start with the P that matters most. Employees. Power to our people!
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“How easy is it for me to do great work?”
I’ve been a fan of Bill Jensen‘s work since I read his first book, Simplicity. But, the book that really made me sit-up and take notice was “Work 2.0: Rewriting the contract“. In it he asks leaders to think about how their employees would answer this question – “How easy is it for me to do great work?”
“Work 2.0 is not for the faint of heart… it is for those who are not afraid to stretch their thinking about work and the new contract every employer must make to keep their talent.”
Jane Harper, Director , IBM Extreme Blue
In the 10 years since it was first published the pressure to find and keep the right talent has increased. The employer – employee relationship has changed. But, organizations have not. Or not well or fast enough.
Enter “Hacking Work“, Bill’s most recent project. The idea is simple. As employees we have a choice. We can sit and wait for our organizations to make it easy for us to do great work or we can take action on our own behalf, something Bill calls benevolent hacks, and make it easier for us to do great work.
As a leader ask yourself what you’re doing to make it easier for employees to do great work.
As an employee, don’t wait for your organization to catch up to your needs on the job.
Ask: What can you do to make it easy for you to do great work?
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Use your senses
“To find out whether a company is optimistic, experimental and attuned to risk, people should simply use their senses: look for a colorful landscape of messy disorder rather than a suburban grid of beige cubicles. Listen for burst of raucous laughter rather than the constant drone of subdued conversation… I can literally smell excitement in the air.”
Tim Brown, Change by design, 2009, p 77
An experiment. Tomorrow morning when you come to the office, take a good look, listen and smell. Use your senses. Let me know what you discover.
Do you have the kind of organization you need to stay competitive and productive? Can you smell the excitement in the air?
And for a little fun from Wallace and Gromit on using your senses check out:
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Bursting our bubbles
When I’m at my clients, here in the blogosphere, volunteering, or with my family and friends I tend to find myself in groups that are mostly white, mostly of a certain age and economic level. I’m in a bubble.
And, it struck me over the head again a few weeks ago. I was attending the Living Art, a week-long workshop on creating. I looked up early in the training and realized it was one of the most diverse group of people I might ever have been in [not counting the Apple store on St Catherine's Street here in Montreal - for another post].
There we were 24 of us. A few more women than men, but not by much. Ages ranged from 21 to 75. The youngest was an African American who’d served in the military and was now studying writing at Columbia Univerity. The 75 year old was a contemporary art expert and the daughter of holicaust survivors. There were two married couples. Two french Canadians, an Aussie, a Kiwi [affectionate term for someone from New Zealand] and a German. There were three East Indian Americans. There were about 4 students and one full-time mom. There was a chiropractor and a financier.
There were so many points of view. A rich and wide range of ideas. Over the 7 days, we worked together on a number of projects all designed to help us build our capacity to create. It was an amazing experience.
Back to reality. According to an article earlier this month, it will take women in Canada 151 years at the rate we’re going “before the share of men and women at the management level” will be equal.
That’s not just shocking because we know that women make up almost half of the work force in Canada, or that women make most of the buying decisions, but because we know lack of diversity hurts “employee retention, productivity and innovation.”
So, when are we going to learn and burst this bubble?
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Close encounters of a third kind
It’s the end of summer and the skies are filled with falling stars and comets in this part of the world. Thoughts of end of summer movies and UFO’s are somehow on my mind. So, I hope you’ll indulge me.
As I’m sure you all know [; )], close encounters with UFOs come in three kinds: sighting, physical evidence, and contact. Now, imagine the CEO [read executive leadership] as the UFO [for fun you could actually make employees the UFO and see what that looks like from an executive leadership point of view]:
Close encounters of the first kind - sighting. Pretty rare in most organizations. Employees may see or hear the CEO in big announcement ‘townhalls’ [most often online], and very occasionally as they and their entourage rush quickly through the plant, store, office, or cafeteria for a ‘meet and greet’, or “Christmas” party.
Close encounters of the second kind – physical evidence. Employees can see the effects of the CEO pretty regularly – the welcome letter in the orientation package [if you're in an organization that takes your orientation seriously you might also get a video clip welcome], the quarterly newsletter, the financial results e-mail [and 'townhall', see above], the occasional e-mail and video for a launch of a new brand [identity], introduction of a new product, divestiture, acquisition and/or change of organizational structure or leadership, and even more indirectly in policy changes, the congratulations note for years of service. Physical evidence may still be the most common kind of CEO encounter.
Close encounters of a third kind – Contact. The most direct and the rarest. This is where CEOs and employees actually connect. Human scale, face-to-face contact. Conversations about what matters most. Feedback about what’s working and not working. Personal commitments for support and action. Direct follow-up.
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It’s a diverse world
Not always. When I’m in the blogosphere, volunteering, or attending church, or at my clients find myself in groups that are mostly white [certainly mostly North American], mostly of a certain age and economic level. I’m operating in a bubble.
This struck me over the head a while ago when I was attending the Living Art in southern Vermont. I looked up early in the training and realized it was the most diverse group of people I’d ever been in.
There we were 24 people. A few more women than men, but not by much. Ages ranged from 21 to 75. The youngest was an African American who’d served in the military and was now studying at Columbia Univerity. The 75 year old was a contemporary art expert and the daughter of holicaust survivors. There were two married couples. Two french Canadians, an Aussie, a Kiwi [affectionate term for someone from New Zealand] and a German. There were three East Indian Americans. There were about 4 students and one full-time mom. There was a chiropractor and a financier. It was an incredible workshop on creating. And working with this group of people was an amazing experience.
Back to reality. According to an article in the Globe and Mail a while ago, it will take women in Canada 151 years at the rate we’re going “before the share of men and women at the management level” will be equal.
That’s not just shocking because we know that women make up almost half of the work force in Canada, or that women make most of the buying decisions, but because we know lack of diversity hurts “employee retention, productivity and innovation.”
If as an individual I know I’m in a bubble, how can I expect the organizations I’m involved with to be? How can we, and the institutions we work for, break out of our bubbles?
Random Posts:
Stories sell
Years ago I was a serious about photography. I loved my SLR camera. I took several classes and had achieved a certain level of mastery. I shot images I really loved.
Then came digital. I was lost and overwhelmed by the technology and eventually ended up with a blackberry and the occasional very bad shot. Yesterday I decided to change all that.
Michael and I arrived in the photography shop universally hailed as the best photo place in town and were greeted by two nice gentlemen. We’d just walked for 90 minutes to get there in the bright sun and as my eyes adjusted to the light I realized I was in photographer heaven. The place was packed with equipment and people. We lined up and eventually got to speak to a nice young man.
Over the first 20 minutes or so he told us fact after fact about the two models that he thought best met my need and budget. He was professional and pretty restrained.
And then, he reached for a third model. His voice changed. The way he handled the camera changed. And he told a story. He told us he’s sold this model to a friend of his who was looking for SLR features in a light weight point and shoot. And how having bought this camera his friend was raving about it. It was a short story. Maybe three sentences. And it changed everything. I bought that camera. Yes, it cost more. But it weighed less and … his voice and the story closed the deal.
Sometimes, stories sell.
Oh dear! Now I may need to head to Pheonix. Stories do sell.
PS: For those of you who are interested I got a Canon Powershot S95 and I’m now on pg 29 of the 196 pg manual! Can’t wait to get shooting.
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Recent Posts
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Recent posts
- Do you know the 3 best headline writing tricks ever … anyone can do, guaranteed!
- You have a presentation to make
- Shocking news!
- Shining eyes
- Why oh why do presenters put so, so much text on their PowerPoint slides?
- Be aware, be very aware
- If the US Army is embracing social media, you can too!
- Thriving in chaos
- Rest, renewal & the global situation
- Learning from the Bishop’s wife