thinkBox summer 2010

PROVOKING THOUGHT GENERATING DISCUSSION ENGAGING EMPLOYEES DELIVERING RESULTS

More than engagementThe next developments in employee measurement best practice

The Big StoryCrafting and using great narratives to underpin your communications

summer/autumn 2010

KARIAN ANDBOX

Also in this edition of thinkBox…\ Feedback Creative techniques

to involve employees

\ Team Engagement Getting the best out

of team leaders

\ Leader buy-in The steps needed to get leaders onboard

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2620More than engagementMeasuring engagement is not enough – employee mobilisation and performance is key.

In the NewsNews and updates on the world of employee engagement.

Team EngagementTeams are fundamental to the way organisations work – read about the tools and techniques used to engage them.

The Big StoryHow can organisations create and use compelling narratives to get the most out of their messages?

FeedbackGetting meaningful employee feedback and input is vital to an organisation’s future. See how it’s done well.

thinkBoxwhat’s inside

3What’s inside

34Walk of death?How do you get buy-in from leaders? Find out the best critical steps you’ll need to take to get leaders on board.

Welcome to the new edition of thinkBox. The primary themes for the collection of articles are:

The routes to involving employees and gaining input, feedback and team dialogue in order to deliver on an organisation’s business priorities

The role of the communicator in acting as an advisor and partner to their organisation’s leaders and in aspiring to best professional practice

What it takes to be a good communicator is more important than ever. The predicted loss of over a million jobs from the UK economy alone over the next five years following government retrenchment will inevitably impact the communications and HR communities.

Rather than being a seller’s market in the boom times of the last 10-15 years, we are now in a buyer’s market. Following a period of rising numbers and salaries in full-time professional employee communication and engagement roles in both the private and public sector, cuts have already begun to bite. The laws of supply and demand will mean salaries will level out. Employers will be able to pick and choose the best from a large pool of those in current roles or those made redundant following cut-backs. This contrasts with a long period when organisations struggled to find people with the right background and skills to fill employee engagement and communication roles.

Professionals now face the hard truth for the next few years which means the good will need to find ways to be even better and to demonstrate it. It also means that the ‘not-so-good’ need to shape up or ship out.

Going the extra mile while searching out best practice, improving knowledge and skills and crafting innovative ways to mobilise employees have become acute necessities for professionals. While this may sound somewhat gloomy picture, it also allows the best to shine. Often, the most creative and innovative ideas and solutions are found when people have to do more with less.

I hope this edition of thinkBox contributes to that process, sparking thoughts and generating ideas for you and your colleagues.

Ghassan Karian Founder, Karian and Box [email protected]

A word from the editorGhassan Karian

thinkBox is a publication from Karian and Box Ltd, 7b Castlegate, York Y01 9RN. Tel: +44 (0)1904 654 454 www.karianandbox.com

© All thinkBox content is the exclusive copyright of Karian and Box Ltd

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Book reviewsThe latest and best on leading and engaging employees

LastwordThe Good Communicator Guide?

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Organisations in the top quartile for employee engagement scores have

12% higher profitability than those in the bottom quartile. Whilst those in the bottom quartile have

51% more staff turnover.

Engaged employees take

2.69 sick days per year compared with

6.19 days taken by their disengaged colleagues.

15% of employees who would be looking for other opportunities in a healthy economy lose the drive, motivation and engagement to do their work effectively.

Only

45.3% of Americans are “satisfied” with their work. When asked the same question in 1987, more than 61 percent said they were content.

Although salary is not the key factor in job satisfaction,

57% of employees still rate levels of pay as very important.

Public sector workers earn

7% more on average than their peers in the private sector – a pay gulf that has more than doubled since the recession began.

Warburtons launches team engagement toolkit

Facts

in the newsthinkBox

Warburtons has launched a communications toolkit to help managers to engage their employees more effectively.

Employees, team leaders and team managers took part in workshops which helped to identify some of the key communications challenges line managers face. This input helped scope the content of the toolkit. The workshops highlighted many quick to implement, low or no-cost ways in which managers could improve engagement with, and within, their teams and highlighted the need to ensure that managers are given the support and guidance they need to communicate with their team members.

The toolkit was developed as a resource to help managers lead and communicate more effectively, by improving their communications skills, building better relationships and driving up team and individual morale.

Andrea Law, Communications Manager, said: “Warburtons has seen employee engagement improve over the last 18 months and this is just one of the initiatives we are taking to ensure that managers take a more proactive role in improving communication with their team members. The toolkit provides managers with practical tools which can be used equally well in offices, bakeries or depots. Coaching sessions have helped to introduce the toolkit and reinforce our commitment to improving communication.”

5In the news

‘‘ ‘‘The way UK businesses allocate the millions of

pounds they spend on rewarding their employees is largely discretionary.Jon Terry, partner and head of reward at PwC

Pay rise? I’ll take an iPod

Increasing need for focus on employee engagement

A new report by PricewaterhouseCoopers has shown that 94% of employees would be happy to accept a small low-cost reward, such as additional holiday entitlement or even an iPod, in lieu of a pay rise.

The research surveyed 950 employees and these findings will be welcomed by employers seeking to cut back on their wage bill. Job security is a key concern for employees in the current economic climate with many appreciating the financial pressures faced by their employer and therefore willing to forego a pay increase until circumstances improve.

The report supports a widely held view that simple recognition and feeling valued is more important to many employees than financial reward.

Jon Terry, partner and head of reward at PwC, said: “The way UK businesses allocate the millions of pounds they spend on rewarding their employees is largely discretionary and, while

not everyone would opt for an iPod over getting closer to promotion, the employers that get the best value from their spend are those that align reward with individuals wants and needs and the behaviours they want to encourage.”

He goes on to say that whilst one-off tailored gifts work well to reward good performance, organisations need to work harder to understand the needs of individuals and ensure that those rewards are equitable and consistently applied across the business, based on clear and transparent guidelines.

A recent survey by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), of more than 2,000 employees throughout the UK, highlighted that although Britain appears to be moving out of recession, employees remain pessimistic about the state of the labour market, 4% more people are reporting that they are under excessive pressure at work and 40% of people would like to change jobs.

Furthermore, job satisfaction has decreased substantially across both the private and public sectors. This feeling is echoed in the US where, in a survey of 5,000 households, only 45% of those surveyed were satisfied with their jobs.

With such high numbers of employees feeling increasingly restless at work, employers need to do more to improve employee engagement, before disaffected workers become a drain on performance and productivity.

Claire McCartney, Resourcing and Talent Planning Adviser at the CIPD, said: “Effective communication and

consultation becomes critical in times of organisational change and turmoil to ensure employees feel consulted and, therefore, motivated to go the extra mile. Employers should also focus on developing the people management skills of their front line managers if they want to manage stress effectively and encourage and enable employees.

“Employers are going to have to continue to work hard to re-build motivation and commitment among employees bruised by job insecurity, lack of consultation over change, pay freezes or cuts, as well as increases in stress and conflict.”

A guide to crisis communications thinkBox6

thinkBox More power to the people?in the news

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The Forum for People Performance Management and Measurement at Northwestern University in the USA has published a study, ‘Leadership and the Performance of People in Organizations’, which highlights post-recession approaches to employee engagement and business productivity.

The study suggests that whilst dealing with the economic pressures and challenges over the last two years, business leaders have focused on ways to “simply keep the organisation alive”. This has resulted in employees with lower levels of engagement, albeit grateful for retaining their jobs in complex economic times.

Emerging from the recession, businesses are recognising the need to re-engage with employees and increase transparency. The study suggests that this requires a focus on “employee enrichment”, developing a “people-first perspective” which emphasises the overall quality of people’s lives and well-being on performance.

According to study authors, Won-joo Yun and Frank Mulhern, “An overarching problem of modern business is that organizations treat people with an industrial era mentality that views them as what economists call “factors of production”. That machine-like metaphor no longer fits, if it ever did.

“The fundamental shifts brought on by people-empowering technologies, as well as changes in cultural norms about work, require organizations to place less emphasis on control and a more sincere emphasis on people.”

The study maintains that changes in leadership styles and an increasing emphasis on human relationships are needed. These will enable work environments that support the attraction, retention and motivation of the high performers who are central to business success.

Manchester Airport Group recently appointed Karian and Box to develop their people proposition with a strategy focused on helping the airport’s business better engage employees with the employer brand.

Karian and Box recently completed a successful project for Defra, helping craft their organisation’s narrative, aimed at enhancing employee understanding of their vision and strategy. Similarly, the business was recently taken on by ASDA and by

Russian oil-major TKN to support on a range of communication and engagement research programmes.

Karian and Box have also been appointed to carry out cutting-edge employee research with Warburtons in support of their environmental agenda. Research into the opinions and actions of all employees will enable more targeted engagement of different employee segments – in order to mobilise them behind the achievement of the business’ green targets.

‘‘ ‘‘The fundamental shifts brought on by people-

empowering technologies, as well as changes in cultural norms about work, require organizations to place less emphasis on control and a more sincere emphasis on people.Won-joo Yun and Frank Mulhern

Making a difference in 2010

7In the news

Best practice recognised

Karian and Box was recently awarded a prestigious International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Gold Quill Award for its work for BP on tracking levels of employee understanding and engagement during a period of change for the global oil major.

Crafting a measurement process that aligned to the organisation’s strategy and business priorities has helped provide insights that are contributing to leadership and company action

aimed at increasing employee and business performance. This is the third year running that Karian and Box has supported BP on developing and managing their engagement research.

Karian and Box were finalists in the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) Awards for the Outstanding Small Agency, whilst also being recognised in the awards for their work with Warburtons in engaging employees with the business’ vision and strategy.


Engagement is not enough

Employee engagement has become a widely used business metric, routinely employed by organisations worldwide. However, many of these organisations measure engagement in isolation, most considering it sufficient as an end in itself. This is doing them and their employees a disservice.

9Engagement is not enough

This article shows that, to create real value, organisations need to go one step further – defining and measuring employee ‘mobilisation’. Organisations can then also demonstrate where and how employee mobilisation is making a difference to other business drivers such as sales, productivity and absence.

The use and management of employee engagement data represents an untapped opportunity.

Gaining a deeper understanding of which engagement factors should be measured is as critical to a business as understanding any other cost or revenue driver. It can guide decisions regarding the capabilities and deployment of employees. Measuring engagement can highlight the extent to which existing employee communications and HR strategies are aiding the achievement of the organisation’s goals.

But what is this thing called ‘engagement’ and is its measurement in isolation enough?

Engagement can be seen as an input or output measure – or, confusingly for some, both. It is both a process of engaging employees – for example, an input, via leadership action or through team and line manager communications. It is also an objective or an output. To have an ‘engaged workforce’ is shorthand for having one that emotionally and intellectually believes in the organisation they work for and in what they do in their jobs. It is the result of a permutation of actions the organisation and its leaders take, the strategies and tactics deployed by HR and communications professionals and the day-to-day reality of working in that organisation.

For many, this concept of engagement as a chief output is not enough. To ‘believe’ is not enough. To know what to do to improve business performance and to take the necessary action to play your part are the critical additions.

Hence the concept of ‘mobilisation’; employees are not only vocal ambassadors for the organisation but need to be active ones who go the extra mile to aid the achievement of its goals. It is this discretionary effort of employees that can make a measurable difference to organisational performance.\

Many organisations recognise that engagement is a strategic driver to delivering improved operational performance. But two questions have dogged organisations. Is engagement enough? And is an intuitive link between engagement and an organisation’s performance enough?

Nick has an MSc in Research Methodology and a BSc in Mechanics, with 5 years experience as a field engineer at DS Smith before moving to Karian and Box in 2008. An experienced ethnographer and trained statistician, Nick specialises in projects involving the observation of human behaviour in both business and social environments.

Nick Barnes [email protected]

thinkBox10 Engagement is not enough

Measuring mobilisation is the next logical extension of an evolution that has seen organisations survey employee ‘satisfaction’, then ‘engagement’.

1970-80s Satisfaction was not enough in an age where long-service careers were fading out.

1990s-00s Engagement was needed to keep good people and keep them believing in what they do in a period of full employment.

2010 and beyond And so we reach mobilisation – with a handful of organisations beginning to use this wider focus as the basis of employee measurement. Realising increasing value from employees at a time of slimmer budgets is more important than ever. \

Evolutionary steps – the birth of ‘Pro-active Man’

Satisfaction Engagement Mobilisation

My organisation

I am satisfied with my company as a place to work

This organisation is somewhere I feel I can develop my career

I know that the action I take every day helps achieve my company’s goals

My leader I believe that senior leaders run my organisation well

I have been given real opportunities by my manager to develop my skills

My manager encourages me to continuously look for ways to improve my performance

My team How satisfied are you with the team spirit in your workplace?

I feel part of a team, working toward a shared goal

My team and I have established specific performance objectives for the next 12 months

Me How satisfied are you with your job?

I feel I am valued in this organisation

I am personally taking action to improve performance in my area of the business

Table 1: From satisfaction to mobilisation examples

Here are some examples of metrics which test employee perceptions of their organisation, of their organisation’s leader, their relationship with their team and of their role. Each example is shaped from the approach of measuring satisfaction, engagement or mobilisation.

If an ‘end’ of the engagement approach is to achieve the highest possible number of employee ambassadors in your organisation, the ‘end’ for mobilisation is to have more ‘pro-active’ ambassadors.

A population can be engaged but not mobilised. However, to achieve high levels of mobilisation you need to build an engaged workforce; employees need to understand and believe before they can ‘act’ in a way that makes a positive difference.

11Engagement is not enough

The perennial challenge for an organisation’s HR and communication professionals as well as its leaders is knowing that they are tangibly making a positive difference.

PR and marketing have it somewhat easier in the debate on measurement. Metrics track press column inches, direct marketing response rates, customer numbers, sales figures – all these provide tangible evidence of the impact made on business performance.

Showing whether, where and how action to drive up employee engagement is linked to improved business performance is a holy grail. It is rare to find organisations who do this and do it well. Why? Put simply, it is not easy.

Often, organisations do not collect or monitor reliable operational data at a granular level to enable correlations to be made with levels of engagement or mobilisation. Many do not have the tools or methodology to make those correlations.

As a result, organisations fall back on making assumptions. In many cases, this is good enough. Enlightened leaders see the intuitive link and need no more evidence. However, demonstrating the case for HR or Internal Communication is not the only reason why making the link between engagement and business performance is important.

Such correlations and links, with reporting at the right operational levels, can provide early warning signals for leaders. A low level of engagement in a business unit can

be an indicator of other business ‘health’ issues. Our case study (page 13) shows what this can mean in practice.

Organisations that examine the links between engagement, mobilisation and other business measures capture powerful information that can also help them to deliver competitive advantage. These organisations use their engagement data to understand where it is impacting on business performance, and where it is not. \

Measuring the missing link

Tightening your focusUnderstanding how and where engagement is impacting business performance is difficult to achieve through large-scale annual or biannual all-employee engagement surveys. Many organisations take the approach of surveying across a wide range of subject areas, with generic questions which cannot reflect real understanding of business priorities.

Measurement needs to be short, sharp, responsive and in line with changing business performance requirements. This can mean reducing the scale and depth of the measurement to focus on the areas where mobilisation has the greatest potential to directly impact business performance, where and when it matters most.

Organisations should therefore:

Reconsider the annual, all-employee measurement cycle in favour of more frequent sample-based studies that draw insights by taking the pulse of an organisation.

Complement longer-term engagement measures (annual or biennial surveys) with shorter-term half-yearly or quarterly ‘pulse checks’.

Ask the right ‘mobilisation’ questions as part of an annual survey. Combined with an analysis of annual business metrics, this can enable a yearly review of where and how engagement is affecting organisational performance.

Once an organisation knows where engagement or the lack of it is affecting performance, it can put in place highly targeted action plans to exploit opportunities and buttress areas of weakness.

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Building the right framework

There are several stages to building a survey framework that will generate value for your organisation.

Know your employee valueUnderstand how and where employees can and do contribute to business success by determining how and where they create value for the business.

Understand what you are measuringEnsure that the questions asked actually measure levels of engagement and mobilisation, not just job satisfaction or motivation (see Table 1). You also need to know what kind of engagement you want within the organisation before you begin to determine how to measure it.

Get the survey design rightDesign a survey with specific target audiences in mind; for example, focusing on parts of the organisation that are critical to the achievement of that year’s goals. Understanding how engaged they are and what factors are driving that engagement can be of more use to leaders than a general insight into engagement and its link to performance. This requires expert design of a highly customised survey, focusing on keeping the survey short, tightly defined and timely.

Draw on all available business performance dataUse the data you gather from a survey in conjunction with other performance indicators and measures across all areas of the organisation, rather than viewing it in isolation. This will ensure you establish highly relevant business intelligence which is meaningful and relevant.

For example establish where there are strong positive correlations; where engagement is a factor impacting business performance, where it is not a factor, and where opportunities exist to build engagement for performance improvement.

compare the data gathered with specific business performance metrics of specific teams or areas. Just because two different teams get the same or similar engagement scores, it does not necessarily mean that they must focus on the same areas of improvement.

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‘‘‘‘Only organisations that truly engage and inspire

their employees produce world class levels of innovation, productivity and performance Lord Mandelson, former UK Business Secretary

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Case studyThe organisation wanted to clearly identify the impact that highly engaged employees were having on tangible business performance metrics. It was also important to identify areas with low engagement/performance in order to address issues which might hinder future success.

Leaders understood that this would enable them to better define where extra effort was needed to improve business KPIs.

Much of the information was at its fingertips. Across its business units, the organisation had a wide range of metrics – from contribution-to-profit, sales, levels of employee turnover and absence through to the number of safety incidents at individual locations. Such metrics was aligned and correlated against specific business unit results. The company identified relevant performance metrics which best reflected their business priorities, and which were easily measurable and relevant across all its business units.

The data enabled direct correlations to be made between high engagement and high performance business units. It also helped identify issues within a particular business area that were affecting business performance. A root cause analysis, using the data, helped pinpoint and address employee concerns – leading to a significant uplift in both engagement scores and, critically, performance in that part of the business.

In summaryThe goal of measuring engagement should not be to drive engagement scores higher and higher, but to understand how engagement is impacting business performance and identify areas of focus for performance improvement.

By directing disproportionate attention to the areas of the business that matter most, an organisation can add enormous value and clearly demonstrate the return on any investments made. Linking engagement to business metrics is an obvious, yet important next step that all organisations should be considering when seeking to strengthen competitive advantage.

Generate easy understandingEnsure your leaders and managers understand the data they are being given and how they can use that data to improve performance in their teams. Quick, simple insights into areas of good or poor performance, early warning indicators and actions needed are of much more value than long presentations that obscure the key findings and links.

Turn data into actionPrioritise and focus attention on a handful of key areas where there is a tangible potential to increase business performance. Focusing on those areas that will have the greatest impact on performance, or those areas that are most amenable to improvement can build momentum and demonstrate the value of taking the relevant action. Fighting uphill battles to make changes that have less impact on performance saps motivation and dents the credibility of the process. In short, ruthlessly target most effort on those few areas where action makes the most difference this year.

Establish your baselineDevelop a scorecard incorporating your key metrics. Identify the performance baseline for each metric indicating any variations in performance across and within business units. This will then become the basis for evaluating the links between engagement and performance in key roles and activities.


There’s no ‘I’ in team engagement

It comes as no surprise to anyone that good communication is one of the core characteristics cited by high-performing teams as the key to their success.

15There’s no ‘I’ in team engagement

Teams, in the traditional sense, are also becoming fewer and further between as resources are squeezed and people are increasingly expected to work across different departments and manage much more complex relationships.

This article looks at the practical steps necessary to forge team engagement and build teams that can help win their organisation’s ‘battles’.

Research conducted by Ashridge highlighted this complexity, with 73% working in multi-disciplinary teams, 70% geographically dispersed and more than half working across organisational boundaries.

The resulting disengagement can have serious consequences and CEOs are increasingly recognising the link between highly engaged employees and improvements in business performance.

Furthermore, a recent YouGov survey of over 23,000 directors reported that, despite the recession, 90% planned to maintain or increase investment in employee engagement over the coming year. These organisations recognise that missing the opportunity to reinforce the organisation’s commitment to employees during times of change will result in damage to the employer brand and present a significant challenge in regaining the support of cynical and sceptical employees, if and when, engagement initiatives are reintroduced.

The team as the ultimate ‘unit’ of business performanceMany organisations focus on engaging their employees on an individual basis; rewarding personal performance, regular one-to-one line manager communication and so on. Many, however, fail to recognise the business benefits of engaging employees as a team.

‘Team engagement’ as a process requires employees to collectively pledge commitment, to interlock with other teams, and to enter into battle together. We look at how each of these elements can work in practice to achieve team engagement. \

While many organisations focus on building the engagement of individual employees, the concept of building ‘team engagement’ is just as important.

The strength of collective cultures, drawing on business practices found in Germany and many Asian countries, has major implications for organisations that have traditionally been founded on the concept of ‘individual’ performance.

‘‘

‘‘Communications difficulties, changing priorities, lack of time to meet up with other team members as well as working across cultures and time zones, can contribute to unhappy and disengaged employeesPam Jones, Program Director, Ashridge

Janet is a Communication Projects Manager at HSBC. Prior to her time at HSBC, she was a Director at Karian and Box, and has worked at the BBC, BAA, and Sainsburys in senior internal communication roles.

Janet Robinson [email protected]

thinkBox16 There’s no ‘I’ in team engagement

1 Making the commitment

Getting mutual commitment is key to team engagement. This need not take the form of group hugs or team-building exercises involving assault courses or building rafts. Although if the fancy takes you, there is no harm in that. However, more simply, it is about understanding what drives and motivates your team.

A study by Bath University and the CIPD investigated why and how people management practices influence business performance – to unlock what they described as the ‘black box’.

It confirmed the strong link between the collective commitment of employees and an organisation’s operating performance. All it takes is

a simple shared goal or purpose that people can unite behind. For example,

at Nationwide, the commitment is to mutuality

at BP, to help power global economies

for Lincolnshire NHS, it is improving people’s health and saving lives.

Building and sustaining team commitmentGaining commitment and getting your team to focus on a common set of goals requires fundamental action by any team leader worth their salt. What can team leaders be encouraged to do to build that commitment?

Appreciative inquiry is a good starting point for team engagement by getting employees together to discuss what gives them the most satisfaction about their job and what makes them proud to work for the organisation.

Storytelling can be used to share positive experiences that team members have had; such as the successful delivery of a complex project, positive feedback from customers, winning new business or making significant savings for the company. Getting teams to talk about how it made them feel, how they were rewarded and whether they felt valued as a result is important. By doing this as a team, managers can better understand not only what drives individuals, but also the common themes that motivate them all. This will enable team leaders to come up with actions that will play to the drivers that unite them as a team.

Team leader empathy is central to the process. Team members who better understand what drives their manager and feel on an equal footing by working through the process together are more likely to be committed to the team’s common goals.

Setting clear, achievable team targets is important. However, the commitment must be two-way. So in addition to outlining what is expected of team members, team leaders should also be clear about their side of the bargain in terms of how they will support the team, how success will be rewarded and how they will be measured by their team.

Taking individual responsibility is needed if both managers and their teams are to translate commitment into sustained action. Team meetings should set aside dedicated time to review previously agreed actions and agree what needs to happen next. By continually reviewing progress, managers and team members will feel more compelled to keep their side of the deal. People also feel motivated by being part of a team that gets things done.

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2 Interlocking

Effective teams are built on establishing a common vision, creating a framework for collaboration, identifying and planning for roadblocks, and establishing accountability. It is all very well to have unity and a shared sense of ownership within the immediate team, but what if this varies from one team to the next?

The nature of teams has been changing as economies become globalised, technology changes the way we all work and organisations are reshaped to respond more quickly to ever faster changes in customer expectations and demands.

The need for continuous improvement in working methods is driven by organisations knowing they cannot sit on their laurels. Organisations need to take and constantly seek new advantages or lose it to the competition. This is as true in the public as private sectors.

Cross-departmental working and cross-functional solutions to common business issues are the inevitable results of this. Effective teams within organisations are increasingly being encouraged to shed the boundaries that people used to define what they thought of as their ‘team’.

What does this mean in practice for particular teams?

The first step is to identify all the people with whom team members, including leaders, interact on a day–to-day basis, and those doing similar roles in other parts of the organisation whose paths may not yet have crossed.

Draw up a map of issues to address. Ideally this should be done with others who may share the same issues, those who could be part of the solution, or those who have already dealt with similar issues in the past. The aim should not be to create a whole new set of meetings or bureaucracy on top of what already takes place, but be flexible and relaxed enough to incorporate a particular issue, and the relevant people, into the agenda of an existing team meeting. It can mean involving employees from across different departments in creating solutions, building a wider sense of commitment and buy-in and forging better cross-team relationships. This more open and flexible meeting culture also helps when it comes to identifying potential barriers and resolving conflict.

What once might have been addressed in silos with the casual blaming of other departments when things go wrong can now be addressed in an open forum with all relevant parties involved. By assigning a section of a specific cross-department meeting to surfacing any issues and acknowledging them, it can create a culture of openness and trust that people will often take back with them and share with their own teams.

If not managed properly there is, however, at best, a danger of overload and, at worst, unfocused chaos. To work in practice and become a cultural norm (not just another initiative), this process of interlocking has to be used in the right contexts. Teams should not feel compelled to stick to formalities. For example, a lunch or coffee can be just as productive as sitting round a conference table and the informality of the situation helps to break down barriers. Quick, informal huddles with whichever department heads happen to be around, can also be just as effective as formal sit-down meetings – and far less time consuming. \

thinkBox18 There’s no ‘I’ in team engagement

Case studies Sainsbury’s is an organisation that uses ‘interlocking’ in order to get daily information out to its 150,000 employees across 800 stores.

Early morning conference calls enable a cross-section of store managers to highlight priorities for the day and feedback any issues from the previous 24 hours. The fact that not every store dials into every call reduces the time pressures on individuals, but the fact that everyone knows it is taking place, and that their peers are having the opportunity to share their views, reinforces commitment and the sense that ‘head office’ is listening.

OK, going into battle sounds a little extreme, but it is simply about identifying an external challenge or opportunity that the team can unite behind to overcome or achieve.

Employees often bond with each other when faced with some kind of external threat. We see this most commonly when faced with mergers or in takeover situations. Recently, a powerful sense of identity, purpose and resolve was forged among Cadburys employees during the Kraft takeover. The uncertainty created by external threat forces people to rally together and reinforces their commitment to the organisation they work for through fear of change or the unknown.

External threats can take on many forms, be it the economic climate, strong performance by competitors or new industry developments that force an organisation to change the way in which it operates. Of course, not all such challenges are negative and teams can come together for common good by working to exploit a new opportunity. Even simply striving to win recognition as a team in industry awards is a platform for teams to go into battle together.

The trick is to clarify, as a team, exactly what that threat or opportunity is and come up with a plan together for how you will overcome it or meet the challenge.

3 Going into battle

The outputs of this call then feed into the ‘News at 10’, a daily e-newsletter sent to all store managers, reiterating the key messages, any promotions and offers to be aware of. Issues and areas surfaced in the morning conference calls are also highlighted through the ‘News at 10’ mechanism.

Each store has a department managers’ huddle, an informal stand-up meeting to share everything colleagues need to know to get them through the day. There is no three line whip to attend as everyone acknowledges the unpredictability of a busy store environment, but the fact that they are kept short, informative and productive means people are more inclined to make the effort. More to the point, they feel they are missing out if they fail to attend. This informal approach, based on flexible, cross-departmental involvement only works because people are committed to owning the process, trust that their leaders are genuinely listening and see action as a result of their input.


3 Going into battle

Case studies We can see similar examples where organisations have battened down the hatches and employees get truly ‘emotionally involved’. In 2004, when British Gas first raised its consumer prices by a double digit amount, it faced the wrath of consumers, regulators, and commentators like. The threat of losing millions of customers and the impact that would have on the business and on employees helped to focus minds.

The mythical ‘burning platform’ gave employees a clarity of purpose and determination that is not often found in the humdrum of everyday working life. Ironically, British Gas cleverly used this platform as an opportunity to galvanise employees behind a drive to save over one million customers from switching to a competitor. The same galvanising force was subsequently used to go on the offensive when competitors inevitably raised their own prices. A highly motivating and hard-fought employee campaign, dubbed informally as a ‘Battle of Britain’, sought to win one million new customers. The sense of purpose combined with a determined focus on team engagement and team performance helped the business achieve its targets.

Greg Dyke gets employee backing British Gas employees mobilised for the challenge

Case studies When the BBC first developed a new set of values in 2002, it defined a series of behaviours to help employees better understand how they relate to their day to day work. One of these organisational behaviours was ‘we have internal debate and external unity’.

This was no more visibly demonstrated than when the then director general, Greg Dyke, was forced to leave in the wake of the Hutton Inquiry, following the much documented claim on the Today programme that the UK Government ‘probably knew’ there were no weapons of mass destruction before invading Iraq. The ensuing call by the Government to investigate the BBC’s journalistic processes created a sense of internal unity probably never seen before at the corporation.

On the day of Dyke’s departure thousands of staff across the country walked out in protest and within two days they had raised thousands of pounds of their own money to take out a full page advert in The Independent defending the BBC’s editorial processes.


Feedback

Every year organisations spend millions on better understanding their customers, gathering feedback on products and ensuring they retain customer loyalty by continually improving their offering. It is simply unthinkable for an organisation to stop talking to customers and trying to better understand their needs when times are tough or the competition is making inroads into market share. Yet for many, this is the approach taken to gathering employee feedback, as leaders take the view that there’s little point seeking employees views during times of upheaval, or that they have bigger priorities to focus on. For others, employees are an invaluable source of insight, ideas and input into the achievement of business goals.

21Feedback

We look at the different means organisations are using to source employee feedback and garner their intellectual and practical involvement.

Organisations base their entire business model on customer satisfaction and establishing trust and loyalty to ensure their customers keep coming back and recommend their products or services to others. So imagine if companies had the same appetite for ideas and feedback from their own employees and for getting input into improving overall business performance.

Feedback is as personal to the organisation as it is to individuals, so getting the right mix of mechanisms depends on the operational environment and organisational culture. The important thing is to make feedback part of business-as-usual and visibly demonstrate when action has been taken as a result.

Regardless of the processes adopted, having an open and honest approach to giving and receiving feedback, based on mutually accepted principles is a catalyst to incorporating other methods which are trusted and respected by managers and employees alike. \

Jane Mitchell [email protected]

Jane is an associate director at Karian and Box. She has worked on major employee strategy, ethics and research programmes for organisations including Rolls-Royce, lastminute.com, BAE Systems and Ladbrokes.

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Suggestion schemesThe most common process for obtaining feedback from employees is the formal suggestion scheme. This is the oldest form of soliciting feedback and has been around in the UK from as early as the 1880s, when a Glasgow shipyard began rewarding employees for good ideas. Informal schemes also often take the form of on the spot rewards, such as a voucher, handed out by managers to employees who have made a good suggestion. For the individual, this instant recognition is very rewarding, but the informality of the process can lead to inconsistent application and resentment as a result, particularly if some managers are more generous with their rewards than those in other parts of the business.

The majority of ideas generated through suggestion schemes, formal or informal, are small things that make a big difference to morale, working conditions or business performance. For example, an employee in the US military, working in the sheet metal branch, suggested a new way of cutting materials that meant they could get twice as many components from the same piece of metal. The result saved the Army over $300,000 per year and earned the employee a $5,000 bonus. The industrial engineer that evaluated the suggestion said, “This shows the value of listening to those who are doing the actual work. They experience the job in real time and full-scale and as a result they see opportunities that are sometimes missed by others who plan the work.” \

Employee surveys are one of the most common mechanisms to elicit feedback from employees. Often conducted annually, they are a good way to gain insight into how employees are feeling and where improvements can be made. But get it wrong and the consequences can have a negative impact on both employee engagement and trust in the leadership team.

We have all seen how not to do it – the communications campaign invariably builds to a frenzy of activity to demonstrate what happened as a result of last year’s feedback, attempts to boost response rates are made through repeated reminders from above, then the results are presented amid a fanfare of ‘didn’t we do well?’. The trouble with turning employee feedback into an annual event is that people see it coming from afar and are finely tuned to any attempt to shoehorn any progress made, for whatever reason, into the ‘you spoke, we acted’ box.

Feedback is not just about employee surveysAn organisation’s feedback processes need to be much more than the formal engagement survey held every so often. They have to be about the practical, sleeves-rolled-up involvement of employees in defining new or improved ways to doing things.

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21Feedback

Building an open culture is criticalTrust is the cornerstone of any organisation looking to develop an effective feedback culture. By inviting feedback from employees, leaders are opening up a two-way relationship whereby people are comfortable speaking out and feel suggestions are being listened to. Such feedback is not going to be forthcoming, whatever the process and related incentives, if the culture is not right.

Fear of challenging the status quo or putting your head above the parapet will kill any feedback process dead. Organisations often spend time and effort devising feedback processes without addressing the working culture which encourages or discourages ideas generation. Ultimately, people need to feel it is safe to speak out or to give ideas.

Creating a culture that is more open, uninhibited and where employees are willing to come forward with opinions and ideas is a first and critical step.

Ensuring visibility and open channels of communication One of the keys to success for any suggestions scheme is visibility. To have any sort of credibility and longevity, employees need to know what is happening to their ideas, see that managers are listening and hear the results of any suggestions that are implemented. Financial incentives and rewards are a welcome gesture, but research suggests that a simple thank you, peer recognition and the satisfaction of seeing an idea taken on board by the management is often more than enough reward. \

Case study In 2004 Sainsbury’s launched its ‘Tell Justin’ suggestion scheme, which now gives employees the opportunity to send ideas to the chief executive, Justin King, for how to improve ways of working within the company.

People can email their suggestions, complete an online form or fill in a postcard in their store which goes into a box for regular collection.

The scheme generates about 100 ideas a week and around 1 in 5 is implemented. Suggestions are read by a dedicated team and passed to the relevant person to respond to.

Everyone who submits an idea receives a response to say whether their suggestion has been taken up or, if not, the reasons why. The staff magazine regularly publishes the best ideas and the improvements made as a result, which gives a real sense of pride to colleagues in stores.

The key to success is the fact that every idea gets some sort of response, regardless of whether or not the idea is implemented, which reinforces the perception that all ideas are considered and that management is listening and values employee contributions.

‘Tell Justin’ was the catalyst for the Big Idea, which became the subject of the 2009 Channel 4 programme, ‘I’m Running Sainsbury’s’. Whereas ‘Tell Justin’ tended to generate small ideas that made a big difference, The Big Idea was intended to generate employee suggestions that could potentially change the whole business.

Thousands applied and a shortlist was invited to the London headquarters to pitch their idea to Justin himself. The scheme created a real buzz amongst employees as they waited to hear if their or their colleagues’ ideas had made it through to the final stage. The pre-programme publicity begged the question, “Has Justin hit on an innovative new concept, or is he just unleashing chaos on his own company?”. It was a risky move. In the end, a range of the ‘big ideas’ went on to become store pilots, and the scheme was far from the failure that some had predicted. This very public display that leaders were willing to listen to ideas and give employees a shot at something big did more to boost morale than perhaps any other internal campaign that year.

What factors help feedback processes work well?

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Feedback

Getting buy-in from leaders In order for leaders to recognise the value of feedback to the organisation, they need to know when decisions have been made or improvements seen as a result of employee involvement. It sounds obvious, but proposals are often submitted to the executive committee in their final form with little context of how it has been arrived at. Managers therefore have a duty to ensure that leaders are made aware that employee feedback was a contributing factor.

This will not only enable management teams to recognise the valuable input of employees but the employees themselves will feel that their involvement is recognised as contributing to business decisions. It will promote ongoing encouragement and feeding of an open, involving culture by leaders as well as helping to secure investment and resources for current and future feedback processes.

Providing employees with a simple platform to give day-to-day feedbackGiving and receiving feedback helps people to understand how effective they are in their work and the effect their work has on the business. Once we know how other people see us it is easier to overcome problems in how we communicate and interact with them. But in order to be truly effective it is important that feedback opportunities are based on positive outcomes and do not turn into a forum to criticise or complain.

In many organisations, the only time people give and receive feedback is during their annual performance review, which can be an uneasy situation on both sides. In order to break down the barriers that make giving and receiving feedback more comfortable it needs to be a regular occurrence and done more informally.

The BBC did this to good effect by introducing a process of ‘feedback chats’. The idea was that managers and employees would sit down informally once a month for just 15 minutes to give and receive feedback. This could be on anything from a particular project, ideas for new ways of working, or to feedback on performance. Simple guidelines were made available about how to give and receive feedback and the key to its success was that the feedback was two-way, with both the manager and employee having the opportunity to contribute. By doing this on a regular basis many of the barriers to giving feedback in a formal setting were broken down and more open and trusting relationships between managers and employees were established. \

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Feedback

Case study A review of feedback processes conducted by Karian and Box on behalf of Warburtons highlighted best practice methods for obtaining and using employee suggestions and feedback. Key to the success of such processes includes:

generating ideas through ‘ideas campaigns’ linked to your business strategy

reviewing all feedback, suggestions and ideas within a reasonable timeframe

giving feedback on every suggestion or piece of feedback and, in particular, giving reasons why an idea is not being implemented

recognising, rather than rewarding, individuals for their contributions

appointing an ‘idea owner’ to lead the review or implementation of each idea and involving the proposer at all stages of implementation

using existing networks to share best practice, rather than creating complex systems to capture ideas.

Such best practice was based on a range of practical case studies from across the business’ bakery, distribution and commercial operations. Two good examples of how feedback can be sourced and used to achieve business goals:

a Bakery employee suggested modifications to a particular machine mechanism. He was asked to design and trial the modified version, and saw it subsequently applied across all machines.

another Bakery employee suggested the replacement of metal slicer crumb trays with plastic ones – making them lighter to move, easier to clean and less susceptible to damage. This simple idea was easy to implement, cost effective and has increased efficiency and productivity in the bakery.

Piggy-backing onto established mechanismsMaking time for feedback is not always easy in an operational environment so using existing processes is a good way to ensure that the outcomes benefit the business overall. For example, Eastman Chemicals used their pre-existing quality assurance process to get feedback on the quality of its communications.

For feedback to be effective in an organisation, the leadership team needs to truly recognise the value of listening to, and acting on, employee suggestions. This was certainly the case at Eastman, where two-way communication and sense checking of messages not only improved communication but created a feedback culture that is embedded in day-to-day work and taken every bit as seriously as other quality assurance measures.


The big story

The power of a story cannot be underestimated. Throughout history, story-telling has been used to convey important messages and meaning, and to help people to make sense of the world around them. People understand through stories – we learn this way as children and it remains an effective learning method for adults. This is because giving meaning to everyday life and situations helps individuals to contextualise and make sense of the world around them.

27The big story

Having a compelling story running through all communications is critical to achieving successful employee or stakeholder engagement.The development of a powerful narrative aligned to an organisation’s vision and strategy will help the audience to feel real support for and involvement with what the organisation is trying to achieve.

Organisations are increasingly recognising the importance and value of building strong narratives to successfully underpin communications, helping employees to understand their role in the context of achieving their vision and objectives. This is particularly the case when an organisation is going through a significant a period of change – when employees need context or a reference point for why change is taking place.

So, what is a narrative?How many times have you been asked “What does your organisation do?” We all have a broad understanding of what our own organisation is about, and what it aims to achieve, but if you have ever tried explaining, briefly, what it does or wants to do, you will know it is not the easiest of questions to answer. So, how do we expect employees to respond?

In the simplest terms, many employees want to know what the organisation in which they work stands for, what it does and where it is headed. They want to know what role they play and they want to feel a level of security, especially when the world around them is changing.

A narrative can help answer these questions. It can provide a clear, simple story that captures all the organisation’s key messages and places them in a compelling format.

Some of the benefits of having a core narrative are that it helps:

concentrate minds on exactly what it is the organisation is trying to communicate in simple, clear language that all can understand

identify the core messages to the wider audience, while providing for messages that are targeted at the needs of specific audiences

integrate disparate, potentially conflicting messages in a format that gives context and a logical order.

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‘‘‘‘A vision story is the

antidote to meaningless frustration. To live in this world with purpose and meaning we must tell ourselves some story of vision that gives our struggle meaning. Annette Simmons, The Story Factor: Inspiration, Influence and Persuasion Through the Art of Storytelling

Ghassan is founding director of Karian and Box. He started as a campaigns manager for The Labour Party before building a career in corporate communications. Ghassan has worked as director of Internal Communications for companies such as British Gas, Rolls-Royce and ICI plc, as well as advising the Cabinet Office on audience engagement and internal communications.Ghassan Karian

[email protected]

Repeat after me... One of the golden rules of effective communication is the need for repetition. In a 24/7 media age we are all hit by thousands of messages every day. We are only able to absorb a handful of these. The most effective communicators are those who craft and deliver a simple, compelling message again and again. It is only when the consumers of a message receive it multiple times, in a range of formats and over time, that they finally ‘hear’ it.

Those who are used to crafting a message or a communication targeted at employees need to bear this in mind. Assuming something has been communicated if it has been inserted into an email, an article, speech or presentation once or even twice will be disappointed. It has not been communicated. Only on the eighth, ninth, or tenth occasion might a receiver finally tune in or get the message.

That is where the narrative comes in. For any benefit to be derived from the development of a narrative, it has to underpin all engagement activity, weaved into all communications so that the same story is reinforced again and again.

The narrative has to be the DNA thread that connects every communication an employee receives. That way, over time and subliminally, a light will go on in an employee’s head – message received and understood.

As such, narratives are not communication vehicles in their own right. They should provide a reference point for shaping communications activity and, as such, act as a ‘message guideline’ – similar to brand or design guidelines. \

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‘‘Storytelling is more than an essential set of tools to get things done: it’s a way for leaders to embody the change they seek. Rather than merely advocating and counter-advocating arguments, leaders establish credibility and authenticity through telling the stories. When they believe deeply in them, their stories resonate, generating creativity, interaction and transformation. Steve Denning, The Secret Language of Leadership

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29The big story

The narrative summarises the range of messages you want to communicate. It is based on all the information you wish to convey.

Do you want a simple, quick and easy-to-remember story? Or do you want a route map that will guide future communications?

The two are not mutually exclusive. You can have the basis of a five minute ‘lift conversation’, captured in a handful of sentences. At the same time, you can build and use a more in-depth ‘pub conversation’ – a simple guide to what you might say to a colleague or an outsider who wants to know more about what you and your organisation does.

Such ‘conversations’ which form the backbone of a narrative often use the following formula.

What we do

What are we trying to do/where are we headed (our ‘vision, mission’ and key goals for the next year)

What’s the back-story? Where have we come from?

What are the things that affect our ability to do what we want to do (challenges, opportunities, business environment, etc)

What makes us tick/what are the one or two things about us that will help us do this (business values/behaviours)

What I do (my role and that of each stakeholder group in the organisation)

The art of developing a narrative is to shape something that captures the elements in way that enables you to pass the eponymous ‘granny test’. Would your own grandmother understand what you are talking about? Of course, different needs dictate variations on the formula; but, in most cases, its core structure applies. Whether the narrative is in support of an organisational change or initiative, the launch of a new service or product, it provides a simple blueprint for your communications content. \

What makes a successful narrative? There are five fundamental rules that should be used when developing a narrative’s content. The narrative should:

1 Be in a simple, logical format that can enable its practical use

2 Use crystal clear, everyday language

3 Reflect the words and perspectives within the organisation

4 Reflect the views, aspirations and day-to-day reality of employees.

5 Reflect the focus, and be based on the involvement, of the organisation’s leaders

6 Enable practical use across the organisation.

A blueprint for a successful narrative

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321The big story

Simple and logical A narrative must be built so that it has a simple, logical and compelling format – one that builds its argument in a convincing way. It cannot just be a list or collection of key messages that do not follow or support each other. As we all know, a good story needs a beginning, middle and end.

Crystal clearNarratives should be written in the everyday conversational language of your audience. While not dumbing down, it should use the simplest language and be sense checked, to ensure it is not a collection of jargon-filled catch-phrases strung together with the odd word of English thrown in. To aid this process, the content should be written in ‘first person’, helping personalise and humanise the language. Once drafted, reading the narrative aloud to yourself or a colleague can help identify obvious complexity or clunky phrases.

Reflecting the audience’s language According to Stephanie C Reissner “...organisations are made up of individuals and their narratives build the life history and identity of the company as a whole”. Ensuring that the common views and perspectives of employees are captured within the narrative is essential to its acceptance and absorption.

The way in which the story is told will influence how willing the audience is to accept the meaning. Where a story is told through the eyes of the audience, they are given ownership of ‘their’ story. Where organisations purely use only the views of the senior leadership to convey their story, employee support can be less emphatic.

One useful device is to collect stories and input from the audience to ensure it covers the issues which are important to them. This means collecting and then filtering the key words and phrases which employees themselves use. These should be weaved into and form the basis of your story, helping employees recognise their story. \

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‘‘...organisations are made up of individuals and their narratives build the life history and identity of the company as a whole Stephanie C Reissner

Reflect the reality of the audience’s experienceEnsuring that the narrative’s content is realistic and rooted in the audience’s breadth of understanding is also central to its success – otherwise people will not be convinced and switch off. If the story does not reflect the perspectives of employees or the reality they experience in their working day, then it will be seen as spin.

While this is mainly a challenge for how the narrative is used in everyday communications, it is also about the core messages within the story. Is it real or does it stretch the truth beyond breaking point? Does it chime with how employees feel now?

Involve leaders In order for a narrative to be successful, it must have the full backing and support of the senior leadership team. Leadership support is, to some extent, implicit in the use and implementation of the narrative. However, this support must extend out of the boardroom and into the day to day language of the organisation’s leaders. They must be seen to own the story and share it effectively with their colleagues. Ultimately, it is an organisation’s leaders who own the narrative, with the communications leads facilitating the broader development and use of it.

This ownership comes from involvement in the development process. Leaders need to be involved at both the beginning and the end of the narrative development process, agreeing the parameters, providing their own ‘words and phrases’ for the story and being collectively involved in its development. They need to test and help shape the narrative until they are ‘happy’ with what it says.

Clearly, there is an art in balancing the language of the boardroom with that of the boiler-room. Part of that art is in convincing leaders to see the world from their audience’s perspective.

Enable practical application For a narrative to be of value, it must be written in a way which enables practical use across a range of communications channels and methods. For many organisations the development of a core narrative is sufficient to meet the requirements of all of its audience groups.

For others, however, the core narrative needs to be supported by additional audience-specific stories to ensure that the overarching narrative reaches, and is understood by, diverse audience groups. The use of such narrative ‘maps’ enables a complex organisation to communicate its core story complemented by targeted messages in a way that different audiences can relate to.

The big story

thinkBox32 The big story

Case Study: London Borough of Islington

Islington Council’s Adoption Service required a campaign to engage families who are suitable to adopt a child or children, particularly reaching out to prospective adoptive parents of Black African and African Caribbean descent.

Karian and Box designed a targeted campaign to engage and inform, delivered in a culturally sensitive and accessible way. At the heart of the campaign, a new narrative was required to underpin all communications to target audiences.

Karian and Box conducted face-to-face and telephone interviews with a range of stakeholders including

adoptive parents, local religious and community leaders, Council employees, BME broadcasters, BME adoption specialists and diversity consultants.

The stories and input captured from this process were used to develop a narrative map at the heart of a communications campaign strategy. This narrative map formed the basis of all communications activity to target audiences, with the core Islington story integrated alongside specific audience messages. The narrative has been the primary reference point for developing Islington adoption marketing and media activity targeted at BME families.

Case study: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra)Findings from employee insight across Defra revealed a workforce motivated by Defra’s overall agenda, passionate about the impact it makes, and enthused by the projects they work on.

However, whilst staff were able to talk about their own work areas, there were gaps in their knowledge and understanding of what the rest of Defra does and being able to make the link between their own part of Defra and the organisation-wide strategy. To enable the achievement of the Department’s wider goals, Defra needed its people to understand and support its vision. To do this they needed a narrative which would help enhance the knowledge and understanding of employees across the Department.

The challenge was to have its employees able to knowledgeably and confidently tell the Defra story to colleagues, customers and stakeholders alike.

Karian and Box conducted interviews and focus groups to obtain input from employees across the Department. Their views, words and language were used in the story development process.

This approach gave employees, from the Permanent Secretary and Director General through to Senior Civil Servants and frontline employees (from areas including Biodiversity, Farming, Strategy and Water) the opportunity to share their Defra story, in their own words. These individual stories were used as a basis for Karian and Box to form the overall Defra narrative.

A short ‘lift conversation’ was developed alongside a longer, two-page ‘pub conversation’, both of which now form the basis of ongoing Defra communications. A narrative map was also constructed – integrating the core

Defra story with individual divisional stories for, say, Marine, Farming and Biodiversity. A simple menu format enables the development of targeted communications that incorporate the core and target messages for a particular audience.

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pulsecheck®

To engage this man you have to get beyond the face and inside his head.To communicate with Tim Brady the individual, you need to know what he is thinking. That will keep changing, so you need to keep asking him.

Organisations usually only measure employee engagement annually. To gain real insight into what individuals are saying, you need to keep the conversation going. Only then can your communications really get through to all the Tim Bradys in your organisation.

The pulsecheck® approach enables organisations to regularly measure what individuals are thinking, saying and doing on the priorities that matter.

Will the real Tim Brady please stand up

www.employeepulsecheck.com


There are some professional communicators who believe that they can operate in a vacuum remote from the senior management of their company or organisation.Indeed, some prefer it that way because it means they don’t have to engage with those scary men and women on the top floor who always look as if they have just fired someone, are firing someone or are about to fire someone.

Better by far to keep your head down and work on the premise that silence from on high means consent. That can often be a mistake.

Making the walk of death (it’s worth it in the end)

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This guy had not become so successful for nothing, and he genuinely listened to ideas that were good for the company especially those which added a bottom line value that could be measured in pounds, shillings and pence. Making your way back out of his office, along the walk of death, having secured buy-in for a project or plan was a great feeling – because you knew that you had his support and that opened a lot of doors. You would still have to deliver but the big guy was backing you to succeed.

Getting senior management buy-in is vitally important for any project but it is especially important in an employee communications context. The younger, newer breed of senior executive will often be communications-savvy. He or she will almost certainly be media-trained. Effective communications is part of their management credo. If you are lucky enough to work for one of these people then your job will be easier.

Unfortunately, in the real world there are still too many managers working in both the private and public sectors who think communications is a soft skill, adding little value. At the end of this extreme are some who believe it gets in the way of their day job, using up valuable business time which could be better spent, in their opinion, undertaking more worthwhile activities. This is misguided and wrong but it is a common reality. \

A number of years ago I headed up the communications function for a young multimedia company, freshly listed on the AIM (Alternative Investments Market). The company’s chief executive was, to put it mildly, quite a formidable sort of guy who had literally built the company up from nothing.

He had the largest office I have ever seen and the well worn pathway from the door to his desk was known as the ‘walk of death’ by his first line senior managers. I have seen grown men tremble before making that journey and there is no doubt if you went to him poorly briefed or with a bad idea, then watch out because he could give an epic dressing down. But that was not the whole story – not by a long chalk.

Gordon is a senior communications professional with over 20 years experience. He has worked at director level in a range of corporate environments. A former journalist, Gordon was also NATO spokesman in Sarajevo, Bosnia. He currently works as a consultant.

Gordon Welsh [email protected]

Making the walk of death


1So what do you do? Well first of all don’t blame them. You are the expert; it is up to you to make the business case. Here are some tips on how.


Hearts and mindsIt is all about winning their hearts and minds. Faint heart never won fair executive yet. If they can see value and you can demonstrate that value then they will often become your strongest advocates. Also, work hard at building trust and establishing a good working relationship. This will make life much easier when you have to ask for support. Even getting diary time with Board level directors can be a challenge. You will stand a far better chance of this if you get on with him or her and their PA.

A critical first step is to get to really know the leader in question. What makes them tick? Behaviourally, what is within their comfort zone and what is outside it? Getting an early and solid understanding of what they want from you and communications is important. Genuinely understanding what they need and how best to handle them is invaluable. Ultimately, a communicator’s success will be built on the relationship and partnership they build with leaders. These relationships can be very long term with senior executives sometimes taking their communications gurus with them into new roles.

Another factor is getting to know their pet subjects. Remember time is money for these guys. They do not want to devote more time than they have to; any good communicator will, like a lawyer, pick up and master their brief quickly and expertly. Knowing the marketplace or operating environment, business and process issues that occupy a leader’s mind will help you talk their language and engage in meaningful discussion and build rapport.

Furthermore, knowing their views on these issues will help you master the art of putting yourself in their head. This will help when you draft speeches, or write communications on their behalf. Mastering their style, tone and predicting their take on issues will save countless redrafts. This ability to capture the authentic ‘voice’ of your boss is absolutely critical and marks out the best communicators. \Listening to the boss

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2 3Not a ‘yes’ manWhile you will need to ensure your communications approach aligns with their expectations and prejudices, you cannot take this approach too far. Yes, understand them and ensure they buy-in to your approach. But being the person who simply says ‘yes’ or tells them what they want to hear will be to your detriment.

Good leaders need good advisers – people who are not afraid to challenge, question and push the points that a leader has not thought of or is initially uncomfortable with. Understanding why a leader has concerns about a course of action will help you to build an intellectual argument and emotional response to move a leader to the right decision. Many leaders who are worth their salt truly value this form of ‘upwards management’. Leadership can be a lonely role – and this is made more so when individuals are surrounded by yes-men who wish to only please. Some leaders may come across as ogres but scratch beneath the surface and there may be elements of self-doubt and of humanity – a need to have confidants who will be honest with them. You occupy a special position as a communicator because you often sit outside the normal management chain. This gives you a freedom not afforded to other executives. Capturing that position and interrelationship is the prize for all professional communicators.

Professional credibilityWhen I worked at Rolls-Royce as communications head for the company’s £2.5bn marine business I carried out a number of employee engagement and change management programmes. One of the most successful was conducted in the part of the company that made nuclear propulsion systems for the Royal Navy’s submarine fleet. A few years back the business had to go through some painful restructuring, adjusting to modern competitive business practice. This meant shedding staff, restructuring and crucially changing long-established methods of working.

With the support of the management team, we pulled together a communications and engagement programme that really changed perceptions and helped refocus the business. It was an important part of the process which helped the business massively improve its financial performance. The success of that programme bought communications the credibility to be genuinely heard at the top table – and gave us the leeway to apply similarly successful engagement techniques in other parts of the business.\



4 5 6Put your wares on displayThe subtle (or not so subtle) visibility of tangible achievements by you and your team is vital to build sustained support from leaders. Seeing physical examples of your work early on in your relationship helps buy time and give them the rationale as to why you are there. That evidence can be in the form of changes you make to the way communications is delivered or high quality tangible communication products and campaigns. But leaders tend to be numbers people, many from engineering or accounting disciplines, and they like to talk the language of ROI and KPIs.

Ensuring you put in place the hard measurement techniques to demonstrate success is vital. This does not just mean the softer engagement measures that will be expected of HR and communication professionals. Measurement that helps link evidence of employee understanding and support for the organisation’s priorities to business performance is the gold dust you should aspire to. Making your communication KPIs viewed in the same light as sales, cash flow or other business metrics is your challenge. Get to know your business’s balanced scorecard and ensure communications is on it and performing well. This is a key way of embedding the ‘value’ I talked about earlier.

Identify and nurture championsSuccess breeds success – senior managers who see what can be achieved then become your most vocal supporters at board meetings. That is when you find your phone starts ringing when other parts of the organisation want your help. How you use that precious commodity of support can make all the difference to the success or failure of your campaign or project. The boss’s backing allows you to manage others who would derail your project. It allows you to pull in resources, tackle opposition and generally be more robust in the way you drive through your communications strategy.

Promise the achievableCommunications is vital but do not pretend it can change the world. Your credibility depends on being able to manage the expectations of your leadership and management community. Do not try and move mountains. Remember it is better to promise delivery of a few tons of top soil and then actually achieve that.


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Top 10 tips Build a working relationship with senior management and establish trust

Genuinely understand what makes individual leaders tick underneath the facade

Speak their language and know their views on pet subjects and issues

Present solid business cases that deliver real benefits

Only promise what you can deliver – manage expectations

Know when to challenge and debate, and know when to advise and acquiesce

Nurture individual support within the leadership team – help champions make the case for you

Make sure they see tangible evidence of your successes – early and often

Understand the limitations as well as the extent of your boss’s support

Think about what you need to do to help make their life easier


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thinkBox40 Book reviews

Why Should Anyone Be Led By You? by Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones What is most refreshing about Goffee and Jones’ book is that it does not shy away from the wide and varied complexities and nuances of being a leader. All too often we see books on leadership giving a best practice approach to management, with a promise of success if the reader follows the advice to the letter.

The starting point for Goffee and Jones is the obvious but important acknowledgement that, as human beings, we all respond differently to different styles and so the leader is a psychologist first and a manager second. Positioning leadership as a social science as opposed to a management one could alienate some old school management gurus, but the result is a book that is grounded in realism, often an uncomfortable one, but one that has the reader nodding both in agreement and empathy at some of the real life examples and situations given. The core theme of the book is its exploration of the two-way relationship between leader and follower and the differences and complexities that this very individual relationship can create.

Whilst this book does not come up with one size fits all answers, it certainly makes up this for with its honesty and pragmatism that will be digested by leaders keen to address the everyday issues that traditional management texts tend to steer clear of.

book reviewsthinkBox Leader of the Gang

Leadership Brand by Dave Ulrich and Norm Smallwood Ulrich and Smallwood look at leadership as a company endeavour rather than a matter for individual development. They encourage the reader to look at their organisation’s leadership culture from the outside in. The leadership brand, they claim, is “the identity of the firm in the mind of the customers, made real to employees because of customer-centric leadership behaviours.” In other words, the relationship with customers and understanding their needs is key to helping employees understand what is expected of them.

The book encourages the reader to focus on desired outcomes rather than on developing individual leadership traits and in doing so it claims that the leadership brand will boost the external profile of the organisation and achieve a performance based approach often missed by traditional leadership ‘how-to’ guides.

It is certainly an interesting approach and the book is packed with examples and guidelines for practical application. Bypassing the relationship between leader and employee may not sit comfortably with many, but as part of an integrated leadership approach, the ‘Leadership Brand’ certainly adds a new dimension to the mix not often seen, but definitely worth taking on board.

41Book reviews

In this book, Ventrice explores why, despite organisations spending millions on recognition schemes, many employees still feel undervalued and unrecognised. Here she digs deep to truly understand what makes employees tick and outlines tried and trusted techniques that will not only build a culture of lasting recognition that will boost business performance, but also the resulting impact on leaders in building trust and respect.

Ventrice shows that integrating the intangible rewards people crave – praise, thanks, opportunity and respect – into business as usual has much greater impact than traditional recognition awards, events and financial perks. The book uses real examples from companies such as Cisco Systems and Google and also outlines the cultural differences in a global workforce to ensure that rewards are relevant and equitable.

As a university professor of education and psychology, you would be forgiven for assuming that Sawyer’s ‘Group Genius’ would be an academic portrayal of collaboration techniques used to generate creative ideas. In this book, Sawyer challenges the assumption that people are either creative or they are not and suggests that even when working in isolation, creativity is always a collaborative venture that builds on experiences and ideas from those around us.

His theatrical background makes for great storytelling, but this easy read is also backed up with solid examples that add rigour to his arguments. Split into three parts, The Collaborative Team, The Collaborative Mind, and The Collaborative Organisation, the book identifies seven characteristics of effective creative teams that demonstrate how even those who do not see themselves in the least bit creative can generate profoundly innovative ideas given the right triggers and environment.

In this book, the author himself acknowledges the subject is a well trodden path among authorities on leadership. But Glowinkowski goes beyond a step by step guide to the many and varied traits that make a good leader, instead suggesting that it is behaviour, pure and simple, rather than technical delivery that drives business performance.

The size and scope of the leadership challenge is irrespective, he says, and his theory applies at all levels, whether you are a Board level executive or a

checkout supervisor. The author draws on a 25 year career in change and management consultancy and he argues that only by being able to measure leadership behaviours and link them to business performance is it possible to understand where and how behavioural improvements can be made. More than just common sense, ‘It’s Behaviour, Stupid!’ delves deep into the science of change practice, using benchmarking and diagnostics as a basis for practical tools that will boost both personal and organisational performance.

Make their day! Employee recognition that worksby Cindy Ventrice

Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration by Keith Sawyer

It’s Behaviour, Stupid! What really drives the performance of your organisationby Steve Glowinkowski

42

Having interviewed and recruited hundreds of candidates for internal communication roles, I have come to the conclusion that any serious professional working in the sector needs to have seven capabilities. A good communicator has, to a greater or lesser extent, these core skills.

Within these seven, there is a hierarchy that, with the demonstration of each skill, leads to more seniority in an organisation. Those in the most senior roles can demonstrate all, but are especially good at being strategists, businessmen and politicians. The aspiring communicator displays these skills too, but starts out life as a strong technical writer, who is responsible for planning creative campaigns. The ability to tangibly show how they have harnessed communications as a business lever is the first step to becoming a more heavyweight player.

The most valuable skill at a senior level is to play the politics of an organisation well – for self-advancement, to achieve your team’s goals and to secure ever-constrained resources for your areas of focus. Being able to pro-actively influence senior leaders, think from their perspective and pre-empt their needs and wishes, while managing them towards your ends, is the hallmark of the astute courtier. \

thinkBoxLastword

The lastword: The Good Communicator Guide?

I often get asked by head hunters to help advise on potential candidates for a range of communication roles. In the discussions we have on the suitability of particular candidates, we try to home in on the attributes needed by a candidate to meet the relevant employer’s specifications.

Ghassan Karian [email protected]

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The Seven ‘Good Communicator’ Attributes

Writer I craft strong prose in different styles that resonate with specific audiences and for different purposes. Critically, I have the intellect to understand, distil and translate an organisation’s jargon-filled business messages into simple, clear language.

Planner I organise disparate activity into an effective plan that aligns audiences with messages, channels, responsibilities and timings. Critically, I actively involve other stakeholders in this process to ensure communication plans align with business needs and are used by those stakeholders – not just by me!

Artist I am able to spot or shape cost-effective creative ideas that bring our key messages to life through high-impact communications activity. Critically, I know what creative ideas, tools or channels are best suited to different circumstances or audiences.

Scientist I know the importance of using evidence to demonstrate the effectiveness of what I and fellow communicators do. Critically, I can use measurement and KPIs to show how communications is helping change employee opinion and behaviour.

Businessman I know what makes organisations work, and quickly pick up the issues, challenges and strategic scope of my organisation. Critically, I know how to shape a communications strategy and activity which is hard-wired into my organisation’s business priorities.

Strategist I think and plan for the long term, developing and adapting communications strategy which reflects ever changing organisations. Critically, I am able to advise on the best strategy or approach an organisation needs to apply to engage and mobilise its workforce in specific circumstances.

Politician I can influence my key stakeholders, especially the organisation’s leadership team, in order to get them to be better communicators. Critically, I know what makes them tick and use this to harness them emotionally and practically to the achievement of the communications strategy.

Of course, with responsibility comes the need to manage a team. As such, the ability to select good candidates who display these core seven attributes is equally important. The senior professional does not do much of the great writing, creative development or planning themselves. But they need to be able to spot people who can and coax good ideas from them. Without the base experience that comes from both innate ability and experience, they can fail to build a capable team. Too many times, organisations appoint professionals into senior roles without a more holistic view of the skills needed. An astounding journalist, so often a route into communications, does not always make for a good strategist or politician. In addition, their world outlook and their understanding of how an organisation and employees tick can be a hindrance. Their focus might be simply on creating ever better channels which, while important, is only part of the job.

There are also thousands of individuals who fulfil the unfortunate stereotype of the communicator as a post-office clerk. Adding little value, they are tacticians who take organisational decisions and shape them for the inevitable email, intranet article or team brief. Worse still, with all organisational leaders having an opinion on what good communications means, the effectiveness of the devalued communicator is often called into question. Hence, the cycle of functional reviews of communications, the relatively frequent re-structuring and the merry-go round of redeployment and recycling of communicators within and across organisations.

When organisations are looking for candidates with a rounded skill set, or are defining the core capabilities of a communications function, they should focus on the core seven attributes of a ‘Good Communicator’. Similarly, for a communicator looking to build their career, a little bit of introspection is needed. Which of the seven attributes do you have, and to what level of experience or competence? What are the gaps that require plugging? And, ultimately, are you sure your inherent behaviours are ones that lend themselves to being a more senior communicator? Which aspect of your character needs working on to help you climb the ladder?

Lastword

Title

Header

That’s why, in the last 12 months alone, we’ve helped the following companies engage their people…

It’s why we’ve also been recognised as one of the best communications agencies specialising in employee engagement.

IABC Gold Quill Award Strategic Communications

Process

CIPR Finalist Outstanding Small Agency

CIPR Finalist Employee Engagement

Campaign

HR Excellence Award Outstanding Employee Engagement Strategy

lastminute.com

We combine logic and magic to deliver communications which help change employee thinking and behaviour.

KARIAN ANDBOX

thinkBox summer 2010

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Transcript of thinkBox summer 2010