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.

Relationship

What can we learn from Chef Gordon Ramsay?

It has food.  It has wine.  It has crazy characters.  It has drama.  So it had to happen.  Michael and I are now completely addicted to the original “Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares”.  We stopped watching television months ago.  Now we’re watching streaming video online.  And thanks to The Food Network we’re hooked on Chef Gordon Ramsay’s show.

Who knew how complicated running a restaurant could be?

And who knew that beside the food [Ramsay’s an advocate for fresh local ingredients and simple plates – a higher purpose for the customer], communication seems to be the most important ingredient for success.  And, perhaps surprisingly, I don’t mean marketing communication or PR.  I mean internal communication.

We’ve now watched about 8 episodes.  And with one exception – a brigade of experienced French chefs and service staff from Michelin starred restaurants who clearly knew what they were doing – the mantra of every show has been ‘Communicate!”

Ramsay’s challenge;  get communication going between:

  • Owners and employees
  • Front of house [service] and back of house [kitchen]
  • Within teams – front of house and back of house
  • Front of house and customers.
  • Once you get past his foul language, the man is masterful.  He starts by raising their awareness of, and gets them focused on, the customer experience.  A reality check.

    Then, he facilitates often profound change – he encourages, he cajoles, he demonstrates, he brings new and sometimes jarring perspective and insight, he’s rational, he’s emotional and slowly but surely most teams get it.

    No crafting of messages.  No pushing them out.  He just gets them speaking to each other.  He helps them get the right conversations/communications going in the right way and at the right time to ensure the best customer experience. Remarkably completely dysfunctional teams start working well together and end up delivering outstanding experience for their customer and each other.

    So, should we be spending more time as facilitator and less time as message pushers?  I’d love to hear what you think?

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    Deborah Hinton Tuesday, August 10th, 2010
    Permalink Change Management, Communication, Internal communication 1 Comment

    Oh dear, what can the matter be?

    E-mails and Intranet Are Top Communication Methods Used to Engage Employees”.  Oh dear.

    In my last post I spoke about Gary Hamel’s call to reinvent management.  In the webcast I refer to there, Hamel talks about a global study of 90,000 employees around the world that was conducted by Towers Perrin and that showed that less than 20% of employees are engaged.  I think this IABC News headline, above, may tell us why.  Or at least part of the why.

    We talk about communications as being more than crafting and sending messages.  And yet, this new survey just released by the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Research Foundation and Buck Consultants makes it  clear,  We still rely heavily on push technology and message sending.

    And, in case we needed more evidence, the IABC article goes on to say that “32 percent of survey respondents indicate that their organizations rarely or never conduct employee listening activities”.  Oh dear.

    In the world Hamel describes.  A world where “obedience, diligence and intellect aren’t enough to create a competitive advantage, any more, organizations need employees to bring initiative, creativity and compassion to their work.”  And, that “isn’t going to happen if  we command it.”  It isn’t going to happen because of e-mails and intranet.  It isn’t going to happen if we aren’t listening.  Oh dear, what can the matter be?

    What do we need to do to create inspiring work places? Places where people want to bring more of themselves.

    Is it possible?  Is there a role for communications in creating inspiring places to work?  If so, what is it?  How do you see it?


    Something to read and think about

    Bill Jensen, Work 2.0:  Rewriting the contract, Perseus Publishing, Cambridge, 2002

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    Deborah Hinton Wednesday, August 4th, 2010
    Permalink Communication, Corporate communication, Culture, Internal communication No Comments

    “Where everybody knows your name”

    There are very few of us who would associate the place we work with the Cheers theme song.

    In fact that was the point of the song.  Cheers is the place where we can escape our worries.   A place where we’re understood and appreciated.

    You’d think that a place where we spend 50% to 60% of our waking hours getting to and working in would be a place “where everybody knows your name”.  But it’s generally not.  Instead, it’s a place where:

    • An EVPs executive assistant for over 5 years told me that her boss didn’t know she had children until she had to stay home one day with a sick child.
    • A manager reported that he’d never met his Director face-to-face even though he’d been working for him for over a year.
    • [fill in the blank]

    What is it about organizations?  After all we’re all there working toward the same organizational mission, vision and values.

    What is it about these places that:

    • Isolate rather than integrate?
    • Create internal competition rather than collaboration?
    • Dehumanize rather than humanize?

    Don’t get me wrong.  I don’t think that colleagues at work need to be your best friend.  Or that a weekly beer with people you don’t really even like is a solution?  I’m not really a fan of the drive for employee engagement [what's really being measured?, implication that employees need to give more?, etc].   But, I do think that organizations can be places that encourage courtesy and respect.  And it starts by knowing some basic things about the people you work with.  Who are they?  What matters to them?

    Is your organization doing anything to humanize the work environment?  Is there anything you can do in your corner of the workplace?

    “Making your way in the world today takes everything you’ve got.
    Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot.

    Wouldn’t you like to get away?

    Sometimes you want to go

    Where everybody knows your name,
    and they’re always glad you came.
    You wanna be where you can see,
    our troubles are all the same
    You wanna be where everybody knows
    Your name.”

    With thanks to Gary Portnoy and Judy Hart Angelo

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    Deborah Hinton Thursday, July 22nd, 2010
    Permalink Communication, Culture, Internal communication No Comments

    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?

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

    “Always look on the bright side …”

    Well no, not always.  Sometimes it’s just the wrong thing to do.  A lesson I hope the staff at Planet BP — an online, in-house British Petroleum  journal – learned this week.

    You can imagine the challenge the BP internal communication team has.  You can picture them gathered in a room with their other communication colleagues looking for something positive to report to their employees.  Something that would uplift and motivate them.

    And, so it is not too surprising to hear as The Wall Street Journal reported that “… a “BP reporter” dispatched to Louisiana managed to paint … [a rosey]…picture of the disaster…  “Much of the region’s [nonfishing boat] businesses — particularly the hotels — have been prospering because so many people have come here from BP and other oil emergency response teams.” Indeed, one tourist official in a local town makes it clear that “BP has always been a very great partner of ours here…We have always valued the business that BP sent us.””

    The Planet BP story shows yet again that the BP communications team does not understand what is on the minds and in the hearts of people they are trying to reach and connect to.  Can you imagine a Tylenol internal newsletter reporting on the positive impact of their disaster on Tylenol container makers?  What is BP thinking?

    Ragan Communication picked up the story.   Their conclusion: “Now, more than ever, BP’s communication efforts—internal and external—require transparency.”

    But, the problem here isn’t transparency.  The BP article was accurate and transparent.  And it is definitely propaganda.  It is “disingenuous” and manipulative.

    Why is that?  As I have said elsewhere, you can’t fool Mother Nature and you can’t fool employees.  And, I’m sure this article didn’t fool BP employees.

    This isn’t the time.  There’s nothing at this stage that is good about what it happening in the Gulf.  And BP employees know it maybe better than anybody.

    So what kind of employee communications do they want?  My guess is that BP employees want to know what the company is doing to clean up the mess from an insider point of view.  And they want to know what the company is doing to ensure that a disaster like this can never happen again.

    And, they want communications that help them feel confident in their leadership again.  And, that build pride in their  work and the company they work for.

    This story misses on all counts.  Manipulative communication – internal or external – always destroys relationship.

    Sometimes looking on the bright side is just wrong.  This is one of those times.

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    Deborah Hinton Thursday, June 24th, 2010
    Permalink Communication, Corporate communication, Culture, Internal communication No Comments

    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?

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

    Spin is still in

    Today’s article titled “Air Canada raises number of stock options for execs” raised my hackles.  Not because of the specific case, but what this story really tells about the state of communications today.  We talk in our bubble about transparency and authenticity, but almost daily reports tell another story.

    In this case, the company’s shareholders decided to quadruple the shares available for stock option plans for senior executives.  And, you can imagine that if the stock option plan at Air Canada had been wildly out of whack with the market there would certainly be a business case for doing this.  You can imagine that getting and keeping good leadership in an industry as challenged as the airline industry isn’t easy.  And you can even imagine that total potential compensation is the key attractor for senior executives.

    And then, the CEO said:  “There will be no change in compensation plans for senior executives.”  What?  If increasing the number of available stock options doesn’t change compensation plans then why are they doing it?

    Now, I’m not naïve.  The company has negotiated an agreement with their union that says there will be “no change in compensation plans of senior executives.”  And, I understand that going back and renegotiating with them on this point might not be an option.  But, falling back on a statement that is technically accurate without being true is just not right.

    Every time any CEO does this they [and their leadership teams] lose credibility.  Every employee and every person reading the article knows that the total potential compensation for senior executives has most certainly changed.

    What do you think?  Do you think spin is still in?  And if so, where do you stand?

    Do you see this kind of thing in your organization?  If you’d been at the table when the decision to announce this change was made, what advice would you have given?

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    Deborah Hinton Friday, May 28th, 2010
    Permalink CEO, Corporate communication, External communication, Internal communication, Union No Comments

    “Resistance is futile”

    At first glance social media is pretty alien.  It’s another technology getting in the way of face to face relationships.  And, as communicators we know in our hearts this is not a good thing.

    And yet this is the irony of social media.  This technology that on the surface seems to dehumanize in the end enables us to accomplish one of the most human of all needs – to connect with each other.

    In the past week or so I’ve been reading about how GM management believe that giving employees access to social media “humanizes” the company with their clients and potential clients.  But, I’m afraid this misses the real power of social media:  The power to “humanize” institutions internally.

    The organizations that embrace social media on the inside are enabling their employees to connect with each other across:

    • time,
    • geography,
    • function, and
    • level.

    They’re helping employees access the information and expertise they need, when and how they need it to do their work.  They’re energizing not just the formal organizational networks, but the informal as well.

    Today the number of  organizations who are giving employees full access to social media inside and out are few.  Tomorrow they will be many.  “Resistance is futile.”

    What will this change mean for the Corporate Communications or Internal Communications functions? Not only what we do, but how we do it. I’d love to hear what you think.

    By the way, as predicted by my social media mentors – Michelle Sullivan, Julien Smith, and Mitch Joel - I’ve learned that social media doesn’t get in the way of face to face relationships.  In fact, quite the opposite.    And, that’s a very good thing.  Thanks you guys.

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    Deborah Hinton Tuesday, May 18th, 2010
    Permalink Communication, Internal communication No Comments

    Not all jobs are in cubicles

    It’s easy to forget when you’re working in an office at HQ that not all jobs are in cubicles.

    When I first began working at Alcan [now Rio Tinto Alcan] our then CEO, Jacques Bougie, insisted on beginning every talk with employees by talking about health and safety starting with the stats for the last quarter.  As the newly appointed Director, Internal Communications, I thought this was simply a terrible way to begin every talk.  I was wrong.  He was right.

    The recent explosion of the BP oil rig Deepwater Horizon and the deaths of 11 workers reminds us that every day men and women around the world go to work at dangerous jobs.  Some very dangerous jobs.

    The “Deaths on the Job Report” for 2010 reports that for the USA alone “In 2008, 5,214 workers were killed on the job—an average of 14 workers every day—and an estimated 50,000 died from occupational diseases. More than 4.6 million work-related injuries were reported, but this number understates the problem. The true toll of job injuries is two to three times greater—about 9 to 14 million job injuries each year.”

    What role do you play in communicating health and safety information to your employees, your customers? Your shareholders?  What role should you play?

    The real work of your institution may be happening in places without cubicles, without internet access, maybe even without computers.  By workers who farm, chop trees, provide patient care in hospitals, pack groceries, load container trucks, bottle beer, or teach in classrooms. Who may or may not be literate?  And if they are may or may not be speaking French or English as their first language.  Their cultures and their lives may be vastly different than yours.

    How well do you and your executive understand their employees experience of their work and the organization they work for?  What are the implications for how well they/you can do your job?

    When was the last time you went and spent time with people on the front line?  What was that experience like?  If not, why not?  If so, when will you do it again?

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    Deborah Hinton Wednesday, May 12th, 2010
    Permalink CEO, Communication, Corporate communication, Culture, Internal communication, Management No Comments

    Your washroom. Your culture.

    In an all but forgotten corner of every office is the washroom.  And, in the places I’ve worked they have been the most sterile, cold and soulless places in the office.  And that’s saying something given some of the spaces I’ve worked in.

    Kate Rutter believes ‘office bathrooms are key indicators of team culture’ because they should “…signal what’s important to the team…”  On May 8th DNTO’s Tori Allen  took this insight to CBCs workplace washrooms.  The episode is fun.

    Years ago one of my brothers-in-law, Richard, who at the time owned a gas station in Toronto, replied when I complained about the state of station toilets – “A dirty station is a busy station”.  Enough said.

    And it got me thinking.  If workplace washrooms are key indicators of culture then they must be a key lever of change.  And, maybe washrooms are something we should be paying more attention to.

    I’m serious.  It doesn’t need to take much.  In the DNTO episode they added a plant [a cactus to be exact], some 3-ply toilet paper, tic tacs, gum, dental floss and post it notes.  These small changes humanized the space and created an almost immediate uplifting affect within the team.

    While we’re busy trying to create collaborative and innovative cultures how much effort is being put into designing spaces [including washrooms] that humanize the workplace and encourage employees to interact, share ideas, and create together.

    Funny since our work spaces are the most visible reflection of our organizations with employees and other key stakeholders.  You’d think it would be the first we’d place to start.

    What do you think?  Should we start in the workplace washroom?

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    Deborah Hinton Monday, May 10th, 2010
    Permalink Change Management, Communication, Culture, Internal communication No Comments