Simply-Blogging

Fame at last!!!!

At yesterday's CIPR conference we were all given a copy of the latest edition of Lyn Smith's book on internal communications.

Sadly I flicked through the index and....there I was!!!  Some things that I wrote with Sue Dewhurst on line managers were quoted.  I have to say that I was disgustingly pleased - it's one thing to write a blog, it's a completely different matter altogether to be in a book.  I reckon that makes me an expert and I shall be buying loads of copies for my extended family!

The item that was quoted was about the questions (Download line_managers.pdf ) you should ask when thinking about your line manager communications.  Seeing it in a book is much more exciting than powerpoint!!!!

Liam

Change is great – you go first

Sitting at the CIPR internal communications conference in London my Monday morning has just kicked off with 45 minutes of Leandro Herreo.

I did a long bike ride yesterday so woke up feeling rather dozy – I may have snoozed most of the way into London on the train.  But the kick off presentation got me thinking.

Leandro was talking about viral change and was an object lesson in making a dynamic presentation.  His essential point is that you can’t communicate change with ‘big splash’ programme.  He says that big bang launches just don’t work and don’t lead to behavioural change.

And they of diminishing effectiveness.  When one has failed, you have to make a bigger bang to win back the increasingly disillusioned workforce.

By contrast he says that working through the informal networks that exist in any organisation is the way forward.

My take out quotation “the moment of truth is when we move away from running networks of information traffic wardens…”

Time to visit Amazon…

Liam

Is ghost blogging OK in IC?

A regular issue on Black Belt courses that I have run is whether it is acceptable to ghost write blogs for senior managers.  Afterall, writing statements on behalf of leaders is what we spend a lot of time doing anyway.

However, a posting by pr blogger Simon Collister caught my eye.  His message seems to be that ghost writing blogs is bad practice - and I tend to agree with him because of the implied authenticity...

But I wonder if that will last for much longer?

Liam

What’s the point of internal communications?

There are only four reasons for employee communications

I wonder if I should say this.

There’s a lot of rubbish talked about internal communications.  I should know – I’ve talked a fair amount of it over the years.

In the past, employee communications was just about making noise.  But as people realised it could actually have some real benefits, we started to get confused about exactly what those benefits were.

Recently I’ve heard passionate lectures on ‘engagement’, ‘bottom-up comms’, ‘implicating the workforce’ and ‘employer branding’.  All this is supplemented by the current excitement about how new social media will transform the workplace.  And all these things seem to mean completely different things depending on whatever conference you’re sleeping through.

I’ve probably said this before, but I can’t avoid the suspicion that they are attempts to dress up some basic truths as some form of mystical power.  Sadly most of the people we work with don’t want magic – they want results.

But coming up with real results is actually very simple.

There are only five reasons for employee communication.  Once you decide why you are doing it everything else becomes a technical detail.

The first reason is to make your people stay – and not run off at the first opportunity to another employer.  It costs a lot to recruit, build knowledge and skills.  And when staff disappear, the result is disrupted work, over-worked colleagues and another bill for replacing them.

Making them feel valued and proud of their employer will go a long way to making them stick around.  Knowing that they have a career path, and that they will be looked after are solid reasons for spending a little effort on communication.

Secondly, once you get them to stay you want them to work hard - on the right things.  Instead of starting the day by logging on to Face Book or planning the fantasy football league, communications has a lot of influence over whether people are excited about their work, can see how they make a difference and the satisfaction they get from a job well done.

The idea that most people only want to do their basic time, collect their pay and go home is, thankfully, dying out.  But if you don’t explain why they should care, frankly all you’ll get is an empty car park at clocking out time.

And we can do a lot to make sure that new instructions, projects or challenges are explained in ways that focus people’s efforts.  If you don’t show people what they are meant to be doing you can’t complain when they make it up for themselves.

The next reason is that you want your staff to say nice things about you outside work.  Research by MORI a couple of years ago said the most powerful individual influence on an organisation’s reputation was whether people knew someone who worked there.  Apparently knowing an employee will outweigh anything said in the media or even a direct experience of the product or service provided by the organisation.

In short, a reputation as a great employer will see you through some pretty tough times.

And almost finally, communications helps organisations change. Communications’ mission is to make sense of the what, the why and the how - together with supporting emotional commitment.

And that’s about it.  Beyond that you lapse into the realms of alchemy, soothsaying and probably crystal healing.

There, I said it.  Great employee communications are about getting people to stay, strive, advocate and change.  You can debate how effective different approaches are at achieving these goals but if you’re not supporting at least one of them you’re in trouble.

In fact, you run the risk of simply being a random noise generator.  And why would an organisation employ someone to do that?

This is a version of an article that was origninally published in Profile - the magazine of the Chartered Institure of Public Relations.

Oh - I nearly forgot - there's the law.  A great deal of what is said at work is the result of legislation.  Health and Safety, privacy, diversity and employment rights are just a few of the areas where an employer is required to say quite specific things to their staff.

Internal communications is a waste of time

How do internal communicators stop having their time wasted?  Stop worrying about the words says

Sitting in a meeting some years picking over the wording of an announcement I realised that a lot of internal communications is a waste of time.

Everyone knows the situation.  The night before a big internal event the CEO’s letter has to be checked or the job loss notice has to be approved.  And it’s getting late. 

And yet another senior manager has said something like “..do we really want to say ‘affected’ . .wouldn’t ‘impacted’ be better?”. 

Or another favourite of mine; “why don’t we say ‘fewer opportunities for continued employment’?  It sounds less harsh than ‘job losses’ doesn’t it?”

I should apologise to anyone who I have just reminded of a past trauma, but if you work in internal communication you’ll recognise the experience.  We’ve all experienced the barely resistible urge to weep when the same sentence is changed for the tenth time.

Why?  Because we all know deep down that these interminable discussions serve little real purpose apart from entertaining the office pedant.

One leading IC professional is very fond of saying “the messages you craft the most are the ones you use the least”. Thinking about the outcome of those late night drafting sessions we all recognise the wisdom of that saying.

Media relations people know that the wording of the press release isn’t the most important thing to worry about.  Once it’s been sent the words don’t really matter unless there’s a really embarrassing quotation in there.  A good reputation depends on more than what you say about yourself.

The same is true inside organisations. 

I doubt that few people really pick over the wording of news stories internally – unless they’re a bit odd or they’re trying to prove something.  It makes little difference if the well-chosen word or the pithy phrase has been approved by a committee if the reader just doesn’t trust the organisation, care about the message or is just too busy doing their job to notice.

What people think about their employer depends on their experience – not just what they hear.  Frankly It ain’t what you say – it’s what you do that makes impressions.

And it’s at this point that many people despair.  Is it the job of the humble internal communicator to influence how individual managers behave or what policies HR are dreaming up this week?

Frankly?  Yes.

One of my PR heroes was sacked from a job once when he explained to the CEO that the only way he could stop the press saying the company mistreated staff was for the company to stop mistreating staff.   What an interesting example to internal communicators.

I’m not saying that we should all go out of our way to make ourselves unpopular.  But we do need to point out occasionally that ‘communications’ won’t solve wider management problems.  And perhaps bring a note of reality to those pedantic discussions about commas and pronouns.

And the only way to do that with authority is to get out and about.  Sitting in late night word weighing contests is not where the work gets done.  Great IC specialists are talking to real people in the organisation and getting to grips with what people really think and what stops them understanding the corporate message.

It really is no one else’s job to really understand what people think and how they react to events in the organisation.  HR isn’t always trusted and other managers will have their own agenda.  Leaders should know they can trust the communicators for an honest and helpful view of employee sentiment.

Realising that was the antidote to those painful debates about the wording of communications.  When you see all the energy going into the choice of adjective in a notice it’s a sure sign that someone is missing the point.  A well informed communicator will rarely be focused on sterile arguments about language and will be able to direct attention to the real issues in the organisation.

So, the next time you find yourself quibbling over the relevance of a particular word, ask yourself if there is something better you could be doing with your time.

This was originally published in Profile - the magazine of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations.

...and the winner is...

My recent silence has been due to the pressure of work. I've been fully occupied on a change programme in Scandinavia - explaining a new strategy to a workforce coming to terms with job cuts and a radical shift in thinking about what it means to be a global player in a world of high oil prices and economic slow down. One of the things we're been debating is how an awards programme fits into all this. On the face of it, glamourous presentations and posh frocks are probably not that compatable with a message set that includes 'driving out cost.' But there is a problem of showing people what behaviours are valued in the new world. I think the trick is going to be to come up with something simple - that allows managers to recognise the right performance. We're developing something based around the four core messages in the change but the biggest headache is finding a scheme that requires minimal administration. This will be no mean feat if we pull it off. I know from experience that schemes like the excellent Helios Awards at BP require a lot of energy. It's not just the paperwork in ensuring everything is open and above board. There's a good deal of politics involved as well. How do you avoid senior leaders fretting that the 'wrong' people might win? Once, on a scheme I worked on I had to explain to a director that none of his people had won anything because they hadn't entered. And then there is the challenge of keeping it going year after year. And keeping it fresh. Despite all that, I'm really enjoying it.... Liam