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.
Relationship
“DIY” management
The other day, over breakfast with a good friend and senior HR professional, I learned something that surprised me. He works for a fortune 500 pharmaceutical company that is well-known and highly respected. Since he’s been there – well over 10 years – they’ve reorganized every year or two. I don’t mean minor reorganizational changes. I mean major tectonic plate shifting changes. And over that time, like many other companies, they’ve centralized the global HR function into their head office and shifted the commoditized work of the function to outsource partners.
But today, he told me that, they are also transferring technical HR work to managers.
Now, as those of you who follow this blog know, I think management should take more responsibility for their employees – knowing who they are, listening to them, helping them align priorities, getting them what they need to do their jobs better and more easily, building capacity of teams and individuals. But what my friend was talking about takes management in the opposite direction.
His company has decided that managers should take on what is fundamentally a very technical data input role. Thanks to new user friendly People Soft interface they will be able to promote, demote, transfer, reassign, document vacation, parental leave and remove their employees from the corporate database all on their own. Just add water and stir.
In a world that is already over-charged and over-loaded there are now new responsibilities that take management further from leadership and deeper into the semi-automated technical world that once belonged to HR specialists.
So while, managers are entering data, employees are calling an outsourced support function in Manila and figuring stuff out on their own rather than speaking with their boss or their local HR business partner. As one of my friend’s colleagues said it’s a world turning into “Do it yourself” management!
You do have to wonder what’s this transfer of work really about? And is it really for the better?
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Changing your point of view changes everything!
We’re busy. We’re very, very busy. We’re announcing new strategies. We’re launching refreshed brands and new identities. We’re introducing new values. We’re introducing new products and services. We’re up-sizing and downsizing and reorganizing. We’re changing processes and systems. We’re reducing costs and increasing investment. We’re changing our culture to be more innovative, collaborative, flexible, [insert other]. We want our employees to be engaged, loyal, and proud of the organization they work for so we’re “communicating” and “communicating” and “communicating”.
Changing your point of view is an important source of insight and understanding. Today, I’m wondering if this isn’t what it all looks like from an employees point of view.
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“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!
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Let there be light!
Over the past couple of years I’ve had this niggling feeling that just won’t go away. Communicators and human resource professionals are working in the dark. Demands are changing. Resources low. Pressure increasing. Time? Well there isn’t enough. Result, we’re running from one event, crisis, deliverable to the next. Not only are we not thinking beyond the next week, month, quarter, but we’re working in the dark.
This came home to me again in the past couple of days. Rachel Miller had tweeted a request for help for a masters student, Sonsoles Lumbreras. Sonsoles is doing research for a dissertation that will focus on the use of social media in the context of organizational change.
Given the topic and the cause, I offered to help. And, what an interesting project that turned into. Amazing to find in my very little sample [9 executive contacts, all at major international companies] that companies either don’t have a group level internal communications person or don’t have a social media strategy so don’t have anything to say or my contacts don’t know the Communications people… What? Don’t know the Communications people?
How can we help our organizations develop strong and sustainable relationships when institutionally we aren’t doing that ourselves? How can we understand, and I mean really understand, the impact of what we’re doing if we aren’t widely and deeply networked. We have to get out more my friends! It’s not an option.
By the way, Sonsoles wants to speak to people in international businesses with operations in the UK. If you’d like to help her e-mail is: sonlumbreras@yahoo.com.
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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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A case of “internal communication deficit disorder”.
This week a Canadian University was diagnosed with internal communication deficit disorder. Though not rare, the disorder is almost always fatal if left untreated.
Concordia University is an institution I know well. It’s 45,000 students studying in over “300 undergraduate and 200 graduate programs” are at the centre of the downtown community I work and live in. I studied and graduated with my MBA from there; began studies for a PhD there; taught there; consulted there; worked with a student intern and volunteers from there on an urban farming project. And it’s an institution that has seemed sick at the core for some time; perhaps even further back than the Fabrikant murders in 1992.
Last year, for the second time in 3 years the President left before the end of their contract. After considerable bad press and internal finger pointing, the interim President, Dr Frederick Lowy, asked an external committee to review the governance of the university. This week, Concordia University received the report “Strengthening governance at Concordia: A collective challenge“. The review pulls no punches in reporting the situation and recommending changes to all aspects of governance.
Among other things, the review panel reported that the university was “…blatantly deficient internal communications“… had created “…a lot of distrust, often bordering on mutual contempt, between the various communities of the University.” And that “…the chorus of negative response [to the most recent President’s departure], the depth and even the fury of that response could only have arisen in a context where long simmering governance and internal communication problems between the Board and the University community, to say nothing of other outstanding matters, had neither been addressed nor resolved.” The report reflects my experience and understanding of the good [and there is a lot of good there], bad and the ugly of Concordia.
Today, the University has a decision to make: To take the recommended course of treatment for internal communication deficit disorder or not; to act on the letter and spirit of the report and its 38 recommendations or not.
If they do, it won’t be either a quick or easy recovery but recover they will. Concordia has an opportunity to change how they do things. To become a place where the board, faculty, administration, and students work together to create a unique and compelling experience for those who want to study and learn, to teach and do research, to invent and explore new ideas. In the end, this report and its recommendations are less about fixing something that is broken and more about supporting Concordia in becoming the great institution it has always had the potential to be.
As a neighbour, alumnus and friend that’s my hope.
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Two days. Two stories.
It started at a recent lunch with a past client. She’s a senior executive who’s been around the board rooms of some of Canada’s largest and most influential companies for most of her career. We were talking about the ‘soft’ side of institutional life and the potential power there is in strengthening the employee relationship. “I agree with you”, she said. Then came the bomb… ”but unfortunately the executives I know just aren’t interested. This is simply not on the agenda in the C-Suite”.
Fast forward a few days and I’m attending an evening with Dr. Jody Heymann, Canada Research Chair in Global Health and Social Policy and head of McGill’s institute for Health and Social Policy. She and Magda Barrera co-authored the recently published book “Profit at the Bottom of the Ladder: Creating Value by Investing in Your Workforce”. After years of research their conclusions are simple – listen to employees [especially those ‘at the bottom’], treat them with respect and you will reap the rewards of higher profits. This is not necessarily new news. Nor is it a surprise. It makes sense that you treat people well and they will be more engaged and productive.
So, how do we think about this apparent discrepancy between the research results and C-suite priorities? What’s going on?
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Do we know what we’re doing?
I’m just back after an “official” training run. Those of you who know me, know I am passionate about chiwalking and running. Though a “late in life” runner I came to believe what my trainer told me, that running is “perfect freedom”. It took three years to find any level of enjoyment, but I did and was getting quite confident and competent.
Last June due to unrelated injuries Michael and I stopped running. It started as a short break. We continued to chiwalk regularly and at a pretty fast pace – racking in many kilometres up, over and around Mont Royal during the fall, winter and spring. In fact our winter chiwalks made the winter quite wonderful no matter what the conditions – rain, snow, sleet, sunny, cloudy, -10C, -30C. They are all about focus and alignment two of my favourite things.
Now, almost a year later we realize that even though our chiwalks have no doubt kept us relatively fit, they aren’t giving us the same results as chirunning. Over the spring we’ve integrated a few short 20 minute runs, but without any real discipline [and to be honest mostly downhill – small cheat]. This morning was different. We followed lesson 1 of Danny Dreyer’s training guide for beginners, a 12-week program to prepare for a 10K. We went for a relatively flat [not my favourite, since I like the variation of trail running] 5 minutes on and 1 minute off chirun repeated 6 times.
Big lesson: If you want to build and maintain capacity then there’s only one way to do it and that’s with discipline and practice.
You’ll not be surprised to hear that this experience has made me think about whether and how we can achieve an adequate level of communication mastery in our organizations?
Relationships are fundamental to organizations. Organizations exist based on the assumption that working together we can do something we can’t do alone. Given that human relationships without communication are impossible to imagine then communication mastery, must be a critical factor for success of any organization. But do we think about communication in that way?
I don’t think we do. We may make the odd nod to individual development, but institutionally I think we make the assumption that since virtually all employees can speak, write and hear then as an institution you’re communicating. This of course is simply not true. Any more than making the assumption if you can walk, you can run is true. [Or if you can walk you’re walking in an aligned and efficient way that will protect your body [that’s another story].] It takes training, discipline and practice to build and maintain adequate levels of skill and capacity.
So, what would communication mastery look like? Not just for your employees or managers but for your institution as a whole? What are the institutional benefits of achieving that level of mastery? Where are you today in relationship to that level of mastery? What actions would you need to put in place to get there? And, how do you create the right conditions for achieving it?
I think these are fundamental institutional questions. Shouldn’t we be thinking about getting this conversation going? Are you ready?
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The theory & reality of town halls
On a recent trip to Vermont Michael and I were listening to the Vermont Public Radio president on a town hall with their listeners. And I noticed something. It just didn’t work. The president listened and chatted with those that called in. The conversation seemed more like ‘she says’/’he says’ than a real conversation. And, at the end of the show the president closed nicely and I realized she hadn’t specifically responded with an action to a single listener’s feedback.
It seemed a far cry from Obama’s town halls. Or what I’ve heard from my friends who live in Vermont, a state that may have invented the town hall, about the meetings that their very small town, Newfane, runs regularly to discuss all matter of issues and opportunities facing the community. Or my recent experience attending a town hall for a “programme particulier d’urbanisme” that has the potential to change the face of downtown Montreal. These are lively discussions. Both the politicians and the electorate care about the issues being discussed. And at their best there’s clear action to be taken at the end.
And yet, the Vermont Public Radio town hall seems a familiar scenario for those of us doing internal communications. So what’s going on?
Employee town halls after all are supposed to humanize organizations. They create one of the few opportunities for interaction and discussion between our executives, managers and employees. So, why don’t they generate meaningful discussion? Why aren’t they more lively? Gosh why don’t we even get questions, unless we plant them [manipulation – for another blog] more than half the time? Why does it seem more like a shareholder meeting rather than a scrum?
Here are some thoughts:
| Political town halls | Employee town halls |
| It’s a democracy | It’s not a democracy |
| Audience has the power | Speaker has the power |
| Politicians to listen and defend their position | Executives to talk and assert their position |
| There’s something to discuss that people care and want to discuss | There may or may not be anything to discuss and employees are ‘mandated’ to participate |
| There’s an opportunity to influence decisions | Little or no real opportunity to influence; decisions have already been taken or |
Given these differences, what can we learn? Can we re-frame the Corporate town hall to achieve our goals of humanizing, engaging and creating meaningful conversations that further the business? Love to hear what you think.
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The black hole & the employer brand
Human resource departments talk a lot about the employer brand; the ultimate reflection of the employee experience of the brand. And given the growing challenge of getting the best people, it’s something that all business leaders are beginning to worry about.
So, imagine my surprise to read that “nearly 30 percent of executives surveyed by search firm Korn/Ferry International said job applicants aren’t being treated respectfully by potential employers”! These executives report the following experiences:
- No confirmation that their application arrived
- Interviews that turn out to have been set up for other candidates
- Interviews that have been set up for the wrong job
- Interviewers who are under prepared
- No follow-up after interviews
- No answers to e-mails or phone messages
- A big black hole.
This isn’t any old recruitment. This is executive recruitment. Presumably people who have more money and influence than most. Makes you pretty sure that it’s a lot worse for your average job seeker.
We know bad news travels faster than good news. We know the value of the brand experience as an employee or as a customer. It’s pure gold. And the erosion of the brand experience a business killer. So, how could we be going so wrong in what seems like such a simple matter – basic courtesy?
Could it be because of overworked employees? Sucky values? Bad training? Too many files? Too few hours? Not the right tools to do the job? Or all of the above?
I don’t know, but as communicators we’re all about helping our organizations [and their employees] build strong positive relationships with all our stakeholders, so I think it’s something worth looking into and taking action on. The employer brand starts here.
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Recent posts
- 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
- “Just hire a Dalek”
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