Arunis Chesonis is a CEO who gets the power of communication as a necessary ingredient for success. If only other CEOs followed his recipe.
My radar is always up for examples of CEOs who understand that communication is necessary for business success. It’s difficult finding business leaders who do more than pay lip service to the idea of frequent, honest communication with stakeholders – especially employees.
Arunis Chesonis is a rare find. He is CEO of PAETEC, one of the few startups that survived the great telecom boom of the late 1990s. I first read about him in Fast Company magazine in February 2004. The article caught my eye because Chesonis has created a company culture where information flows freely, knowledge passes from one person to another and the dignity of people comes first. It’s a philosophy that works, too – last year’s article cited a 250 percent growth rate in the previous three years and it’s still growing at a rate of 120 percent.
Chesonis impressed me so much that I suggested him as a keynote speaker for the annual Corporate Communicators Conference presented by Ragan Communications in Las Vegas last week. The conference organizers like to find a CEO who can charge up the corporate-communication professionals in attendance – it can be demoralizing to work for some companies that believe the less communication the better.
My friend and fellow communication consultant Charles Pizzo wrote a blog from the conference and gushed about Chesonis’s address. Believe me when I say it takes a lot for Charles to gush about anything, so I knew the CEO’s remarks were powerful.
“This is a CEO who gets it,” Charles wrote, “who lives, breathes and exudes communication. “Speaking from the heart with no script, he is a communicator’s dream.”
That observation alone tells you how easy it is for a CEO to score points with customers, employees, or whomever, just by being real. So many business leaders are attached at the hip to a script filled with jargon and clichés, it’s no wonder nobody believes a word they say.
Charles summarized Chesonis’s remarks, which focused on his philosophy as a leader. “You cannot over-appreciate your employees. Give employees ownership. Show fairness in wages, perks and parking. Keep balance: work is not the most important thing in people’s lives. Flexibility counts: people have family and friends, birthdays and Little League. The culture is the company: create a sense of family. Support the community: encourage employees to develop pride while chasing their passions.”
What does this have to do with communication? Everything. So many business leaders fail to understand that actions – their individual actions, the company’s actions – communicate strong messages to people all the time. I have a friend who is close to burning out personally and professionally in his job for one of Richmond’s top employers. His boss doesn’t understand how her constant demands and unreasonable expectations communicate that he is a commodity to be used and tossed aside.
“Arunis makes so much sense, and is so refreshing, that we should bottle his essence and pour it over salads in corporate boardrooms all across the land,” Charles wrote. “His message is absolutely palatable.”
And yet, it’s on the menus of so few companies these days.
If you want to evolve you need to kill PR. Why? Because there is too much head trash about what public relations means. I think it is unrealistic to expect that others outside the profession, including most bosses and clients, will ever see it more than publicity, free advertising, or press releases. Your job is about to get harder than it already is, and dragging that old description around is just dead weight. If we want to evolve I think we need to kill “PR”.
Don’t get me wrong. This is not a “PR is Dead” post. In fact, the idea of relating to the public is now as important as ever. Your smart practices on quality communications are extremely valuable, but I think to stay fresh you will need to shift your view of yourself from a company communicator to that of a communities facilitator
The Pinterest frontier as yet unexplored is the territory of internal communications. The fast-growing social network is a natural for companies that sell visually pleasing products or promote a lifestyle brand. Brands like Nordstrom, Whole Foods Market, Bergdorf Goodman and even Chobani Greek yogurt have started Pinterest boards directed at their consumers. Ann Taylor launched a brilliant Valentine’s contest that motivated Pinterest users to pin Ann Taylor clothes and accessories to their own boards.
Now Pinterest has the potential to become a powerful employee engagement tool as well. At Tribe, we’re beginning to recommend its use internally, particularly for brands with predominantly female workforces, such as retailers for women’s apparel.
One of the trickiest communication issues for such retailers is communicating with the employees on the sales floor. They’re separated geographically from corporate and from other stores, yet it’s essential to loop these employees in on what the brand represents.
After all, the sales associates are the ones who interact with shoppers. You can have fantastic external branding, but if the customer experience doesn’t live up to that branding, you’re sunk. Especially in this economy, retail customers want to feel like they’re getting what they’re promised.
Perspectives and tips on the current state of the U. S. workplace and the people in it:
American Mania: When More Is Not Enough
Peter Whybrow MD
Norton, 2005
(The author links psychiatry, anthropology, economics, neurobiology and genetics to explain the root of increasing incidents of depression, obesity and addictions in our ever-faster-paced American society. Possibly this is the dark side of “hard fun”…)
Contagious Success: Spreading High Performance Throughout Your Organization
Susan Lucia Annunzio
Portfolio, 2004
(New global research that supports the idea that high performance (the ideal organizational form of “hard fun”) depends on the same things no matter where you are.)
Getting to the seventh person first
Paula Bartholome
http://www.parallax-perspectives.com/newsletters/summer2004.html
(Lead article in my enewsletter about the positive culture of an organization doing a mundane job, web hosting, and how they have “hard fun” doing it. Includes tips on creating such an environment.)
Story Power for Teams
Paula Bartholome and Evelyn Clark
http://www.parallax-perspectives.com/images/Story_Power.pdf
(A brief article on how communicating with stories can facilitate moving a team through the stages of development and on to “hard fun”.)
Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool’s Guide to Surviving with Grace
Gordon MacKenzie
Viking, 1998
(A joyously fun read! All about maintaining creativity in bureaucratic environments.)
The impact of incivility on employees and workplaces
http://www.civilityworks.com/resources.html
(Several articles [research and anecdotal evidence] on the corrosive impact of uncivil behavior in workplaces. It’s difficult to imagine anyone being able to have “hard fun” in such places…)
Last year, a friend who works in corporate communication for a major local company advised me to keep my ears open to the topic of “offshoring” — the latest cost-reduction trend of sending service jobs to other countries. “This is going to be a big issue for communicators,” she warned.
I was aware that some companies already were exporting jobs, but sure enough, I began to hear more and more about it. More stories about “offshoring” appeared in business publications, more talking heads with creased brows lamented it, and I even saw more discussion in the public-relations industry press.
I have paid close attention to the topic, but two things keep bothering me. One is that the only thing new about “offshoring” is that it primarily affects white-collar and service-industry jobs. Exporting jobs as a cost-cutting measure is nothing new. It has been going on for years in the manufacturing sector, but white-collar managers essentially told their blue-collar employees to suck it up and get used to the global economy. Now that those white-collar managers are seeing their jobs disappear, the practice has a new euphemistic name and urgency assigned to it.
One of these days — and I hope I live long enough to see it, but I doubt it — business managers everywhere will realize just how condescending they often appear to the people they manage. This is a communication issue because an inappropriate attitude and tone can create huge barriers to open communication between bosses and employees.
The other thing that keeps bothering me is that “offshoring” would be considered a big issue. This is not to downplay the significance of exporting jobs as a workplace issue, but it is only a communication problem when business leaders try to dance around it. Telling people that some of them might lose their jobs is not fun. It’s not easy. The discussion won’t make managers the object of employees’ affections. However, people deserve to know why jobs are being sent to other countries and they deserve the opportunity to express their anger, fear and disappointment.
I was talking recently with an employee of a local company who described a new manager in her department. She contrasted the former manager’s style of keeping everyone in the dark with the new manager’s style of frequent and open communication. The former manager’s approach led to mistrust and dissension. The new manager’s talk of the reasons for upcoming layoffs was not easy to hear, but employees appreciated the honesty and candor.
One of my favorite newsletters for communication executives, The Ragan Report, recently published comments from an unnamed computer programmer for a high-tech firm that was planning to export jobs. She wondered about the degree of employee backlash to “offshoring” and then described why she believes it is not the best solution to her company’s problems. She described the amount of time it will take her to train workers in other countries, to overcome time and language barriers, and to adjust to the cultural differences.
I found the programmer’s points to be interesting, but I couldn’t help wonder how much more useful her ideas would have been if she had the opportunity to express them to the leaders of her business.
Startup cultures are often defined by personalities of their founders (hoodies and hackathons, anyone?). Growing beyond the original crew means that those initial quirks either become more defined or diluted, depending on how tightly leadership holds on to them. So how to preserve that scrappy vibe and the can-do vision that will continue to attract the best and brightest so your business can grow? Fast Company talked to culture mavens who are working at that right now to get their best advice.
Grow the Staff, Not the Teams
As part of its due diligence process, CityGrid hunts for startups with a strong sense of company culture, even if it’s only shared among three people–the size of Urbanspoon’s staff was when it was acquired. Still based in Seattle, Urbanspoon’s ranks have swelled to 70 people and counting, but true to its roots, the vibe is still casual. There are no corporate titles listed on the Web site and all headshots are candid photos of staff tucking into a favorite dish.Nortman says that’s due to a CityGrid-wide practice of keeping the size of teams and meetings manageable. “Even if you become bigger, you should size your teams so they have a clear feeling of ownership,” she offers, “That’s instantly more important than a boss telling you what to do.” Likewise, Nortman advises hammering out how many meetings will be required to make any decision and then determine how many people should attend. “You want to make those decisions and fail quickly instead of waiting for 17 people to say yes,” she adds.
Keep the Lines Open
Teamwork was so important to cofounder of Foursquare Dennis Crowley that when the company added its first eight people, he hired friends he knew could foster the kind of open sharing that continues to be a core value, with 135 people now working in three separate offices.Susan Loh, head of talent at the social check-in company says that to keep the lines of communication open, Crowley started holding office hours once a week. “Anyone can sign up for a 10-minute time slot,” she says, to bring their ideas and feedback straight to the boss. For those not based in New York, video technology such as iPads in the conference room are available for virtual face-to-face meetings.
Foursquare also has an internal email blast called Snippets that allows everyone, including senior management, share what they are working on. “It’s not about what meetings they have scheduled; it’s what’s keeping them up at night and calls to action,” Loh explains.
Pay People to Leave
Culture isn’t passed through osmosis at the water cooler. When Clate Mask, CEO of Infusionsoft, talks about the early days (in a garage) of the sales and marketing software company, he references family and fun as often as he cites innovation from within, faster execution, and fierce loyalty. He admits it’s been a challenge to keep that “one big happy” feeling as the company grew to 300 employees, but is on track to beef up to 1,000 in three years. “We believe we can keep this forever as long as we are intentional. We wanted to dispel the notion that you can’t scale culture.”To do this as Infusionsoft adds about 10 to 15 people per month, each new hire must go through a two-week intensive orientation. When that’s complete, they are offered $5,000–to leave (a practice made famous by Zappos). “It’s expensive to have the wrong people,” Mask says, “This gives the individual an opportunity to assess if they are really committed.” So far he’s gotten no takers and says Infusionsoft’s retention rate is 90 percent.
Our research has shown that more and more leaders — from organizations that range from computer-networking giant Cisco Systems to Hindustan Petroleum, a large India-based oil supplier — are using the power of organizational conversation to drive their company forward. For these leaders, internal communication isn’t just an HR function. It’s an engine of value that boosts employee engagement and improves strategic alignment.
Broadly speaking, there are four steps that you can take to make your approach to leadership more conversational. (In future posts, we will address each of these points at greater length.)
1. Close the gap between you and your employees. In our survey, we also asked respondents to name the biggest employee communication challenge at their company. In response, one participant cited the need to “move away from top-down communication.” Another highlighted a “disparity between the senior management team and middle management due to low transparency.” Trusted and effective leaders overcome such challenges by speaking with employees in ways that are direct, personal, open, and authentic.
2. Promote two-way dialogue within your company. One survey respondent lamented “a lack of understanding in management of the need for communication,” adding that “the traditional practice” of communication at his or her company “has been one-way.” Leaders can show that they appreciate the value of real communication by adopting channels that allow ideas to move in multiple directions across their organization, and by working to create a truly conversational culture within that organization.
3. Engage employees in the work of telling the company story. The need “to get more participation from employees,” according to one respondent, is a pressing challenge at his or her company. People in that company “tend to shy away from speaking openly.” The practice of organizational conversation alters that dynamic. Where that practice has taken hold, leaders encourage broad-based employee involvement in a wide array of communication efforts.
4. Pursue a clear agenda. One participant expressed concern about a “lack of consistency” in communication. Another mentioned a tendency among top leaders to generate “too much communication.” Yet another voiced this complaint: “The strategy is only discussed at the management level and is never cascaded to all staff.” To deal with such challenges — to prevent the communication process from becoming diffuse and ad hoc — effective leaders take steps to ensure that their conversation with employees unfolds according to a clear strategic plan. They also seek to align that conversation with organizational objectives.
There are some things about communication that are true whether you’re dealing with a Fortune 100 corporation or a sole proprietorship. A message isn’t communicated until it is received and understood. Telling the truth is the right thing to do. People can tell when they’re being fed a line. These truisms are pretty universal.
Having worked with businesses on both ends of the spectrum, however, I must confess that small-business communication is more fun and more fulfilling. Yes, it’s interesting to help corporations make their complex communication processes more efficient. It’s satisfying to see behemoth organizations communicate with people on a personal level.
But there’s something even more satisfying about seeing a business get off the ground and grow primarily because the owner knows how to communicate well. There’s something more organic – for lack of a better word – about the communication that takes place in a small business.
A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of spending a few hours with more than 40 entrepreneurs at the Creative Change Center (C3) in Richmond, Va. I led a workshop on how to market a business on a shoestring budget. Anyone who has started a business from scratch knows that one of the greatest challenges is reaching your target market when you have little or no money to spend.
As is usually the case with C3, the room was filled with fascinating people: professional storytellers, artists, graphic designers, photographers, a guy who makes screen-printed T-shirts, a young woman who turns trash into unique usable products, people who pour their energy into non-profits, people who provide groundbreaking therapy to autistic children.
Here is what made me want to embrace every person in the room: each of them was passionate – not just motivated, but passionate – about what they do. It’s not difficult to get passionate people to communicate about what they do. They are eager to talk to anyone who will listen and they are unafraid to take risks and try new things
My experience is that most Fortune 100 corporations have too many people who not only lack the passion for what they do, but also are afraid to try something different.
It’s not surprising, then, that a recent study by the International Association of Business Communicators found that the success of a small organization’s public relations often rests in the communication skills and perseverance of the person at the top. Up until a company grows to about 20 employees, communication is what I call organic – informal, focused on building relationships with people. As companies grow beyond about 20 people, communication becomes more formal and process-driven.
A few large companies manage to hold onto the passion and risk-taking and the organic communication as they grow, but these companies are few and far between. And it takes work, in which many companies are unwilling to invest.
As I said to the entrepreneurs at C3, marketing is really about forming personal relationships with people. It’s knowing all about your customers and potential customers, understanding their problems, figuring out how to help them solve those problems and then telling them about the solutions you offer. It’s being flexible enough to meet your customers where they are rather than waiting for them to come to you.
The big guys could learn a few things about marketing from passionate entrepreneurs.
Here are 10 key actions to transform employees into ambassadors:
- Ditch social media guidelines for social media training – The internet changes everyday and with it, the norms, behaviors and destinations an ambassador must pay attention to. Static guidelines leave ambassadors with instructions that expire and little direction. The journey from employee to ambassador includes more than a set of rules, it includes the acquisition of skills. Those skills can only come from experience and training.
- Use game mechanics to incentivize participation – Building an organic audience is a long-term commitment. Not every ambassador will be energized by the prospect of daily production, reading, sharing and networking. To maintain momentum, break-down responsibilities into discrete and categorized actions. Weight each action by expected effort and reward accordingly. Make it all add up. Give ambassadors a set of quests that allow them to qualify for a particular specialty — set up a profile, make your first connection, unlock your newbie status. Design digital tools that monitor activities and allow constant feedback.
- Limit your audience to interest groups – The ‘mass web’ is an extremely competitive environment where the latest gossip, extraordinary news events and cat videos fight for attention. The size of the potential audience is huge, but the chance of being drowned out is even larger. Avoid irrelevance by engaging with interest groups. Focus on becoming a valued member of the community, not just a sponsor of it.
- Don’t get caught up in audience size – 100 good friends online can often trump 100,000 acquaintances, especially if those 100 friends are well connected. With a smaller network, the content that you produce and things you have to say become more focused. That focus improves the likelihood of engagement and strong referral. Good friends don’t just ‘pass things along’, they advocate for their circle of friends.
- Choose your speciality – There are many ways to become prominent online. Brands become obsessed with leading conversations and taking the authoritative role. But, not every brand has the qualities to lead audiences like a Seth Godin or Steven Colbert. There are other specialities. For example, Jason Kottke has won the attention of a large audience by exploring the fringe of internet and sharing links that would otherwise remain hidden. It’s not about what he says but, about what he finds.
There are two ways of holding an idea. One is with a closed fist, and one is with an open palm.
When you hold an idea in a closed fist, you control it. It is yours. And no one else can access it. Ideas held tightly — as if in a fist — can’t be seen. Sure, if you try really hard, you might be able to see the little bits between the cracks. But they’re hard to see, share — or steal.But an idea held in an open hand can evolve. It has space to grow bigger. Ideas are actually organic, living things. If they have room to expand, they can quite possibly spread, and be picked up by others and grow into something much, much bigger than what you imagined.
What I’m talking about is more broadly is openness, which changes everything when used. Openness is a stance — to share with, to collaborate, to distribute power to many.
Some would argue — myself amongst them — that openness is the ethos of the era we live in today: the Social Era. Instead of competing through overpowering strength and scale by yourself, you create value in communities and by sharing power with one another.
It can be seen today on a societal, organizational, and personal level.
On the world stage, we saw the Arab Spring. Many voices advocated for freedom, effecting the change of oppressive regimes, and thus advanced the condition of their country.
We see it in organizations when we see global brands like TED decide to open up with TEDx. What was once limited to a few thousand people and two events has grown to be over 3000 events of people caring about ideas that matter — to them, in places as far away as Kibera (a slum in Nairobi Kenya), and as close as London.
And at the individual level, we see it when people work together to collectively solve problems that are relevant to all of them individually. For example, online forums allow anyone, everyone to contribute to solving problems. One such game is Fold It, which helps scientists advance their field by knowing how a protein should fold. A woman, an admin who has no bio science background, ends up being the best protein folder in the world. This is something that wouldn’t have happened if she had to first be picked, or vetted or in any other way been “allowed” to participate.
But many — perhaps you — suggest that open is just a phase and philosophy of the young, naïve, and unaware… something that people will grow out of when they accumulate power or want to be rich.
And perhaps this is human nature. Anytime we give birth to anything — kids, companies, ideas — the natural instinct is to hold that thing close, to protect it from the big, scary world and the bad things in it. This is understandable, especially with kids. But beyond the emotional desire to protect, should we apply this notion to companies and ideas?
In the Industrial Era, both money and power came from being bigger than the other guy, defending one’s turf, and keeping everyone out of your ecosystem. That’s why the icon of “success” is the 800-pound gorilla. The person who owned the machine was the person who created capital wealth. The person who set the rules had an inside track to stay in power. And, protecting IP in a closed system has allowed many a company to keep its edge. It used to be possible to erect barriers to entry from competitors and to establish entirely new markets that could be all yours. And that’s the key; it used to work when the rules of the Industrial Era were in place.
Not so much in the Social Era. In the Social Era, seemingly disparate individuals gather together and can form a powerful tribe that can do things that once only centralized organizations could do. This fundamentally changes the rules of competitiveness.
Town-hall meetings help close the gap between what business leaders see as problems and what front-line employees experience.
A West Coast financial-services company got some good news recently. A survey on communication, administered by my company and Gill Research of Chicago, indicated that employees feel their supervisors do a very good job communicating about business issues. The company’s senior management has a clear business plan, according to employees, and they feel senior management clearly communicates with them about the plan.
This company is in an enviable position. Employees generally trust the business leaders and enjoy a healthy communication environment. Among the good news, however, there was a warning sign: Employees believe senior management could do a better job of understanding the issues and concerns of people in the lower levels of the company.
Even in the best companies, employees perceive a gap between what they experience every day and what senior management sees as the most pressing problems. One of the responsibilities of a leader is to look at all the available information and to make an informed decision about where the organization must focus its attention.
Business leaders and employees will not always agree on the issues. After all, a business is not a democracy. Senior management is accountable first to shareholders or owners. However, senior management also needs the physical, mental and emotional investment of employees for the business to be successful.
That’s why it behooves business leaders to have an ongoing dialogue with employees. The financial-services company with whom we worked holds regular town-hall meetings where business leaders talk to – and more important, listen to – employees about the problems facing the company. Senior management gets high marks for the town-hall meetings, but the survey indicated employees don’t always feel senior management understands the nitty-gritty realities of front-line jobs.
Having worked for several companies in which town-hall meetings were a centerpiece of the communication program, I realize most business leaders have a hard time knowing when to stop talking and start listening. They want to explain the reasons behind business decisions – and they should. Even if employees don’t agree with business decisions, they usually find the decisions easier to accept if they understand the reasons.
But explaining business decisions is not the greatest value of town-hall meetings. Most companies have multiple vehicles through which leaders explain business issues and decisions. The greatest value of town-hall meetings is in the building of affinity between business leaders and employees. That affinity begins with senior management listening to and internalizing what is on employees’ minds.
My hometown of Richmond, Va., has a wonderful example of an executive who understands the power of listening. Mayor Doug Wilder – who once was Virginia’s governor and recently was elected mayor, or the city’s CEO – has participated in numerous town-hall meetings with citizens. The fact that he is accountable to the citizens is a bit different from the relationship between a company CEO and employees. Still, he is an example of a strong leader who does not allow his strength to overpower his ability to listen. As Wilder engages in more listening, citizens feel empowered to get involved in solving the problems facing the city.
I believe any CEO of any company would welcome that kind of self-motivated involvement by employees.
“Americans are growing increasingly unhappy with their jobs” is the opening sentence of a recent Conference Board survey of job satisfaction. This indicator has been falling for the last 10 years, yet in the past few years, many people may have been reluctant to try to do anything but make the best of things. But that “stickiness” appears to be changing.
If recent surveys are correct, many of your co-workers – maybe even you – are considering a change. Recruiting firms, busy last year, are even busier in the first half of this year. A recent Execunet survey shows 61% of employees are not satisfied with their jobs; a Society of Human Resource Management/Career Journal survey shows a whopping 81% actively searching or passively receptive to offers.
Why the movement now? One theory says employees have reached the tipping point: they are tired of being expected to do ever more with less. Another possibility, more people are looking for a better fit between who they are and what they do. And yet another possibility, people want to work in an environment that really engages and uses the knowledge and energy they bring with them. The problem is real: organizations whose employees are less satisfied are at risk of losing of key human capital and increasing their cost of doing business in an ever more globally competitive world. The Conference Board is taking this issue seriously and as of March 1, 2005 launched a Working Group on Employee Engagement and Commitment.
A couple of thoughts from a “hard fun” perspective for the Working Group to consider:
- Find out how many dissatisfied employees feel that they are not respected in their place of employment. Ask for stories that give specific examples of this. Respect has been shown to be an important aspect of high performance work environments. In one global study of knowledge workers respect meant that they were able to use the knowledge and experience they had on their jobs.
- Look at the relationship between satisfaction and scale. How close can one feel to 150,000 co-workers? Effective groups have optimal sizes and organizations may need to rethink how they are structured to provide the environment where employees can feel genuinely engaged and see that their contribution matters. An example of this is Semco.
- Lastly, consider the way in which communication happens in organizations where employees are satisfied versus where there is high dissatisfaction. Issues of timeliness, trustworthiness, relevance and completeness are important. One possibly overlooked issue is that of emotional connection. Emotions are part of the workplace and have an impact on the degree to which individuals are motivated. When employees make a genuine emotional connection to what is being communicated – seeing clearly how they relate to it and how their actions contribute to organizational accomplishments – they may be much more likely to be satisfied with their jobs and their employer.
What do you think? Is job satisfaction possible or is it an outmoded concept? Post your thoughts in Q&A.
It amazes me how often business leaders miss the point: the secret to business success is an informed, empowered workforce.
I’ve worked with many companies of various sizes, some of which pour huge amounts of time and money into employee communication and some of which do as little as possible to keep workers engaged.
Some companies have all the bells and whistles – an intranet, a publication, television monitors throughout their buildings, quarterly dialogues with executives and other communication vehicles. However, in many cases employees in these companies know less about what’s going on than the organizations that have bare-bones communication.
Given the choice between a fully loaded employee communication program that fails to engage people and a limited program that reaches people with relevant information, I would of course choose the latter. But it amazes me how often business leaders miss the point: the secret to business success is an informed, empowered workforce.
A recent story in the United Kingdom’s Shropshire Star newspaper tells how employees at the Epson printer manufacturing facility in Telford reinvented the business when it looked like the end was near. Rather than give in to a soft market for their printers, employees learned the advanced technology necessary to make ink cartridges instead.
It would have been easy for workers to throw their hands up in despair. The workforce had been cut by more than half. Employees had to be retrained in every way – from the engineering and manufacturing to the technical and customer support for a different product. Their efforts are paying off. This year, three years after the change, the facility received a £5 million investment in six state-of-the-art automated ink cartridge production lines. More investment is coming in 2005. Eventually, more than 50 percent of Epson’s printer ink cartridges will be made in Telford.
Ray Prior, operations support manager for Epson, credits the company’s adherence to the Japanese improvement system called kaizen – the innovation, cost control and quality improvements that are necessary to meet market demands. And one method for achieving those improvements is employee engagement.
“The secret lies in the empowerment of the workforce,” Prior told the Shropshire Star. “You actually give people ownership and responsibility and you get employee-led improvements.”
That’s not just talk. Prior says the Epson factory significantly changed the shift system earlier this year. The elimination of double shifts might not have happened if not for employee involvement. “This meant changes which affected pay packets,” he told the newspaper, “as those on double shifts were getting special allowances. We discussed a range of proposals around which we had no idea what the outcome would look like. But there was real partnership between the management and staff and we came up with a proposal that suited both the company and the employees.”
Communication is nothing new to Epson. Employees in groups of 50 to 100 attend quarterly briefings by the managing director and local unit manager. The dialogues focus on company issues ranging from marketing to product changes. Most impressive is how the communication obviously has led to improvements. Epson credits employee involvement for an increased emphasis on training and education, a safety record 10 times the national average, lower energy costs and a more than four-fold increase in implemented employee suggestions.
Employees in most companies are ready and willing to work for the good of their enterprises, if only business leaders are willing to unleash them.
Q&A: What does your company do to engage employees in the business?
Distilled wisdom: The more knowledgeable, convinced and supportive the workforce is, the faster you can implement change. Strongly accepted change is sustainable, and that saves both time and money.
Everyone knows what a brand is, and everyone knows what advertising is. Some of us may be confused about promotion and merchandising but most have a basic idea, at least, of what they are.
Lately, a lot of people have been asking me about internal branding. What exactly is internal branding? It’s definitely a hot topic, on which seminars and workshops are offered all around the country. By my count, seven major internal branding conferences were held this past year. I have attended many of these and have heard some outstanding presenters address the topic.
It’s hot, but what is it? Very little is written that defines internal branding; so as one of the pioneers of this new branding phenomenon, I decided to pound a stake into the ground with my definition.
Before I explain what internal branding is, let me clear up some misconceptions. It is NOT letting your employees know about your new advertising campaign. It does not consist of handing out t-shirts and baseball caps to announce a new strategic initiative, name change or company vision statement. Really, it is not anything remotely like these things.
So what it IS internal branding? Why is it important? When should I do it?
Here is my definition: Internal branding is a cultural shift within an organization, where the employees become more customer focused and more business focused. You achieve this by an organized, communications and behavior driven process, which leads to a desired end state. Meanwhile, at all levels in the company, one big question is answered – “What’s in it for me?” After they hear and learn about the internal brand initiative, every single employee should understand what job behavior you expect from them, and how they contribute to the company’s success. You need to reinforce the behavior you want, and bring it into line with HR policies, internal communications and corporate marketing efforts and strategy.
Effective internal branding brings huge benefits. Companies whose workforces understand how they operate and make money perform better. Committed employees provide stronger performance and higher customer satisfaction.
Important data that supports this connection between understanding and internal change was released recently.
A recent McKinsey study concludes that change-management programs succeed only when employees at all levels-senior managers, middle managers, and the front line-share the will and the skills to change. They studied change programs at forty organizations, and found a strong correlation between good skills for managing change and the value an organization carries away from these programs. These skills, I would add, are the product of effective change communications and internal branding programming. The more knowledgeable, convinced and supportive the workforce is, the faster you can implement change. Strongly accepted change is sustainable, and that saves both time and money.
When all is said and done, successful internal branding lifts brand equity, customer focus and ultimately shareholder value. One of our high tech presenters at the recent conference shared startling numbers that demonstrated a powerful correlation between internal branding efforts, external branding efforts and shareholder equity. It’s all about the facts, the data, the metrics and accountabilities.
So the question becomes, “How should a company do internal branding or Inward Marketing™?” Here are some of key elements/best practices we’ve gathered from studying this topic for the past seven years.
- A brand is a process driven, long-term proposition. Not a deliverable! And so is internal branding.
- Internal branding follows a sequential process; through which employees achieve internal brand success. There is a difference between communicating a message, getting it understood, and changing behavior.
- You must have senior leadership participation and involvement throughout the process of internal branding. You can’t delegate this or let the managers drive it.
- Start with a clear company vision and purpose. If you don’t have one, work with the senior team to establish one and communicate throughout the company by both words and action.
- Set clear objectives and well-defined roles at the outset, and revisit them throughout the process.
- Consider assigning dedicated people to internal change communication and internal branding. Let them create a sense of such urgency that staff see no alternative to change.
- Conduct an audit of the enterprise understanding of the business objectives and strategy so you can address areas where people don’t “get it”.
- Internal branding, done well, allows employees to transition from being “Informed,” to “Understanding” the information, to becoming “Committed”, so that they “Change Their Behavior’ in support of the company goals. As a result they should “Receive Recognition & Rewards” and positive reinforcement for changing their behavior.
- Recognize the importance of the customer and all their points of contact with your company: call and service centers, sales associates, statements/invoices, advertising and more.
- Align your brand externally & internally. Let your inside be like your outside: what you say externally should be the same thing you say/do internally.
- Go for participation, consensus and employee dialogue. These work better than edicts and policies that travel down the hierarchy.
- Having “Employee Brand Ambassadors” is critical–involve a cross section of employees from all levels, who will promote the brand internally through experiential communication.
- Obtain metrics and measures before, during and after program implementation. Research your employees regularly and track their progress over time.
- Hard, Simple, Easy – Work hard to make complex concepts and ideas simple, so they are understood and communicated easily.
- Seek outside help from experts and consultants in the field – this is hard work, but with help in methodology and process, it can be done effectively.
Internal Branding should be embraced by companies and by marketing and human resource management in particular. They should work together to engage their employees to understand and behave in support of the company’s strategic initiatives.
I look forward to having an ongoing dialogue in this forum and to hear your ideas and opinions as we continue this blog. Welcome.
Here’s how you can change performance management practices in your workplace.
1. Influence with action. The greatest influence in the world is the influence of norms. When people see visual models of desirable behavior, and when that behavior becomes widespread, it also becomes self-sustaining. However, few people understand that norms change one person at a time. When someone offers a living example of behavior that solves a problem, others can be powerfully influenced by that one person. The behavior often catches on one person at a time.
I once attended a formal meeting in a sweltering hot room. All the men in jackets and ties were absolutely dying from the heat. Everyone wanted to remove the excess clothing, but no one was sure it was “okay.” They kept looking at the big boss with pleading eyes hoping he would make the first move. Finally, one man—not even the most senior person in the room—arrived a bit late, gasped at how hot it was, loosened his tie and removed his jacket. The person next to him looked at him, and slowly removed his jacket. Almost immediately, three or four others did the same. Then the big boss did. Then everyone did. Everyone desired change—they just needed a reasonable person to set the example. Be the reasonable person.
2. Influence with words. While offering a splendid example, you can also accelerate change by speaking up about better ways of managing. But be careful, if you don’t speak up well, you’ll come across as a critic or a bore. Here are some things to keep in mind so you come across as credible and useful, rather than whiny and weak.
Share the facts. It’s sad but true that nothing is more rare in organizations than data-driven arguments. Opinion leaders are often the ones who have done the homework to marshal facts. This doesn’t have to require research teams. It could be that you simply send an informal e-mail to a handful of people you know who left the organization involuntarily and ask a few questions. When you talk to your colleagues and can say, “You know, the last four people we let go report that they did not have any prior warning…” your argument sounds much different from when you simply complain about how your friend was mistreated.
The notion that an employee needs to be engaged, enabled, or energized is certainly not groundbreaking. But the problem is that they’ve generally been considered separately. Instead, think for a moment about these three traits visually, as shaded circles in a Venn diagram; when the three traits overlap, their three colors combine to form darker, richer tones. Any one without the other two is good but not sufficient for truly exceptional results.
A hamster on a treadmill is energized, for example, but it doesn’t really accomplish much by spinning its wheel. It isn’t enabled to take the wheel out for a spin in the woods. Likewise, an eager new military cadet may be engaged. He may care about the corps and be eager to serve his country, but without training and the right support, he’s unlikely to be of much use to his comrades. A teenager can be given all of the enabling freedom in the world, but if she isn’t engaged by an interesting challenge, she will likely be bored rather than energized and won’t accomplish much. Each of the E(energized) + E(ager) + E(ngaged) can be held hostage by an imbalance in the other two.
The flip side is that each of the three, when present, builds on each other, or you could say they combine as in a chemical reaction, becoming combustible.
Throwing chairs, tossing zingers and misusing the English language are probably not the best tactics to ensure your message is heard
If you want people to hear what you have to say, give them something worth listening to.
Sounds simple, right? If that’s the case, why does effectively communicating a viewpoint seem to be such a lost art these days?
We are living in the age of Jerry Springer, the TV talk-show host who delights in chair-throwing, bleep-inducing confrontations between people who need serious sedation and anger-management training. Not surprisingly, this kind of in-your-face entertainment has spilled over to more “serious” news programs on formerly respectable networks.
Look at what’s happening. There’s the weird rant of Tom Cruise in a “Today” show interview (which really wasn’t news except that Cruise apparently invented a new meaning for the word “glib”). There’s the printed gripe session in my hometown newspaper in which the same five people seem to be bickering endlessly. There are town-hall meetings – both in the public arena and in company auditoriums all over America – in which the greatest applause is reserved for the person who tosses the best zinger. And now there are blogs, online journals where freedom of expression is pushed to the extreme (I can’t wait for the inevitable tests of this freedom in future court cases).
As someone who makes a living out of trying to help people communicate effectively, all of this is frequently disheartening. As the volume increases, it is more difficult to hear what people are really trying to say.
Listening to different viewpoints is fun. I learn a lot from hearing people talk about what is important to them. Businesses can learn and grow, too, by listening to employees, customers, suppliers and other important groups. But good information gets lost when it’s wrapped in anything that detracts from the message.
Here are some ways to make sure your message isn’t lost:
Know how to use the language. For some people, all the rules of grammar and spelling are enough to cause hyperventilation. (I feel the same way about math.) But let’s face it: communication depends on knowing how to use the tools correctly. If you’re writing a letter to the editor, committing a grammatical error like “your an idiot” will detract from your message. There is little excuse for poor grammar and misspelling in these days of dictionaries and computerized spell-check.
Don’t let pure emotion take over. It is OK to be emotional when speaking on a subject about which you feel strongly. But when emotion is so strong that it overpowers the message, your audience will remember the outburst and forget what brought it on.
Keep your message simple. Whether you are speaking or writing, the person on the other end will remember only so much. (Think about how much information overload you have in your own life.) Rather than drift off into a half-dozen tangents, stick to the central message you want your audience to remember.
Keep your sense of humor. Humor is a wonderful weapon for defusing tense situations. Use it carefully, however, and aim it mostly toward yourself. Be willing to recognize when someone else is attempting to use humor and don’t take yourself so seriously.
Kill them with kindness. You can attract more bees with honey than you can with vinegar. My career has included a fair amount of communicating strong opinions, but I learned long ago that you can be opinionated and kind at the same time.
Have you ever wondered if your organization’s efforts to increase employee engagement are worthwhile? Research carried out in conjunction with Aon Hewitt’s Best Employers in Canada study shows a link between highly engaged employees and improved health and overall well-being.
To analyze the data, organizations were grouped as high-, medium- or low-engagement employers based on their scores in the Best Employers study. Employees at these organizations were surveyed to determine correlation between engagement levels and various measures of health.
Those working at high-engagement organizations reported better physical health—56%, versus 47% for employees at organizations with moderate engagement and 41% at low-engagement organizations. Job stress levels were lower, too: 28% of employees at high-engagement locations reported high job stress, versus 33% at moderate-engagement firms and 39% of those at low-engagement workplaces.
Better health and lower job stress translate into tangible benefits for employers. While higher engagement doesn’t guarantee better health, a strategic focus on increasing employee engagement may support health and thus reduce levels of absenteeism.
Those at high-engagement workplaces reported an average of two days off annually due to emotional, physical or mental fatigue. That number was 2.7 for those at moderate-engagement organizations and 4.3 for employees at low-engagement companies. In addition, high-engagement organizations experienced fewer long-term disability claims and lower workers’ compensation premiums. The cost savings in workers’ compensation alone are significant: an average of $246,000 per year for a 1,000-employee organization.
What used to be referred to as good management practices is now called ‘employee engagement’ but no matter you call it, it’s about more than the numbers on the paycheck. If you want to keep people, a good paycheck is only part of the reason people stay. It’s the non-financial benefits that relate to their work environment that may produce the more important result for your employees.
To enhance employee commitment, focus on the total work experience, not just direct deposit.
Factors that impact loyalty can include:
Being treated with respect
Work – Life balance
The kind of work that people do
The quality of co-workers
The quality of leadership
Base pay
Providing a good service to others
Career potential
Flexible working arrangements
Benefits
Learning and development opportunities
Customer experience is just a fancy term for customer service. Companies engage with customers, at all levels, whether at the front desk or via support emails. If the company culture allows it, feedback received is welcomed and used to solve problems and improve service. Yet, for some, feedback is received with contempt and disregarded before it can be shared with others.
For the companies where culture encourages feedback, you can see it. It’s Zappos, where customer service professional are empowered to solve customer issues as they deem appropriate. It’s Enterprise Rent-A-Car, whose new commercials emphasize that employees can solve customer problems without having to call a manager to authorize solutions. It’s Domino’s Pizza, where every pizza box is a feedback form.
via TheDrum.co.uk
What’s in a name? So begins the cover of corporate brochure of the Certified General Accountants of Ontario. It was the first piece rolled out following our year-long exercise to “capture” the brand of our membership and relate it to employers, clients, peers, the profession and public.
But how did the brand connect with a key “touch point,” the employees of this professional association of accountants? Or in the more likely words of our staff, prior to our efforts at employee engagement and brand championing, “What’s in it for me?”
A Collective Definition of “Brand” (Wikipedia, captured May 2005) A brand represents the holistic sum of all information about a product, group of products or organization. This symbolic construct typically consists of a name, identifying mark, logo, visual images or symbols or mental concepts, which distinguishes the product or service. It is useful for the marketer to think of this as a set of aligned expectations in the mind of its stakeholders—from its consumers, to its distribution channels, to the people and companies who supply the products and services that make up the brand experience. A brand often carries connotations of a product’s “promise,” the product or service’s point of difference among its competitors that makes it special and unique. Marketers attempt, through a brand, to give a product a “personality” or an “image.” Thus, they hope to “brand,” or burn, the image into the consumer’s mind; that is, associate the image with the product’s quality. |
Our “explicit” brand relates to perceptions of employers, clients and the public towards certified general accountants (CGAs). The “implicit” brand includes areas like simplifying education and business processes and procedures, thereby improving “customer” satisfaction in service and retention.
It’s remarkable the reach and influence our staff of 70 can have on an internal membership of more than 25,000, not to mention thousands of potential students, employers, the public, government, community groups and so on. If identification is muddy, contact with staff difficult, processes and procedures aren’t intuitive and proactive…the negative effects are substantial. Our end “product” is certificating members that are “broadly and deeply competent,” dedicated to “meeting needs by exceeding expectations,” etc., but a significant driver for the brand’s promise includes staff’s day-to-day delivery of customer service.
Capturing the CGA Brand
For 10 months, public affairs, marketing and communication staff worked intensely with our branding agency, first capturing the CGA brand’s values and attributes, then determining a campaign focus. The extensive training in the CGA program of professional studies, plus our members’ relationships with various publics, resulted in identification of these “honest and credible” brand characteristics and values:
- skilled
- knowledgeable
- confident
- adaptable
- approachable
- trustworthy
Next, we updated the CGA brand’s look, feel and communication: new corporate colours (including a “high energy” orange); a revamped corporate identity (logo excepted); and key messages that encapsulated the brand character. A vital component to CGA branding was evolving our focus from “awareness” of the designation to its “relevancy” to the end-users.
The end result was an array of evolved marketing tools, aimed at various publics.
Lunch and Learn about the CGA Brand
An identified challenge was staff having limited knowledge about branding efforts, including historic achievements and recent initiatives. Wanting all employees to embrace and champion the brand as much as the working group, we invited staff to “lunch and learn sessions.” Our goal was for employees to understand the CGA brand, and appreciate the significant role they played in its delivery.
An offsite location, catered lunch and branding paraphernalia—trade show booth, PowerPoint presentation, Flash video—helped transform the 10-year retrospective of our advertising/branding campaigns into an “event.”
First up was our tremendous historical success in profile building, primarily through our innovative advertising campaign, “We’re the name brand for business in Canada.” As one of three Canadian professional accounting designations, we operate in an incredibly competitive environment to attract students to our CGA program of professional studies.
More than 10 years ago we set out to raise public awareness of the CGA designation. Impediments to the communication challenge included a general lack of interest in the accounting profession, as well as a common misconception that the “product leader” was synonymous with the product category. Our opportunity was to establish CGAs as the accountants with the accounting and financial skills that businesses need, by using a creative execution that was unique to the Certified General Accountants of Ontario: its members and their names. At the beginning of our new advertising campaign, unaided awareness of the CGA designation in Ontario was just 27 per cent.
In September 1995, the “name brand” campaign hit television and radio, supported by print inserts in newspapers and magazines. It was tremendously well-received by members, the public and media. The commercials were eye-catching and quirky. We used the surnames of real CGAs to create short storylines, whenever possible using the actual members as “stars.” (If a CGA was uncomfortable in the limelight, staff filled in.) Although “actors” in our TV ads might have appeared a little stiff and awkward, they had huge smiles and appeared friendly and approachable, undercutting the traditional image of stuffy accountants. New TV and radio commercials were introduced every two years. Additionally, in 1999 we took the campaign outside with billboards…just like the TV ads, the first professional accounting association to do so.
Public Embracing of the CGA Brand
Post-campaign launch, awareness of the CGA designation and association rose substantially. Meeting people at industry functions, I’d indicate, “I work at the Certified General Accountants of Ontario.” The usual response, “I love your ads—they’re brilliant!”
Already we’d branded a “personality” for our CGAs: the friendly accountants. Media attention included Strategy magazine, CBC Radio, PR Canada, Marketing Daily, Ad-news Daily and The Lawyer’s Weekly. The director of public affairs was invited to present about our campaign at a Conference Board of Canada symposium. Perhaps the most thrilling recognition was our commercial being “spoofed” on CBC TV’s Air Farce; when comedians parody ads, they’ve made an impact!
The CGA Brand Evolves, to Broaden Its Reach and Influence
In 2001, we transitioned our expensive, full-fledged TV ads to the more cost-effective “closed captioning” option. Interestingly, the Ontario public continues to believe we produce TV commercials: earlier ads embedded the CGA brand in people’s consciousness. By 2004, research results indicated that unaided awareness of the CGA designation had risen to 75 per cent. Aided awareness exceeded 90 per cent.
We played the archived TV commercials at our sessions. Staff laughed appreciatively, called out the names of employees and CGAs, noted changing hair styles and fashions and indicated favourite ads. Seeing the commercials run consecutively emphasized their effectiveness. It was sinking in to employees their role in helping to raise awareness.
Mid-session, we began detailing the more recently identified challenge: employers said they recognized who CGAs were, and those who did know our “brand” liked it a lot…but many didn’t know enough about our members. Hence the reasons for our recent branding exercise: moving the CGA designation from awareness to relevance, from “name brand” to “name your need.”
The CGA brand character defines how our positioning comes to life. The values are those expressed by members and employees in behaviour, character, style, tone and manner. Attributes define the look and feel of all of our communications and culture. In addition to our advertising, the marketing department promotes the brand at career fairs and trade shows, in magazines and through career website banners. We also sponsor relevant events and engage in research. Our CGA brand is “out there,” in as many innovative ways as deemed feasible.
Extending the Explicit Brand into the Workplace
So how did employees fit in as champions of the brand? We indicated they should be proud of their part in “producing” CGAs with such an exemplary brand character. If CGAs were perceived as friendly and approachable, so were staff representatives of the association. Employees worked hard and diligently, fulfilling the needs of CGAs, students, prospective students and the public.
Today’s usual practice is to shorten organizational names into acronyms and initialisms. Although staff were used to saying “CGA” and “CGA Ontario,” we asked them to try to always say the association’s name in full. We emphasized consistency in identification and uniformity in presentation (using our in-house style guide). We shared samples of key messaging, for use in customer relations. Templates were provided for voicemail messages and e-mail signatures, incorporating all of these elements. Finally, we “requested” that staff consider including our new branding tagline at the end of e-mail signature blocks: Certified General Accountants. Name Your Need.
“Make-or-Break” Session Dynamics
The dynamics of the two sessions proved interesting. Despite session one being only two-thirds full, some staff “influencers” quickly voiced their approval of the exercise, signifying other ways to extend the brand, internally or publicly; for example, developing additional templates regarding vacation messages. Quieter staff began offering feedback, too. Enthusiasm was high!
Staff left with a branded-orange trade show bag, containing the corporate brochure; “champion” toolkit on CD-ROM; and a visual identification guide. (The PowerPoint presentation was in the portal for downloading.) We recommended staff use their association bag in public, to help extend the brand. They were invited to come to us for more, for family and friends or when their original bag wore out.
The second session was packed to capacity—with just enough food and seats—substantially larger numbers than had registered. Afterwards, we learned employees from the first group returned to the office and raved about how great was the session…so some staff actually “crashed” number two, which proved equally popular.
Mission Accomplished: Engaged Champions of the CGA Brand
Post-event, presenters received many visits and messages from employees regarding our efforts to “communicate” the brand; the majority updated their voicemail and e-mail signature blocks that day, including incorporating the tagline.
Our multimedia developer sent the favourite e-mail:
“I wanted to thank you for the marcomm presentation yesterday. It was very informative, and I especially enjoyed learning about the history of the brand and what the rational is for the way the brand is being promoted today. I have some marketing background, so understanding how the marketing/communications plan was conceptualized really helps me form a vision for my own work. It will also help in identifying myself as an employee of the Certified General Accountants of Ontario. I used to say, ‘I work for CGA Ontario, but I’m not an accountant.’ Now I can say, ‘I work for the Certified General Accountants of Ontario in the information services department.’
As part of the information services team, we can better serve the needs of all of our ‘clients,’ with this clearer understanding of what the brand really stands for. I must say that the direct mail piece is brilliant; if you have any extra copies I’d love to have one. Thanks again, and the food was great, too!”
Postscript : At the request of the chief executive officer of the Certified General Accountants of Ontario, our multimedia developer demonstrated her personal dedication and vision as a CGA brand champion (thereby serving the needs of her internal clients) by developing templates of HTML signature blocks, which make use of two distinct palettes drawn from our new corporate colours. Each staff member was invited to ask the information services team to download a personalized signature block onto his or her system, one that includes name, position and co-ordinates, plus our logo and tagline, Certified General Accountants: Name Your Need. With each message, staff are delighted to play a further champion role in extending the reach and influence of the CGA brand.
Judy Gombita is manager of communications for the Certified General Accountants of Ontario (http://www.cga-ontario.org) and has been happily involved in all aspects of the association’s recent branding efforts.
The original publication of a shorter version of this article was commissioned for the May/June 2006 issue of the Journal of Employee Communication Management (JECM) magazine, published by Lawrence Ragan Communications, Inc. (http://www.ragan.com). It is shared with members of the Communitelligence portal with the kind permission of JECM’s editor, David R. Murray.
Credit is extended to the following organizations and individuals for their role in the hugely successful advertising and branding efforts of the Certified General Accountants of Ontario. Branding agency: Cundari SFP (formerly Spencer Francey Peters). Brand strategist: Jeannette Hanna; project manager: Kristina Hayes. Advertising agency: Clique Communications. Creative director: Richard Clewes. Media buyer: Media Dimensions. Principal: Diane Webb.
Guest Article By Judy Gombita