Talking Internal Communication...

One in five use iPod at work

A new survey of office workers in the UK claims to have discovered that one in five employees use their iPod at work for up to three hours a day. That's one good reason for internal communicators to learn about podcasting and start experimenting with it.

Chewing on Crescenzo’s nuggets

I’ve spent the last two days at the Steve Crescenzo Masterclass at London’s Kensington Close Hotel. Organised by Simply Communicate, the event saw one of our profession’s leading voices visit London for the first time. And what a debut it was.

No stranger to our peers across the pond, Steve has spent the last 15 years working with Ragan Communications in the US. During that time he’s seen, read and digested more internal publications than anyone else on the face of the planet. But he’s much more than a print guy. Through his consulting practice he’s worked with some of the biggest brands in the States. And he’s a prolific and respected blogger and conference speaker.

This guy knows what he’s talking about and his seminar was rammed full of practical examples of what’s currently working (and, hilariously, what’s driving employees nuts) in the US. Over two days he took us on a whirlwind tour of traditional channels and the new social media. We covered print, face-to-face, e-newsletters, blogs, wikis and podcasting, to name a few. There were so many nuggets of wisdom I’ll be chewing over them for weeks (I’ll regurgitate some of them here over the next three or four days).

Steve is not like most internal communicators you’ll come across; at least not here in the UK. While there’s no doubting he’s a savvy ‘strategic’ thinker, he doesn’t waffle on like a wannabe Harvard professor and, refreshingly, didn’t once present a four box matrix. Instead, he focuses on sharing dozens of practical ideas which you can take back to base and implement. I like that. I’ve been to too many dull and worthy communication sermons recently.

His style is very different to those who frequent the UK conference circuit. Where they often appear to run on low voltage, Steve sends sparks flying. He’s passionate, opinionated and very funny. If he wasn’t in internal comms he’d probably be a stand up comedian or a celebrity chef. But this straight-talking, no bullshit, son of a Chicago homicide detective is a real breath of fresh air for our profession. He's also a really nice guy.

For my part, the event was a wake up call. Fed on a diet of ‘strategic’ case studies, white papers, reports and articles over the last few years, I’d started to believe that tactics were the dirty end of internal comms, best left to junior team members and those who just can’t ‘do‘ strategy. That’s crap. Done right, channels and tactics can revolutionise organisations. It took Steve to remind me of that.

If you get the chance you should go see Steve speak, particularly if you're feeling a little jaded about channels and tactics. Thanks to Simply and Ragan, he'll be back in the UK in May (I'll post details on the calendar as soon as they're finalised). If you can't make that they at least sign up for his blog and forthcoming podcast.

Doing the Dojo

Two pals of mine, Liam FitzPatrick and Sue Dewhurst, have just launched a blog for graduates of the Black Belt training programme, which they run in association with Melcrum. The Black Belt Dojo is a collection of 'tales, thoughts, findings and ramblings' on internal communication. Liam and Sue are a thoughtful, passionate and well informed pair, so it's well worth checking out from time to time...

Hofstede's Cultural Differences

Fellow comms blogger Nik Ranken has produced a really useful overview of Geert Hofstede's work on cultural differences.

Culture's Consequences, Hofstede's groundbreaking book on organizational culture, was first published in 1980. It is based on a monumental study of a multinational corporation (IBM) operating in 39 countries. It is essential reading for anyone who wants to know about differences in culture between various countries.  It also remains one of the most widely cited works in international management.  Nik's blog captures the key points.

You can access Hofstede's own website at http://feweb.uvt.nl/center/hofstede/index.htm.

Working environment key to creativity

I read an interesting piece this week about the benefits of developing a wacky and off-the-wall working environment. According to researchers, employees will be more creative and inventive in unusual work spaces because they feel a mix of positive and negative emotions.  Quoted in the UK’s Metro newspaper, Dr Christina Fong of the University of Washington, said: “Managers who want to increase the creative output of their employees might benefit from following in the footsteps of companies with odd working environments.” They cite the example of Californian design consultancy IDEO, where employees apparently have bicycles hanging above their heads and the wing of a DC3 plane jutting from the wall. 

Experts in organizational culture have long stressed the importance of the physical workplace. Edgar Schein talks about the three levels of culture, of which the first is ‘artifacts’ – what you see, hear and feel as you hang around.  Corporate identity experts know how important the physical layout and design of the workplace can be in terms of underlining or undermining the brand. And flick through the Great Place to Work and Best Companies listings and you will discover lots of examples of organizations doing unusual and unexpected things in the workplace. There’s clearly something in this.

The physical workspace is an area few internal communicators focus on – the closest most of us get to it is being responsible for the office notice boards or plasma screen network. But it’s a hugely powerful ‘channel’ in its own right and one we ignore at our peril. Not only can funky workplaces help create the right culture and climate inside your organization, but they can also spark innovation. These benefits are far too important to be left solely to our colleagues in Facilities Management, Property or Premises.  

Free article to download – organizational listening

Here’s my latest feature article for you to download. It was published this month on Simply Communicate, the web-based subscription service for communicators. It focuses on organizational listening, a subject I’m really passionate about and one I’ll be returning to again in the near future. I hope you find it interesting....

Download towards_the_listening_organization.pdf

More evidence of our failure to engage

The findings of yet another survey published this month suggest that poor motivation is harming UK productivity and holding us back in the global economy.

The ‘What’s My Motivation?’ study, published by the Hay Group, found that just 15% of UK office workers consider themselves highly motivated, with one in four saying they are “coasting” and a dismal 8% admitting they are completely demotivated.

Less than half (48%) of UK employees consider themselves ambitious and just 21% believe they are “very effective” in their roles. On the flip side, a relatively healthy 39% of office employees say they love their jobs.

The survey points towards some interesting regional differences too. Respondents in the Midlands were most likely to be motivated by money (88% consider cash to be the most important factor in job satisfaction), with those in Scotland and the South least financially driven.  Those in the North West were most ambitious. Overall the Scots were found to be the most motivated at 29%.

Struggling managers need our help

Today I stumbled upon two interesting research studies, both published this week, which look at the attitudes and behaviours of managers. They contain some mixed signals, but overall paint a depressing picture of the state of management in the UK.

The first study, published by the Chartered Management Institute in the West Midlands, shows that many managers are not keeping up-to-date with current thinking, business trends or best practice. Only half of those surveyed believe they are fully using their skills at work, and nearly a third wished they had developed more skills during their career. In contrast, an impressive 62% claim to be energetic at work and 60% say they are willing to go the extra mile, though many of them blame bureaucracy (32%) and lack of resources (26%) for holding them back.

The second poll, from the Institute of Leadership and Management, shows that many young workers feel they are being held back by the behaviour of their boss. The survey quizzed 500 workers aged 18 to 24 and found a catalogue of complaints about line managers, including their dictatorial management style, frequent desire to blame others when things go wrong and expectation that staff will do what they’re told without debate or discussion. Many of those questioned said they were being put off becoming a manager because of this negative experience.

All this is yet more evidence that managers are struggling to cope with the demands placed on them. We expect them to be the superheroes of the workplace – to manage and motivate their team, to translate business strategy, to hire and fire, to meet health and safety targets, to defend company policy and so on. Yet we often recruit them based solely on their technical ability or the fact that they’re ‘due’ a promotion. Once promoted, we then expect them to somehow intuitively know how to be great communicators.  Is it any wonder that David Brent is alive and kicking in the UK workplace?!

There are some lessons here for internal communicators. This research shows, once again, why we need to treat managers as a specific and key audience segment. Managers desperately need our help and, as the CMI research shows, are keen to develop. We must make it our mission to improve management communication – to make line managers accountable for it, to coach them, to up-skill them, to help them communicate with their increasingly diverse teams (not least Generation Y), to clarify what we expect of them, to give them the information they need, to listen to them… If we engage managers and equip them with the knowledge and skills they need to engage their teams, then we will significantly improve the climate in the workplace and, with it, organisational performance.

The growing pains of a profession

I recently led a discussion group on strategic internal communication as part of the CIPR’s Perfecting PR Strategy conference. The group comprised about 25 communicators, of which roughly half were from the private sector and half public. Most of them were leading small teams and were responsible for aspects of both internal and external comms.

Before the event I asked delegates to complete a short on-line questionnaire. The results may not be representative of the profession, but they are nevertheless quite telling:

• Delegates were divided in their view of practitioners – the majority (40%) saw IC people primarily as ‘tacticians’, 33% as ‘strategists’ and a sizeable number (27%) couldn’t decide between the two.
• 65% of delegates said their CEOs see internal comms as ‘critically important’ or ‘quite important’, though a worrying 35% said IC was a low priority for their leader.
• Most organisations saw the links between internal and external comms as ‘strong’ or ‘quite strong’ (47% and 20% respectively). The remainder, however, pointed towards a major disconnect between the two. 
• IC was located within a larger corporate comms department for the majority (54%), followed by marketing (20%) and HR (14%). It was a stand alone function for just under 7%. The remaining delegates were from agencies.
• The quality of IC was typically rated ‘average’ (40%) or ‘below par’ (27%).
• Electronic and print channels were identified as strengths, with planning, measurement and face-to-face flagged as weaknesses.

So what does all this tell us about the current state of internal comms in the UK ?

What it captures for me are some of the growing pains we’re experiencing as our profession struggles through its puberty.

Many practitioners -and clients - remain confused about the purpose of IC (are we strategists or tacticians; facilitators or deliverers?) Some CEOs get it, while others think it’s a total waste of money. We’re not sure how we should be structured, where we should sit and what sort of relationship should we have with our PR, marketing and HR colleagues. And we’re not totally sure what we’re good at and what we should be good at (producing stuff or coaching leaders?)

Though few practitioners voice them in public, these are dilemmas we’re all facing and will need to address before our profession can really come of age.

What the session also reinforced for me was that, wherever we sit and whatever environment we operate in, many of us face the exact same issues and challenges. For those in the room these appeared to be:

• Improving line/middle manager communication – how do you get managers communicating effectively? How do you stop them absorbing information and get them sharing it?  What skills should you teach them? How do you hold them accountable?
• Tackling leadership cynicism towards IC - how do you get the sceptical CEO to buy-into your plans? Why won’t top executives invest in and support your proposals? Why is internal comms amongst the first ‘overheads’ to be cut?
• Conducting proper research and evaluation – how do you do it? How can you prove the value you’re adding? How do you link your activities to business objectives? How do you get beyond the once-a-year staff survey? What are the most cost effective techniques?

The great thing about internal comms is that it’s relatively easy to find someone who’s been there and done it- most practitioners are very willing to talk about their work and share their thinking. As well as the excellent subscription services like Simply Communicate and Melcrum’s Hub, communicators benefit from an active calendar of events (check out my listing above). Failing that, just pick up the phone…

An apology

I've been a little bit quiet of late, but not without good reason...

I relocated my business about 10 days ago and, thanks to the combined talents of BT and AOL, I am still waiting for internet access!

Please bear with me over the coming days - I should be back on line soon.

Thanks