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?
Tags: Creating meaning, Disciplined approach, Employee communication, Knowledge management, Message control, Relationship, Robert Fritz