A client recently asked me if I had a tool that would help her track and collect measurement data during the course of a project. “Have you got a tool for that?”
It made me realize that when it comes to measurement we really harp on the planning skills. Which is crucial. But the collection, tracking, analysis and reporting are equally important. How many of us have planned our measurement, but never carried through?
So, here are some tips that will get your measurement skills up to speed across the entire measurement lifeline.
- Planning
- Target metrics that connect to business goals and prove communication success
- Find out what the organization is already collecting
- Determine the frequency of collection, approach of collection (e.g., survey, interview, electronic) and owner for each metric
- Collection and tracking
- Identify due dates for all the collection activity
- Determine all the collection logistics in advance so you don’t miss anything
- Automate what you can (e.g., invitations, reminders, electronic data reports)
- For longer-term efforts with multiple measurement points, document key data points and findings as they come in
- Analysis
- Identify the three most relevant findings
- Identify the most surprising finding
- Identify the findings that require additional follow up
- Categorize, count and analyze open-ended comments
- Consider the benefits of cross-tabulating some of your quantitative data
- Assess what worked well in the data collection process and what did not
- Reporting
- Understand the expectations and interests of the stakeholders to whom you are reporting
- Break out recommendations by short-term and long-term timing
- Identify those findings that best connect to goals
- Be realistic about how much you can present in the given time
- Determine which visuals and which words will be most useful to incorporate
- Identify the final call to action
- Anticipate questions and prepare a response
If you approach items two through four with the same diligence communicators typically approach item one, you’ll be more apt to follow through. And follow through means having more and better data, and more and better data means proving our value.
Proving our value through great measurement is one ingredient in the recipe for becoming a trusted advisor. Thinking strategically throughout the measurement lifeline is another. And, yes, we have tools for every step of the way.
Stacy Wilson, ABC, is president of Eloquor Consulting, Inc., in Lakewood, Colorado
Why do we think of so many great ideas in the shower?
Four conditions are generally in play:
- Our brain is relatively quiet with minimal electrical activity.
- We’re internally focused, letting our mind wander rather than being stimulated by external activity, such as digital screens.
- We’re in a positive mindset.
- We’re not directly working on any problems, especially work challenges.
As Dr. David Rock explained in his book Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long, it’s not the water that helps you get insights. It’s that you break the impasse in the way you’ve been thinking.
You’re lathering up while your subconscious brain works in the background. It taps into your stored memories and experiences and connects neurons in new ways for you.
And all of a sudden—as it seems to your conscious brain that has been taking a break from logical thinking—you have that “aha” moment. You’ve reached a great insight! (This is multi-tasking in a powerful, efficient way!)
Now contrast your experiences like this in the shower with what frequently happens at work.
Your prefrontal cortex—commonly referred to as the “executive function” of your brain—is often on overload. You’re trying to juggle a number of thoughts, you’re keeping an eye on your phone as well as the room you’re in, you’re listening to colleagues talking over one another, you all are on deadline to solve a new problem creatively, and you’re anxious about it and several other topics, especially since your boss just scared you about the consequences of last quarter’s performance on your department’s budget. Oh, and you’re hungry.
No wonder that only 10% say they do their best thinking at work, according to David.
What can you do to improve your focus and your thinking at work?
Short of constructing a shower in your cube, start small with some tiny steps.
First embrace the concept of “will, skill and hill.”
The “will” refers to your motivation to take control of your mind and thoughts. In other words, resolve not to play the victim, letting yourself and your thoughts be hijacked by others. Granted this is easier said than done; however, if you’re willing to become more mindful and more self-aware about what distracts you, you’ve taken a large leap forward.
The “skill” is to learn and adopt new behaviors that will help you clear your mind, improve your focus and think more creatively. Consider starting with Tiny Habits®,the innovative program designed by Dr. BJ Fogg.
This past week, as a certified Tiny Habits® coach I coached people in a pilot program of Tiny Habits for Work. We designed many of these habits to improve mindfulness, productivity and satisfaction with work.
For example, some effective Tiny Habits for Work are taking three deep breaths, affirming what a great day it will be and walking around the office.
“Hill” is all about taking steps in your environment to reduce or remove the barriers so you can get over the hill that’s in your way and be more productive. You may not be able to shrink a mountain into a mole hill, but you should be able to start building a path that’s easier to go across.
How can you set yourself up for success to think more clearly and creatively?
Some ideas that work for others include: Set an alarm so you’ll take breaks every 60 minutes or so to stretch or even better, walk outdoors. Keep a file of cartoons that will make you laugh. Have flowers on your desk. (Or walk to the reception area and smell the flowers.) Spend a few minutes doodling or drawing.
Next, you need to experiment to find out what works best for you.
To help you do so, join me for the webinar Stop Your Stinking Thinking: 7 Ways To Use Neuroscience To Sharpen Your Mind and Be a More Powerful Communicator and Leader on Wednesday, May 21 at 12 noon ET (9 am Central). The webinar sponsor Communitelligence is offering $50 off when you use the code connect50. Many of the ideas I’ll talk about on the webinar will help you improve your focus and your thinking as well as be more influential.
By the way, if you’re interested in diving into some of the research on this topic, check out the work of Dr. Mark Beeman at Northwestern University who’s an expert on the neuroscience of insights. Also look at the research of Dr. Stellan Ohlsson at the University of Illinois who studies the “impasse experience.”
Meanwhile, if you want any help becoming a “showerhead,” contact me. Who says showerheads should be limited to devices that control the spray of water in a shower?
Showerheads also can be those of us who think creatively in and out of the shower. What do you think?
By Liz Guthridge, Connect Consulting Group LLC
As anyone who has crammed for an exam can tell you, usually the number of hours we work without interruption is inversely proportionate to how much we accomplish. So how do these entrepreneurs manage to work so many hours without suffering from brain fatigue?
Well, first of all, it is because they truly love being an entrepreneur and are passionate about their enterprise. But, I believe, part of the answer is that they wear so many hats. They never get stuck doing the same kind of work for too long.
Here are some more brain-based tips that can work wonders and could be what helps propel entrepreneurs forward:
1. Buy a good office chair, or get a standing desk.
Focal Upright Furniture has a brand-new chair-and-desk combination on the market. Invented by Martin Keen, of Keen shoes fame, it uses a position between sitting and standing, and allows lots of movement as you work. It also helps those who use it remain attentive.
2. Do not multitask.
John Medina, author of Brain Rules, tells us the brain cannot multitask, period. What it does do is switch back and forth between tasks very quickly. Someone whose attention is interrupted not only takes 50% longer to accomplish a task but also makes up to 50% more errors. A study in The New England Journal of Medicine found that people who talk on the cell phone while driving are four times more likely to have an accident, because it isn’t possible to devote your full attention to both driving and talking at the same time. Hands-free calling offered no advantage. What’s the lesson to take away? Focus on one task at a time, and you’ll accomplish each better and faster–without killing anybody.
3. Use all your senses.
Work is more entertaining for your brain–and therefore makes you more alert–when you engage as many of your senses as possible. Use colored paper and pens. Experiment with peppermint, lemon, or cinnamon aromatherapy. Try playing background music.
4. Don’t make too many decisions in one day.
It sounds farfetched, but if you go shopping in the morning, then negotiate yourself out of eating a cookie at lunch, and finally try to decide between two job offers that afternoon, you might choose the wrong job because you didn’t eat the cookie, according to Scientific American. Making choices depletes your reserves of executive function, or “the mental system involved in abstract thinking, planning, and focusing on one thing instead of another.” This can adversely affect decisions you make later.
5. Take a quick break every 20 minutes.
A study in the journal Cognition reveals that people can maintain their focus or “vigilance” much longer when their brains are given something else to think about every 20 minutes. That’s the time when thinking becomes less efficient. This trick is called momentary deactivation. If your mind isn’t as sharp after a long period of work, it may not be completely fatigued. It just needs to focus on something else to refresh the specific neural network you’ve been using.
6. Work with your own circadian rhythms.
Are you an early bird or a night owl? Do you fade every afternoon, or is that when you are strongest? Don’t schedule an important meeting at a time when you will be operating on one cylinder. And don’t waste your peak work time at a doctor’s appointment.
7. Relax for 10 minutes every 90 minutes.
When you’re awake, your brain cycles from higher alertness (busy beta waves) to lower alertness (alpha waves) every 90 minutes. At that point, you become less able to focus, think clearly, or see the big picture. You know the signals: You feel restless, hungry, and sleepy, and reach for a coffee. Herbert Benson of Harvard, author of The Relaxation Response, recommends working to the point where you stop feeling productive and start feeling stressed. At that moment, disengage. Meditate, do a relaxation exercise, pet a furry animal, go for a quick jog, take a hot shower, pick up your knitting, practice the piano, or look at paintings. Allowing your brain to go into a state of relaxation, daydreaming, and meditating will reset your alertness.
Read full article via Inc.
Your workplace is filled with liars! How do I know?
I’ve got this straight from one of the foremost authorities on body language in business, Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D. Carol conducted an extensive survey to research her new book, The Truth About Lies in the Workplace (Berrett-Koehler).
Here are a few of the startling facts she uncovered:
- · 67% of workers don’t trust senior leadership
- · 53% said their immediate supervisor regularly lied to them
- · 51% believe their co-workers regularly lied
- · 53% admitted lying themselves
Lies and deception are running rampant in the workplace. Fortunately, Carol’s terrific new book explains in easy to understand language:
- · How to spot a liar and what to do about it
- · How men and women lie differently
- · How to deal with liars whether the liar is above, below, or on the same level as you
- · The one lie you better not tell your manager
- · How to NOT look like a liar when you’re telling the truth
- · Ways to foster candor and decrease deception in your organization
Carol’s advice applies whether the liar is a co-worker, boss, customer, prospect or board member. Her tips will help you defend yourself and your company from backstabbers, credit taking colleagues, lying bosses, gossips, and cheating job applicants.
I recommend that you read The Truth About Lies in the Workplace. When you order your copy now, you will also receive over $500 worth of career-building bonus gifts from Carol’s friends (including Communitelligence). And that’s no lie.
P.S. If you think you are too sharp to be taken in by a con man like Bernie Madoff, you had better read Chapter 3: Why We Believe Liars and How We Play Into Their Hands twice. Get your copy now.
Steven Covey had the right idea. There are discreet skills and attitudes, habits if you will, that can elevate your conflict practice to a new level. This article shares a selection of habits and attitudes that can transform a good conflict resolver into a highly effective one. By that I mean someone who facilitates productive, meaningful discussion between others that results in deeper self-awareness, mutual understanding and workable solutions.
I have used the term ‘conflict resolver’ intentionally to reienforce the idea that human resource professionals and managers are instrumental in ending disputes, regardless of whether they are also mediators. These conflict management techniques are life skills that are useful in whatever setting you find yourself. With these skills, you can create environments that are respectful, collaborative and conducive to problem-solving. And, you’ll teach your employees to be proactive, by modeling successful conflict management behaviors
Understand the Employee’s Needs
Since you’re the ‘go to person’ in your organization, it’s natural for you to jump right in to handle conflict. When an employee visits you to discuss a personality conflict, you assess a situation, determine the next steps and proceed until the problem is solved. But is that helpful?
When you take charge, the employee is relieved of his or her responsibility to find a solution. That leaves you to do the work around finding alternatives. And while you want to do what’s best for this person (and the organization), it’s important to ask what the employee wants first— whether it’s to vent, brainstorm solutions or get some coaching. Understand what the person entering your door wants by asking questions:
- · How can I be most helpful to you?
- · What are you hoping I will do?
- · What do you see my role as in this matter?
- Engage in Collaborative Listening
By now everyone has taken at least one active listening course so I won’t address the basic skills. Collaborative Listening takes those attending and discerning skills one step further. It recognizes that in listening each person has a job that supports the work of the other. The speaker’s job is to clearly express his or her thoughts, feelings and goals. The listener’s job is facilitating clarity; understanding and make the employee feel heard.
So what’s the difference? The distinction is acknowledgement. Your role is to help the employee gain a deeper understanding of her own interests and needs; to define concepts and words in a way that expresses her values (i.e. respect means something different to each one of us); and to make her feel acknowledged—someone sees things from her point of view.
Making an acknowledgement is tricky in corporate settings. Understandably, you want to help the employee but are mindful of the issues of corporate liability. You can acknowledge the employee even while safeguarding your company.
Simply put, acknowledgement does not mean agreement. It means letting the employee know that you can see how he got to his truth. It doesn’t mean taking sides with the employee or abandoning your corporate responsibilities. Acknowledgement can be the bridge across misperceptions. Engage in Collaborative Listening by:
- · Help the employee to explore and be clear about his interests and goals
- · Acknowledge her perspective
o I can see how you might see it that way.
o That must be difficult for you.
o I understand that you feel _______ about this.
- · Ask questions that probe for deeper understanding on both your parts:
o When you said x, what did you mean by that?
o If y happens, what’s significant about that for you?
o What am I missing in understanding this from your perspective?
- Be a Good Transmitter
Messages transmitted from one person to the next are very powerful. Sometimes people have to hear it ‘from the horse’s mouth’. Other times, you’ll have to be the transmitter of good thoughts and feelings. Pick up those ‘gems’, those positive messages that flow when employees feel safe and heard in mediation, and present them to the other employee. Your progress will improve.
We’re all human. You know how easy it is to hold a grudge, or assign blame. Sharing gems appropriately can help each employee begin to shift their perceptions of the situation, and more importantly, of each other. To deliver polished gems, try to:
- · Act soon after hearing the gem
- · Paraphrase accurately so the words aren’t distorted
- · Ask the listener if this is new information and if changes her stance
- · Avoid expecting the employees to visibly demonstrate a ‘shift in stance’ (it happens internally and on their timetable, not ours)
- Recognize Power
Power is a dominant factor in mediation that raises many questions: What is it? Who has it? How to do you balance power? Assumptions about who is the ‘powerful one’ are easy to make and sometimes wrong. Skillful conflict resolvers recognize power dynamics in conflicts and are mindful about how to authentically manage them. You can recognize power by being aware that:
- · Power is fluid and exchangeable
- · Employees possess power over the content and their process (think of employees concerns as the water flowing into and being held by the container)
- · Resolvers possess power over the mediation process ( their knowledge, wisdom, experience, and commitment form the container)
- · Your roles as an HR professional and resolver will have a significant impact on power dynamics
- Be Optimistic & Resilient
Agreeing to participate in mediation is an act of courage and hope. By participating, employees are conveying their belief in value of the relationship. They are also expressing their trust in you to be responsive to and supportive of our efforts. Employees may first communicate their anger, frustration, suffering, righteousness, regret, not their best hopes. You can inspire them to continue by being optimistic:
- · Be positive about your experiences with mediation
- · Hold their best wishes and hopes for the future
- · Encourage them to work towards their hopes
Be Resilient. Remember the last time you were stuck in a conflict? You probably replayed the conversation in your mind over and over, thinking about different endings and scolding yourself. Employees get stuck, too. In fact, employees can become so worn down and apathetic about their conflict, especially a long-standing dispute; they’d do anything to end it. Yes, even agree with each other prematurely. Don’t let them settle. Mediation is about each employee getting their interest met. Be resilient:
- · Be prepared to move yourself and the employees though productive and less productive cycles of the mediation
- · Help the employees see their movement and progress
- · Be mindful and appreciative of the hard work you all are doing
Hopefully, you’ve discovered that these are your own habits in one form or another and that your organization is benefiting from your knowledge. You can learn more about workplace mediation and mediation in general from these books and websites:
The Power of Mediation
Bringing Peace into the Room
Difficult Conversation: How to Say What Matters Most
http://www.ne-acr.org (The New England Association of Conflict Resolvers)
http://www.mediate.com (mediation portal site)
http://www.workwelltogether.com (conflict management toolkit)
“Mediation is based on a belief in the fundamental honesty of human beings. Which is another way of saying we all want to be treated justly – that is according to our unique situation and viewpoint on the world. And we cannot expect to be treated justly if we do not honestly reveal ourselves.” ~ the Honourable Neville Chamberlain, British Prime Minister 1937
Dina Beach Lynch, Esq. was formerly the Ombudsman for Fleet Bank and is currently CEO of WorkWellTogether.com, an online conflict management toolkit. Dina can be reached at Dina@workwelltogether.com
A woman from the audience followed me into the hallway. “I think we’re married to the same man,” she said. Successfully fighting the urge to fire off the snappy reply, “Could be. I travel a lot,” I simply smiled back. I’d heard this before.
I’m introduced as a change-management expert – married to a man who refuses to change anything. So, during my speech, I tell humorous stories about the resistance my husband puts up – and how I learned, from managers I’d interviewed, different ways to handle his protests.
After every speech, audience members come up to me to comment on my husband. Many people recognize their co-workers or loved ones (or themselves!) in him, and some (like the woman who’s own spouse’s behavior so resembled mine) jokingly commiserate with me. The thing I find most intriguing about this phenomenon is that in my twenty years of professional speaking, no one has ever approached me after a program to say they most appreciated my fifth point. That’s because they don’t remember what my fifth point was. But they do remember my husband and the lessons about handling change resistance that they learned through my stories.
As a communicator, stories can be your most potent allies.
Social scientists note that there are two different modes of cognition: the paradigmatic mode and the narrative mode. The former is rooted in rational analysis; the latter is represented in fairy tales, myth, legends, metaphors, and good stories. Good stories are more powerful than plain facts!
That is not to reject the value in facts, of course, but simply to recognize their limits in influencing people. Stories supplement analysis. Facts are neutral. People make decisions based on what facts mean to them, not on the facts themselves. Facts aren’t influential until they mean something to someone. Stories give facts meaning.
Here is the difference: Trying to influence people through scientific analysis is a “push” strategy. It requires the speaker to convince the listener through cold, factual evidence. Storytelling is a “pull” strategy, in which the listener is invited to join the experience a participant, and to imagine herself acting on the mental stage the storyteller creates. Stories resonate with adults in ways that can bring them back to a childlike open-mindedness – and make them less resistant to experimentation and change.
Compared to facts, stories are better for building community, capturing the imagination, and exerting influence. Stories about the past help employees understand the rich heritage of an organization, stories about early adopters offer successful examples of dealing with change, personal stories are powerful leadership tools for building trust, humorous stories can ease tension and, if you interview key staff, stories can capture their wisdom.
Stories can address universal human themes
Michael LeBoeuf, author of How to Win Customers and Keep Them for Life, illustrates the power of making people feel important with the following story:
Jane, recently married, was having lunch with a friend, explaining why she married Bill instead of Bob.
“Bob is Mr. Everything,” Jane said. “He’s intelligent, clever and has a very successful career. In fact, when I was with Bob, I felt like he was the most wonderful person in the world.”
“Then why did you marry Bill?” her friend asked. Jane replied, “Because when I’m with Bill, I feel like I’m the most wonderful person in the world.”
Stories can show how to approach your work
I once asked Sanjiv Sidhu, the CEO of i2 Technologies, what kind of attitudes he encouraged in his work force. Although his is a high-tech company, he told me a story about cleaning houses. It’s the same story he tells employees.
“Most people would think that cleaning houses for a living was a pretty boring job. But I believe that if you had the right attitude, cleaning houses could be intellectually stimulating. Let’s say it takes you four hours to clean a house, and you’re doing three houses a day, six days a week. That’s 72 hours of really boring work and a pretty sure recipe for burnout somewhere down the line. But if you redefined the job, said to yourself that you were going to do each house in two hours, there’d be an innovative component in the work suddenly. You’d need to do a study that asked, for example: ‘Am I going to vacuum the whole house first and then go back and polish the furniture, or am I going to do everything in one room before moving on to the next?’ And if you added to that goal the goal of being the best house-cleaner ever, then you really would be stretching your mind, the job wouldn’t feel boring anymore and you probably wouldn’t burn out because your own innovative thinking would keep you interested.
But then suppose you shifted gears again and said, ‘Okay, now I’m going to clean each house in ten minutes!’ That’s where the real fun would begin for someone like me because I’d know I couldn’t hit that target by merely tinkering with spatial tasking. I’d have to start thinking about new kinds of house-cleaning equipment–or maybe even new kinds of houses that cleaned themselves. That’s the kind of thinking we’re encouraging in our employees all of the time.”
Stories can make values come alive
Nordstrom is one organization that does a remarkable job of using anecdotes about its sales force to communicate its value of impeccable customer service. There is, for example, the often-repeated tale about the saleswoman who took her lunch hour to drive from downtown Seattle to the airport to make sure that her customer received his new business suit. The customer had purchased the suit that morning to wear at a meeting in another city the next day — and then discovered the garment needed alterations. The Nordstrom saleswoman had promised to have the suite altered and delivered to him before he left town. She kept her promise.
Stories can become the symbol of change
There is a story I tell in the book, “This Isn’t the Company I Joined” – How to Lead in a Business Turned Upside Down: Buckman Laboratories has been in the specialty chemical business since 1945. Under the leadership of Robert H. (Bob) Buckman, it also became a world-class, knowledge-sharing organization. Bob would tell you that converting a command-and-control organization into a networked one was not without its challenges and setbacks. Still, by 1994, Buckman Labs had jumped into full-bore knowledge sharing: new software and connectivity had been installed, most of the associates were equipped with laptops, and online Forums were up and running. To honor and reward the top 150 people from around the world who had done the best job of sharing knowledge with the new technologies, a “Fourth Wave Meeting” was held in Scottsdale, Arizona. The meeting was three days of fun, celebration and work – specifically, critical discussions about business trends and strategies. It was also the setting for the following story:
Through the entire conference, a man wearing shorts, a T-shirt, and sandals sat at the back of the room, chronicling the meeting on his laptop and sending live messages onto the Forum for the rest of the company to read. His name was Mark Koskiniemi. About midway through the meeting, one of the organizers (a manager) approached Mark and asked him to stop sending out notes on the meeting. Mark refused by saying he didn’t feel that was appropriate. When the organizer suggested that the request to cease came from the top, Mark countered by saying he’d appreciate hearing it personally.
A few minutes later, a break was called, and Mark found himself face-to-face with Bob Buckman. Here is how Mark recalls the conversation:
Mark: Hello, sir.
Bob: Mark, I understand that you have been posting notes from the meeting on the Forum. I have to say that I have not read them, but are you sure that is such a good idea?
Mark: Do you trust me?
Bob broke into a big smile, nodded slightly, and nothing further was said about Mark’s continued reporting of the events.
As Mark later said: “If knowledge sharing is built on trust, then to me this moment over any other demonstrated that Bob Buckman really trusted the associates of Buckman Laboratories to take the company forward.”
There were two results from Koskiniemi’s reporting:
1. In all, he sent more than 50 Forum or e-mail messages related to the reports coming from the meeting.
2. Koskiniemi (who is now head of Buckman’s operation in Australia and New Zealand) told others the story – and it came to symbolize the desired culture change.
It’s easy to play up the adversarial relationship between “Hacks” and “Flacks,” but the truth of this perennial love/hate relationship is that that we really do need one other. Although the value of PR professionals to journalists is often called into question, as this article points out, “the popularity of services like HARO and ProfNet should be proof enough that journalists have a need for PR professionals.”
That said, as PR professionals, our jobs are two-fold: Not only are we advocates for our clients, but we’re also here to make life easier on our journalist comrades. Between a non-stop news cycle, scary budget cuts and mounting competition for clicks, there’s a good chance they’re working in a pressure cooker environment, so the best thing we can do is to think from their perspective and assist rather than annoy. After all, it comes down to relationships, and there’s nothing worse than trying to work with someone who makes your job harder.
So, without further ado, here are our “Top 10 Yeas and Nays” for better PR practices. Although some may seem pretty obvious, those are often the ones that are first forgotten.
DON’T even think about…
- Not doing your research/reading a journalist’s articles before pitching. Know who you’re targeting, and only send something to them that you think would be of interest.
- Sending a pitch via email blast. The shotgun-spray approach is not appreciated; rather, think like a sniper.
- Asking if you can see and/or edit an article before it’s published. This is a huge no-no!
- Making up a response if you don’t know the answer. It’s perfectly acceptable to say, “I’m not sure. Let me check and get back to you.”
- Disregarding deadlines. Your journalist friend has theirs, so make sure you meet yours.
If you want to develop good working relationships, DO try…
- Respecting the journalist’s preferences. If they’re an email person, and you’re more comfortable on the phone, adapt. Work their way.
- Keeping pitches and releases short and to-the-point (and as buzz-free as possible). Repeat after me: Less is more.
- Thinking about how to streamline the process. Have assets and answers ready, and be available when the reporter is writing and may have a question. (Package the story beforehand as much as possible: angle, visual content, facts, references, spokespersons, etc.)
- Proofread, proofread, proofread. And when in doubt, hit spell check again before sending that pitch – perhaps even send to a colleague to review with fresh eyes before contacting the reporter.
- Focusing on relationships. I said it above, and I’ll say it again – it’s all about relationships. They make the job easier and a whole lot more fun! For example, interact with, read, comment on, share and praise a reporter’s work that you find of interest – not just when it’s a story about your company or client.
For organizations to thrive in today’s hyper-competitive marketplace, leaders have to learn how to build a culture of trust and openness. Here are four strategies to help in this regard:
- Encourage risk taking – Leaders need to take the first step in extending trust to those they lead. Through their words and actions, leaders can send the message that appropriate and thoughtful risk taking is encouraged and rewarded. When people feel trusted and secure in their contributions to the organization, they don’t waste energy engaging in CYA (cover your “assets”) behavior and are willing to risk failure. The willingness to take risks is the genesis of creativity and innovation, without which organizations today will die on the vine. Creating a culture of risk taking will only be possible when practice #2 is in place.
- View mistakes as learning opportunities – Imagine that you’re an average golfer (like me!) who decides to take lessons to improve your game. After spending some time on the practice range, your instructor takes you on the course for some live action and you attempt a high-risk/high-reward shot. You flub the shot and your instructor goes beserk on you. “How stupid can you be!” he shouts. “What were you thinking? That was one of the worst shots I’ve seen in my life!” Not exactly the kind of leadership that encourages you to take further risks, is it? Contrast that with a response of “So what do you think went wrong? What will you do differently next time?” Garry Ridge, CEO of WD-40, characterizes these incidents as “learning moments,” where planning and execution come together, a result is produced, and we incorporate what we learned into our future work.
- Build transparency into processes and decision making – Leaders can create a culture of trust and openness by making sure they engage in transparent business practices. Creating systems for high involvement in change efforts, openly discussing decision-making critieria, giving and receiving feedback, and ensuring organizational policies and procedures and applied fairly and equitably are all valuable strategies to increase transparency. On an individual basis, it’s important for us leaders to remember that our people want to know our values, beliefs, and what motivates our decisions and actions. Colleen Barrett, President Emeritus of Southwest Airlines, likes to say that “People will respect you for what you know, but they’ll love you for your vulnerabilities.”
The metric you choose communicates to your organization what’s important to you (the POWERFUL person). It communicates to them how their personal success will be measured. That translates directly into what they prioritize when it comes to your digital initiatives.
Choose the right metric and they’ll create the most glorious digital experience in the universe, the perfect acquisition campaign, the most amazing customer service channel. And they will shock you with the profits they deliver.
Choose the wrong one and they’ll create self-serving, sub optimal, non-competitive, tear-inducing outcomes that will, slowly over time, bleed the business to death.
It really is that stark. Simply because it all comes down to the incentives you create.
Don’t believe me?
Let’s look at six corrosive metrics and their angelic twins, which illustrate this challenge – and magnificent opportunity – quite vividly.
1. Page Views vs. Visitor Loyalty
Is there anything easier than measuring Page Views? This metric has been in every tool since we started torturing web server logs to measure hits (!).
What does Page Views measure? It kinda sorta measures consumption. It is hard to know if a lot of Page Views per visit is a good thing (“The visitor loved our site so much that they read 23 pages of content!”) or a bad thing (“Our site is so horrible that it took 23 pages for the visitor to find what they were looking for”) or a horrible thing (“After 23 page hunt the visitor gave up, cursed us, abandoned the site, and went on to tweet to 23,000 followers that we stink”).
When you look at 23 Page Views, how do you know which of the above three was the outcome?
But it gets worse.
Most content sites are currently monetized using display advertising, most commonly on a Cost Per Thousand Impressions (CPM) basis. When you are paid on a CPM basis the incentive is to figure out how to show the most possible ads on every page (“mo ads mo impressions!”) and…. ensure the visitor sees the most possible pages on the site (“mo ads mo impressions mo page views mo money!”).
That incentive removes a focus from the important entity, your customer, and places it on the secondary entity, your advertiser.
It does not take a degree in rocket science to see what happens next. The web is littered with examples of this awfulness.
When you hear any of the following terms or words, make sure you ask the person using them what he or she means by them. And if their definition does not match the one below, be very, very careful who you are dealing with, and what you are buying.
1. ROI
ROI is an acronym that stands for Return On Investment, an accounting term for a specific calculation of financial results. The formula for calculating ROI is:
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ROI = (Gain from Investment – Cost of Investment) / Cost of InvestmentThat’s it. There is no other definition, despite the many uninformed people who use ROI as if it means “results.” So unless you can calculate net gain, you can’t measure ROI. Many people seem to think that ROI and measurement are the same thing. They are not.
2. Measurement
Measurement is collecting data that will help you make informed decisions about your performance. Good measurement should tell you what is working and not working in your programs. Measurement is often mistakenly used to justify someone’s job or program or budget; it should not used to justify anything.
3. Impressions
Impressions are the circulation figures of a magazine or newspaper. Impressions, reach, and opportunities to see are often used interchangeably. But they really aren’t. And they are numbers, not measures of success. Frequently, when people say that we need a standard measure for PR, they refer to a Nielsen Number. That “number” was in fact a rating that measured the potential reach of a television broadcast. It was invented to provide a broadcast version of impressions. Today, people want a Nielsen Number for social media, which is very difficult to come up with, because about 85% of all social conversations take place in private places such as email or private Facebook pages, or off-line all together.
4. Social Media: Earned vs. Owned
Most people want to measure social media, but they blur the lines between earned and owned social media. Conversations that you start on your Facebook page or YouTube channel are owned social media, and it is relatively easy to measure their success via Facebook Insights or Google Analytics. Earned social media is made up of all those things you can’t control. Like all the Tweets, blog posts, and other activity that is swirling about in the cyberverse that may mention you, but in ways that you may or may not find desirable. Remember, there is a reason they call it earned.
How’s that social media working out for you? All that conversation actually getting you anywhere? It’s time to step up and measure your program. (Click here for a sample social media measurement report with the kind of stats you could — and should — be producing.)
Yep, it’s a big job, but it just got a lot easier. KDPaine’s New Social Media Measurement Checklist leads you through the process, step by step. You still have to do the work, but it’s a whole lot easier with a road map to show you the way.
The Checklist lays it all out for you — just about every decision you need to make and every thing you need to do. You can use it to plan your measurement program, and use it to keep track of your progress. Heck, you can rewrite it with your own name at the top and use it to impress your boss.
Creating a communications measurement plan that demonstrates substance and results doesn’t have to be an arduous process. Follow this guide and you can have a plan in place today.
There was a time—not too long ago—that PR initiatives were measured largely by newspaper clippings.
PR agencies would concoct ratios of readers per clip, claiming that two-and-half or so people read the story. In reality, it was all just a guess. It was an expensive and highly misleading approach to whether a communications plan worked or failed.
Times have changed, and in today’s digital era, we have many accurate and effective ways to measure whether our communications work is making progress or needs a course correction.
By examining and balancing many data points, we can clearly see how things are going. But a measurement matrix, as I call it, starts in the initial planning stages.
What to do
Any communications or PR program must have identified objectives. Those goals are intended to favorably impact a company in order to justify the expenditure of funds and resources. So, draw up a grid.
When Should We Measure Communications?
Annual in depth surveys. Engagement and satisfaction surveys are typically carried out annually and can carry additional questions to provide some insights into the effectiveness of communications.
Prior to a specific communications campaign. In order to best understand the impact of communications, it is necessary to measure (awareness, attitudes, knowledge etc) before a campaign.
After a significant communication or campaign. It is important to measure the effectiveness and impact of significant communications programs and initiatives. This allows you to tailor internal communications to make sure they are effective and delivering quantifiable business value.
At intervals to track attitudes. Regular measurement helps communicators to gauge the ever shifting feelings and attitudes within an organization and to tailor messages to make sure they are appropriate to their audiences.
Pulse checks and temperature checks during and after specific events provide an insight into the issues and challenges an organization faces and to gather feedback on specific issues.
At intervals to benchmark and track against KPI’s. Measuring regularly against benchmarks and tracking trends over time provide an early warning of issues that may go undetected until they have escalated further.
What to Measure?
Determining which aspects of communication to measure will depend on the organization’s specific business and communication objectives. A few examples of useful communications measurements include:
Over the years, I’ve developed a strategy tool that I call measurement-based planning. It may sound counterintuitive to start your plan at the end, but starting with defining what you ultimately want to measure—and how you will measure it—creates a more focused and concrete communication plan, with more quantifiable results.This is a twist on the traditional planning process that focuses on goals and objectives. Yes, the things you ultimately want to measure are the objectives. However, analyzing those objectives through a measurement lens from the outset forces you to think much more concretely.
For instance, one of the responsibilities in your job description may be to manage employee communication and to educate and motivate the company’s workforce. Instead of plunking down “educate and motivate employees” as an objective, start by asking yourself, “How would I know if employees were educated and motivated? How would I measure that?”
Consider three types of outcome measures, which social media measurement expert Kami Huyse has summed up neatly as the three As: awareness, attitude and action. In other words, what will your audience know, what will they believe, and what will they do?
For more wisdom on measurement, see
Common Sense Communication Measurement .Purchase
Led by Kami Watson Huyse, APR, and Alice Brink, ABC, APR.
We still need those web metrics mentioned and others to continue optimizing our websites, call-to-action processes and to monitor conversion rates etc. But more useful is to identify and define your main focus social media metrics. Then define related Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to monitor your progress over time, AND then do mashup of both web analytical data and social media data. Combining data results from search referrals, website and social media all together gives you REAL insights.
Why is it so hard to identify and define metrics for social media marketing? I think it is because many organizations do not have a written social media strategy, and lack defining their social media goals and objectives. Goals and objectives always come first, and then you define your social media KPIs to monitor status and progress for your objectives. You should both identify and define quantitative metrics, and maybe more important; qualitative metrics. Choice of these “social” metrics depends of your social media objectives.
The easy metrics to identify are quantitative ones:
The era of Big Data has arrived, and social media big data will be a huge trend this year. This means public relations professionals have to step it up to keep up.
The monitoring tools we currently use are crude at best and provide only a glimpse into the mirror. There are mountains of data and we don’t really have the skills to see what they all mean and really connect the dots.
Up until now, we have used free tools such as Google alerts to monitor mentions or paid tools such as Radian6, Lithium, Custom Scoop, Cision and many others that give us ideas about what is being said and by whom.
If we are really sophisticated, we will use sentiment scoring, influence measurement tools, or text analytics which allow us to mine more information.
5 Essential Skills to Master Big Data
There is a whole new skill set we have to master to understand and be ready for the insights and opportunities Big Data brings to public relations.
Following are five essential skills to master Big Data you can undertake right away.
- Become an analyst. Don’t be intimidated by data and analytics. Use your brain and look for the ways in which different insights might help you to make better business decisions.
- Learn Excel. One of the best gifts you can give yourself is to take an advanced Excel course to learn how to manipulate data in spreadsheets. We need to move beyond the basics. Take a course locally, or the one linked to above. It is the still that will pay back in spades.
- Collect Data. Consider collecting your own data to supplement what you get from any tools you use. With services such as 80legs and Gnip, you can also gather your own data and analyze it. You can even pull an RSS feed or feeds into a Google Doc and go from there. The key is, don’t be intimidated.
If employees are so connected, why is it so hard to communicate with them?
Tourism Ireland is currently ranked the third largest national tourist board on Facebook, with approximately 700,000 fans across 20 markets in eight languages. In the absence of an accepted industry standard to assess the value of this beyond simply counting fan numbers, we developed the concept of Social Equivalent Advertising Value (SEAV).
Just as the PR sector has traditionally measured its impact by the cost of buying advertising to cover the equivalent column inches, so a similar approach can be applied to social media. The more a brand message is shared, the more “column inches” are gained and the value of this can be compared to the cost of equivalent online advertising.
We identified four levels of consumer engagement with brands in social media:
- Post Impressions: viewing a brand post.
- Page Impressions: viewing a brand owner’s social platform.
- Personal Actions: consuming brand content such as photos, videos or links.
- Public Actions: sharing brand content with their network.
We then categorized the actions that consumers can take across the major social platforms into each of these groupings, and attributed a financial value to the cost of delivering a comparable consumer engagement online. This allowed us to quantify the value of our social engagement in Facebook at the end of last year at an annualized level of €1.7 million.
Some companies out there will charge you thousands of dollars to look after the SEO on your ecommerce website. In this article we’re going to look at some top tips and “quick wins” for ecommerce business owners in order to get websites as high up the rankings as possible with very little work.
Use lots of unique content: Don’t be tempted to use bog-standard manufacturer product descriptions. It might save time but your website won’t rank at all well.
Commission someone to write you a solid set of unique product descriptions of at least 300 words each. Unique content is the lifeblood of SEO so don’t go without it!
Use pictures: Buyers will buy with their eyes in a lot of cases – they won’t read your product description – instead they’ll look at the picture when making a decision.
Use pictures and lots of them on your website – don’t forget to fill in the alt tag section of the picture though – this helps greatly with SEO.
Pictures are great for search engines and visitors alike – throw in some other media like embedding related YouTube videos if you have time.
Fill in META info on every page: Make sure you fill in the META title and description on every single page on your website.
A crazy amount of sites out there are missing META data which means that they don’t sit as well as they should in the search engines.
Writing a short META description takes seconds – as does putting in an appropriate title. If you don’t have time to do it all, outsource it!
Video has become an essential marketing tool. It’s a great way to tell your story, show the human side of your business and communicate highly complex ideas in an easy to digest manner. But while video has the power to deeply engage, it also has the power to bore the viewer to tears—and creating compelling video is different than writing, say, a compelling blog post.
Starting a camera and spouting out a thousand words of brilliant prose does not make a compelling video. There are proven techniques and tools that can help make your videos engage, hold attention and wow the viewer. Here are 10 tools that can help you get started.
1. Prezi. This is a interesting take on the slide presentation as it allows you to create one giant and more easily connected idea and then use the tool to zoom, pan and fly all around the presentation to create a really dynamic feel. It’s not the easiest tool to master, but check out some of the incredible examples on the site to get inspiration.
2. YouTube Editor. I like this tool because it’s free, and because you’re using YouTube to host and stream your videos anyway, it gives you some nice editing capability right in YouTube. You can also add annotations and transcripts to your videos making them more SEO friendly.
3. Camtasia. This PC and Mac desktop software is the market leader in the screencapture video world. Screencast videos are a great way to demonstrate how something online works. Camtasia has some nice features that allow you to add focus to areas on your screen as well as annotations and URLs.
A set of four rules articulated by Abraham Lincoln in 1840 can help corporate communicator create richer, more interactive and more effective relationships with the people upon whom success depends.
(Note: a version of this was first published in Ragan Report, European Supplement, June 2003)
Discussing employee research methodologies with a prospective client at a prominent London financial institution, the client recounted an admonition from his recently departed CEO, when asked about the prospect of an online employee survey. “We will NOT run this company by referendum”, bellowed the Chief Executive.
What corporate communicators often don’t realize—is that in actuality, every company and marketplace is run by referendum. Every corporation is in some respect a democracy—even if it doesn’t feel like one.
What do you mean, a democracy? A major logical fallacy present in the way organizations communicate is one where the organization acts as if the targets of an official communication have no choice but to accept the message as the truth, at face value. But in reality, the target is completely free to accept or reject the message—and to ‘vote’ on its acceptability in any number of ways. Going to work and keeping your head down is only one way of ‘voting’. Inside companies, other ways of voting include:
• Choosing whether to show up, call in sick, or walk away from the job
• Choosing whether to attend to appointed tasks or to surf the internet
• Choosing to resist, support or obstruct change initiatives
• Choosing to express supportive or cynical views about co-workers, managers, or company policies to their colleagues.
In the external sphere, there are a wider variety of ‘voters’, whose support or opposition could have massive impact. Some are more obvious—the unsatisfied customers who can switch products or suppliers, the irate shareholders who could sell up—or turn the shareholder meeting into theatre of the absurd, or the disgruntled employees who can vent about their companies over drinks in airport bars, in the press or on the chat boards on the Internet. With public and employee cynicism toward corporations at or near an all time high, looking at companies as operational ‘democracies’ offers an opportunity to renew, rebuild, and re-energize a company’s key relationships.
The Lincoln Rules: Democracy’s Toolbox
If one wants to apply the notion of the company as a democracy in a practical way, a set of tools for making things happen in a democracy could prove useful to a corporate communicator. A set of four rules articulated by Abraham Lincoln in 1840 is one such toolkit—time-honored for its simplicity and effectiveness. The rules, first spelled out in a speech by the future President to the Illinois Legislature are:
• Make a perfect list of all voters
• Determine with certainty whom each voter will support
• For someone who is undecided, send someone in whom they trust to persuade them
• Turn out all the good Whigs on Election Day
These rules may seem basic, simple, and self-evidently applicable to the task of winning elections. But applied in a corporate context, each rule provides a framework for recognizing the freedom each voter has to make his or her own choices and share his or her opinions. In recognizing this freedom the corporate communicator can use the rules to create richer, more interactive and more effective relationships with the people upon whom success depends.
Make a perfect list of the voters
A perfect list does not necessarily mean the ‘list of all employees’. More frequently, it may mean a list of all individuals who can influence an outcome—or at least of those most likely to influence an outcome in a certain way. No list is ever perfect—but continually maintaining lists and looking for ‘who’s missing’ will keep it valid and relevant.
Determine with certainty whom they will support
Knowing with certainty whom is on your side not only provides you with a sense of your odds of success, it also forms the basis of building a support team to expand your coalition—by working with them to engage their peers, friends, and colleagues to seek their support for the current initiatives.
Send someone in whom they trust
In engaging people who are undecided, or are persuadable to a point of view, they need to be made see that backing that point of view is tangibly in their own self interest. Anodyne messages from the CEO—or worse, the disembodied ‘Voice of the Corporation’ is not going to cut it. Identifying credible individuals who agree with the corporation’s positions, support its desired outcomes, and are willing to act as advocates–is arguably the most important success factor in any change initiative that requires any degree of persuasion.
Turning out the Good Whigs
Unlike election campaigns which focus on a single day, corporate initiatives often require a continual series of ‘election days’ where people need to take action to deliver particular outcomes. Having a clear understanding of the key people who are on your side provides the ability to mobilize your supporters to act, consistently, effectively and responsibly. By using knowledge of how your support base is structured, it is possible to develop mobilization programs (either centrally or through a team of credible people throughout the organization) that encourage people to take the required actions and deliver the outcomes in question.
Why the Lincoln Rules are Really Different
Fully integrating the Lincoln Rules into corporate or organizational communication strategy may well require a paradigm shift for communicators and the organizations they work in. But there are some clear advantages to those who wish to take the leap:
1) The Lincoln Rules do not release anarchy—in fact, quite the opposite. By acknowledging the freedom people already have in making choices about participating in your corporate initiatives, they provide the ability to engage people in a way that authentically respects their freedom.
2) The Lincoln Rules challenge an organization to get a clear picture of where support or opposition to its desired outcomes can be found—thus building a foundation for a credible mobilization campaign—and highlighting the challenges in the way of success
3) By focusing on identifying, connecting and mobilizing those people who actually see their own self interest in the success of corporate priorities, it is possible to build on those connections and develop lasting lateral and direct communication networks to complement the organization’s formal channels. This approach also delivers outcomes based on the personal credibility of network members—as opposed to glossy design, clever wordsmithing, or expensive executive conferences.
4) Energy and passion are channeled by focusing on the people who care about and support initiatives—rather than dulled or destroyed by ill-tailored, one-size-fits-all communication approaches. In short—using the Lincoln Rules begins by appreciating the democratic nature of the social dynamics that exist in any organization. By then using political tools, the communicator can take the underlying reality of democracy in the organization to deliver specific results through targeted communication, and building on the help of credible leaders at all levels. At one level, it’s not much different from seeking ‘buy in’ or ‘stakeholder management’—but the fundamental difference is that these political tools reflect the ability of each individual to vote yes or no, and to ‘lobby’ their colleagues—and users take that freedom into account when tackling corporate communication challenges.