Talking Internal Communication...

Is technology reducing our reliance on line managers?

Here's one to set the cat amongst the pigeons...

US blogger Bernie Charland, a senior communication strategist at PC manufacturer Dell, has challenged one of the sacred cows of internal comms by suggesting that developments in technology - RSS, wikis, social networking, video conferencing, intranets and so on - are reducing the importance of line manager communication. Check out his post here.

He is clearly playing devil's advocate, but his point is a good one and it's great to see someone challenging the conventional wisdom for a change.

Charland sets out his logic clearly, and on the face of it it's pretty compelling stuff.  I buy his argument that today many employees can access critical information much more easily, both inside and outside the organization. If they want to that is. Social media is, as we have discussed before, blurring the line between internal and external communication. This means that if they have the appetite stakeholders, whoever and wherever they are, can easily become much more knowledgeable.

The problem, as Charland rightly points out, is that use of these tools are in no way universal. Employees in hi tech and knowledge-based companies like Dell may well utilize the latest communication technologies, but they are still alien to the vast majority of workers (perhaps even more so here in Europe). Factories, call centers and the like are just the tip of the iceberg. Indeed, I would argue that outside big business, most employers don't even have the basics in place yet (one of which is effective line manager comms).   

Charland acknowledges that managers are still important and I completely agree. For me, there will always be a need for line managers to have meaningful conversations with their people, to show they care about employees, to really listen, to provide context for corporate decisions, to motivate and to inspire. At its best Web 2.0 technology certainly enhances workplace communication, but, fan as I am, I honestly can't see it ever replacing traditional face-to-face comms.

That's my view, but I'd love to know what others think (and I'd really love to know what the likes of T J Larkin, Roger D'Aprix or Angela Sinickas - communicators who have done so much to underline the importance of line manager comms - have to say on the subject). 

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.

Line managers back in the firing line

Line managers are back in the firing line.

Research published this week by Investors in People and YouGov suggests that poor communication by managers could be the main reason for employee dissatisfaction. Communication ability was listed as the most important managerial quality by respondents, yet nearly one in three (32%) said their manager was not good at communicating with them.

We all know how important line managers are to effective internal communication, yet standards remain woefully low. It's a truism that employees typically leave their boss, not their employer, and one of the main reasons for this is a breakdown in communication.

It's about time organisations began taking line manager comms seriously. Leaders need to wake up to the fact that most managers are not natural born communicators - just because someone has been promoted to a supervisory or team leadership role does not mean they know how to engage people, how to translate and interpret strategy, how to make performance data interesting and relevant, how to build dialogue, how to facilitate a team meeting, etc. These skills need to be learned like any other.