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.
Engagement
Connecting for big business benefits
This morning I came across three articles. Three different perspectives. Same conclusion. The more connected we are as leaders and as organizations the better.
Perspective 1 - CEOs. A study of 65 chief executives from around the world discovered that CEOs spend an average of 6 hours out of their 55-hour work week alone. The remainder of the time is spent in business meetings [virtual and face-to-face] and lunches and on the phone. CEOs may not like it, but it is how their work gets done and confirms Henry Mintzberg‘s seminal study “The nature of managerial work” [1973].
Perspective 2: Leadership teams. In their new book Strategy & Business, Rob Cross and Jon Katzenbach describe how: “In most companies, the phrase top team is a misnomer…” Instead, they go on to say: [P]ower comes from … members’ informal and social networks, their determination to make the most of those connections, and their ability to work well in subgroups formed to address specific issues… [A]s much as 90 per cent of the information that most senior executives receive and take action on comes throughout their informal networks – not formal reports or databases.” The conclusion: Enriching networks enriches organizations.
Perspective 3: Organizations. ”Web 2.0 … promote[s] significantly more flexible processes at internally networked organizations: respondents say that information is shared more readily and less hierarchically, collaboration across organizational silos is more common, and tasks are more often tackled in a project-based fashion.” This study goes on to demonstrate that the more networked an organization the more business benefits. If you, or your leadership team, ever had any doubts it’s worth taking a look.
Connecting is what we as human beings do. We’re social creatures. Our organizational work gets done with, and through, other people.
Helping your employees connect. A little idea with huge potential business benefits.
It’s a potentially beautiful thing.
Random Posts:
Shining eyes
“A [symphony orchestra] conductor doesn’t make a sound. His job is to awaken the possibility in other people.”
This is what Benjamin Zander, conductor of the Boston Philharmonic, says.
And, how do you know you’re doing it?
“If their eyes are shining, you know you’re doing it… It’s about how many shiny eyes are around us.”
As a leader, how many shiny eyes are around you?
Random Posts:
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!
Random Posts:
Story catchers
Native Americans have a tradition of dream catchers. These web-like structures are created to protect dreamers from bad dreams. When hung in the light, dream catchers only let the good dreams through.
Everyday, in every organization, compelling human stories are being ‘written’. Important moments that we can learn from. And, though much has been said about the power of storytelling to involve and motivate, to develop and learn, to build energy and momentum, most employee communications are about as far from storytelling as you can get.
Why is that?
We don’t recognize a good story when we hear or see one. In my experience the best organizations think about proof points when they are building their plans. They ask one simple question: How will we know when we’ve reached our objective? What will success look like? Despite all the work that goes into building strategic plans, articulating values and vision statements, the true test comes when they are concrete enough that we can recognize a story that shows how they play out in the day-to-day life of the organization.
We don’t know where to begin to look to find a good story. Every organization has moments that are critical to the business – trade shows, proposal submissions, shareholder meetings, product launches. And, they are generally pretty predictable. In my experience the best organizations plan their storytelling annually. What are the key moments in our planning horizon? How can we share these moments with employees? What kinds of stories will have the most meaning and impact? How can we most easily gather, tell and share them?
We don’t have the resources – time or budget – to gather and tell stories. This is the fun part. The opportunities are endless. Employee networks are everywhere creating opportunities for roving reporters. Tools and channels grow daily. A little imagination and ingenuity goes a long way.
A story. One of the highlights of my career happened when I was the Director, Internal Communications for Bombardier Aerospace [for another]. Le Bourget is the largest aerospace show in the world and critical to Bombardier’s business. It’s a time to close deals – - more deals are signed there than at any other time of the year, meet current and potential customers, and see what the competition is up to. Despite that few employees knew about the show. Those that did saw it as an executive boondoggle. Paris, foie gras and champagne.
We were introducing a new brand at the show – Ideas that fly – and decided very early on that we wanted to find a way to bring employees to Le Bourget and Le Bourget to employees. One of the most important and exciting things that we did was to introduce a new employee newsletter – BFlash. Over the first 4 days of the show, managers and administrative staff in Montreal, Toronto and Wichita came in each morning and found a pdf version in their inbox. Belfast in the afternoon. Given the limited access for plant employees we couldn’tt reach them directly or in real time, but managers posted the newsletter on bulletin boards and spoke about highlights from the show at the shop floor meetings that week.
It was important for us to humanize the story of the show without being able to interview customers. So, we made sure that the template was simple and colourful and thanks to the professional photographer that was there for marketing we had wonderful images of employees at the show. Each edition updated employees on the business facts – our sales and how the competition was doing in comparison but also told the story of one employee at the show each day [My Paris] and one employee’s experience of the show over the 4 days [Shasta's Paris - this ended up being a highlight], presented short interviews with executives from different functions about why they attend the show and what it means for their part of the business, facts about the show and our presence there, etc. We created buzz across the system. And a new understanding and appreciation for the role of Le Bourget to the business. The approach was such a hit that we continued to use this model for other key moments – new aircraft introductions, first flights, other air shows.
We’d built our first story catcher.
How often do your leaders tell stories? What forums do you have for sharing stories across the organization? Isn’t it time to build story catching and sharing into your communication strategies?
Random Posts:
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.
Random Posts:
Sucky values suck!
It was impossible to disagree with Robert Fritz when he said, at a training I participated in last week, that:
“Organizations are amoral in and of themselves.
It’s human beings in organizations that have values.
It’s leaders that must impose values.”
So, when I read the most recent Maritz poll results (2010, USA), I had to conclude that leaders may be imposing values, but they aren’t the ones that are being communicated by Corporate communications and HR professionals.
The survey found that “despite a slight improvement in business conditions, the American workforce remains less engaged with their employers than they did one year ago. Poor communications, lack of perceived caring, inconsistent behavior, and perceptions of favoritism were cited by respondents as the largest contributors to their lack of trust in senior leaders.” Specifically:
- Only 7% believe senior management’s actions are completely consistent with their words.
- 14 % of employees believe their company’s leaders are ethical and honest.
- Only 12 % believe their employer genuinely listens to and cares about employees.
- Only 10 % of employees trust management to make the right decision in times of uncertainty.
- About 25 % of employees distrust management more than they did the year before.
What is especially disheartening is that these same leaders are reading this report and year over year seeing the same results disappointing results. What are they making of it? Do they see employee involvement in their businesses as a must have or as a nice to have? What’s keeping them up at night if it’s not this?
Sucky values suck!
Thanks to Hacking Work and Communication at work for bringing this poll to my attention.
Random Posts:
“Sometimes you just have to go rogue”
“Much more important than working hard is knowing how to find the right thing to work on. Paying attention to what is going on in the world. Seeing patterns. Seeing things as they are rather than how you want them to be. Being able to read what people want. Putting yourself in the right place where information is flowing freely and interesting new juxtapositions can be seen. But you can save yourself a lot of time by working on the right thing.” [Caterina Fake at Happiness Hack]
There’s nothing fake about Caterina Fake’s take on the role of management. She’s co-founder of Hunch and Flickr. And thanks to Hackingwork you can hear how she, as “a management 2.0 leader thinks about [her] role and best practices for being a disruptive hero”. [really gets going at 4 minutes]
Yep. “Sometimes you just have to go rogue.”
Random Posts:
The best invest in their people! Really?
Tony Schwartz recently shared his thoughts on “how the best companies are investing in their people”. He believes all human beings have four sources of energy: physical, emotional, mental/cognitive, and spiritual. So, companies who want to the best performance need to make sure employees’ needs on all four sources are adequately met as a business priority. Makes sense. Sadly, when asked, Tony couldn’t name one company, not even his client Google, who is currently doing this.
Still, I think there’s something here worth giving thought to here. As a starting point for thinking about what institutions are doing or not doing to create better places to work…
Physical – All of us need to be adequately nourished, rested and fit to perform well. What is/should/could your institution doing to ensure that employees are?
In my experience only one company, Nike, even came close on this one. Makes sense since this is the business they are in. Their cafeteria looked out on a beautiful ‘lake’ and redwood forest in Oregon. The food that was prepared and presented was healthy and nutritious and not “granola”. There were a range of culinary delights on offer and even a selection of wines and beers. The portion calorie count was clearly listed even then almost 8 years ago. There was a track, a cross-country trail and a gym on the property. Though I’m sure there was an elevator, everyone I saw walked up and down the three story court floor stairs. People worked intensely but they also seemed to know when to break. You got the sense that employees treated their business life as they would their athletic training.
At Google, according to Tony they are very aware of this source of energy and do many things to actively support employee health including covering the cost of employee meals and making nap pods available.
Emotional - We need to feel our work is valued and appreciated. When and how do the people in your institution thank and recognize each others work [and really mean it]?
I’ve seen this done well and badly and often in the same organization. So much depends on the skill of the manager. We all know when our work is really appreciated and when we’re being manipulated. This is not about the usual employee award programs. It is about getting real and timely recognition from your colleagues, your clients and your boss. Leading outside the lines is a great resource for beginning to thinking about this from an institutional point of view. Managerial moment of truth takes the idea further. It’s not about what one of my clients called ‘cumbaia’. It is about setting conditions for a fair game.
Mental and cognitive – We need to be adequately focused. How does your organization keep the work focused and prioritized?
Most organizations I know are currently suffering from 24/7/52 syndrome. Thanks in part to technology and cultures that are hyped on “bigger, better, faster” there are no breaks insight. The pace of work looks manic from the outside, and feels overwhelming on the inside. Days are full of meetings. The work gets done outside of that. There’s little or no time to think. Tony suggests that even Google fails on this one. I think in addition, this is the place where we need to think about the impact our work space itself has on our ability to do a good job.
Spiritual – We need to see that we are contributing to something that is based on deeply held values and a clear sense of purpose; something that we find meaningful. How does your institution make sure that employees feel the organization is doing something meaningful to them and aligned with their values?
I think employee recruitment and selection is key on this one. If you’ll never get over the fact that if you work for Rio Tinto Alcan that 10% of the world’s energy every day is used in the production of aluminium then you will never be a match for this business. If you believe that aluminium makes lives better because it is the only fully recyclable product in the world and used in millions of applications and that’s what you care about then you’ll be a match for the business. If you join the company before knowing these facts, that’s a problem. This spiritual element is either a match or it isn’t. As an institution you can make the reality more evident for employees but you can’t fake it.
So, maybe, just maybe, it’s really all about recruiting and selecting the right people and then setting the conditions for people to do great work and supporting them in ways that they find helpful. Now there’s an idea.
Random Posts:
“The new ad cost us millions mate, millions…”
A little fun, from down under, that takes a look at the employee side of this equation.
So wrong on so many levels, and yet the main point is just too right to be really funny!
Random Posts:
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!
Sign up for mailing list
Recent Posts
- Decisions based on compromise
- Grey zones are costing your organization big time
- Saying goodbye to jargon
- Don’t leave them laughing
- A master class with Ed Sullivan
- Innovation & collaboration: Strategic priorities or not?
- The truth about the number 1 fear
- Want to know the secret to writing a great speech?
Authors
Recent posts
- Decisions based on compromise
- Grey zones are costing your organization big time
- Saying goodbye to jargon
- Don’t leave them laughing
- A master class with Ed Sullivan
- Innovation & collaboration: Strategic priorities or not?
- The truth about the number 1 fear
- Want to know the secret to writing a great speech?
- Connecting for big business benefits
- Staying in touch with reality
Categories
Archives
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010