The Peter Principle states that “in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.” It was formulated by Dr Lawrence Peter and Raymond Hull in their 1969 book by the same name.

I call them “the brand dead” or “brand spectators” who fur up the organisation’s arteries. Most MDs tolerate a Peter or two. But when conditions change, Peter and pals can very quickly poison your brand from within. When the big battalions are mobilised and change is demanded, the Peter’s, not the market conditions, are your worst enemy.

Consider the impact a Peter can have on your recruitment drive.

“Hire people who are better than you are, then leave them to get on with it . . . ; Look for people who will aim for the remarkable, who will not settle for the routine.” The late David Ogilvy, advertising executive

“If you pick the right people and give them the opportunity to spread their wings—and put compensation as a carrier behind it—you almost don’t have to manage them.” Jack Welch, former chairman and CEO of General Electric

Ogilvy and Welch point the way towards recruitment nirvana – making the most of the fact that it’s an employer’s market to recruit experienced; challenging; maverick; game changers who will stimulate the innovation you need.

But the Peters will desperately cling onto the status quo, recruit in their own image and reinforce the employer brand which failed to spot the issues which have since marched all the way around the corner and into your boardroom.

And if you’ve encouraged Peter-style behaviour within your intermediaries and recruitment agents, you’re in deep trouble as they will doubtless perpetuate a protectionist culture.

When you get a moment, just take a look at the various recruitment and blogging forums and consider how many really good people are out there at the moment. Listen to what they’re saying about the recruitment practices of the Peters. Ask yourself whether you know who your Peters are and whether Peter can be motivated to change?

But most of all question whether your recruitment strategy is paying Peter by robbing Paul and the impact this is having and will have on the performance of your brand.

Never in everyday pursuit of corporate endeavour have so many been force fed by so few.

The proliferation of communication channels given the rise of social and technological media means your average employee claims to be nearing communication saturation point. But are they? I would suggest that the appetite for effective communication has never been more keen, yet effective communication is still in very short supply.

Lest we forget, communication is essentially an outcome, not an input. As I had to make a point of reminding a group of senior civil servants while running Team Briefing workshops recently, “success isn’t measured by volume, pace or quantity. Good communication is a product of whether the message has been received, understood and has resulted in the necessary action”.

For a number of years now, when I’ve conducted communication audits for clients, employees across sectors have complained about being bombarded. Despite the rather trendy discussions about the difference between internal communication and employee engagement, message management and push communication appears to be increasing.The biggest culprit is the dreaded email.

The Evils of email Management

Having just carried out an audit of internal communication channels for another public sector client currently undergoing major change, I’ve been struck, once again, by a bizarre, and frequently seen contradiction.

In answer to the question “How would you prefer to be informed of changes”, a whopping 76% of respondents voted for face to face communication.  Of those 76%, some 68% wanted that communication to come from their immediate line managers.

The second preference was for some form of internal social media allowing them the opportunity to provide feedback and debate in an interactive, real time environment.

However, when we looked into the Communication Department’s communication method of choice, they prioritised:

1. Lunch Meetings with the CEO and senior team
2. email bulletins
3. voicemail
4. publications

In fact, as the change programme gathered pace and brought with it “right sizing” and major structure changes, the top two methods fast became the only “official” channels.  Sadly team briefings led by line managers, once a norm, had faded to sporadic bursts.

It’s perhaps understandable that a number of line managers and supervisors had taken a backward step when faced with extremely difficult message management.  But in this case, it was soon very clear that abdication on this scale reflected deep-seated leadership issues.  Their CEO, in Hero Leader guise, although well intended, was clearly undermining his leaders. They had also lost faith in their communication function which, disempowered, was simply stepping aside by pressing the forward and cc buttons. 

But what’s the problem with push communication?

There clearly isn’t a single answer to this question but a glance at this famous learning effectiveness pyramid illustrates the power of face to face interaction with warm-blooded peers. 

The simple fact is that top down, cascade bombardments, usually delivered by email these days, are synonymous with lecturing.  They allow the originator to tick an activity box but are largely ineffective and simply reinforce one-way messaging. Cascades create a wider push communication culture as the approach is seen to be sanctioned from the very top.

As employee engagement requires:

-         interaction

-         involvement

-         feedback

-         opportunities to check understanding

-         emotional connection

by cascading swarms of messages the organisation promises one thing yet delivers another. It’s disingenuous and creates deep seated resentment.

Most of us learn much more effectively in interpersonal environments, when we’re involved and can interact with others. This is one of the reasons why line managers and immediate supervisors are increasingly important communicators. When they have the opportunity and take the time to commit to Facetime rather than Facebook, employees are enlightened and reassured by the example being set as well as the opportunity for face-to-face discussion, debate and reflection.

We all appreciate the merits of electronic communication. But despite the simple temptation of “compose, click and send” and the sophisticated charms of new-wave social media tools and techniques there really is no replacement for good, old fashioned, face to face, eyeball- to- eyeball communication. This is especially true during testing times when people lose what appetite they may have had for Foie Gras and deeply resent the fact that there’s no comfort food on the menu.

Ian Buckingham (ian@by2w.co.uk) is the founder of the Bring Yourself 2 Work Engagement Fellowship www.by2w.co.uk.  He is the author of Brand Engagement – How Employees Make or Break Brands  http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?PID=281268. and Brand Champions (due Oct 2010)

There’s been much written about employee engagement in recent years as this relatively modern phenomenon continues to evolve from its internal communication roots.

Although often over complicated, the general premise of employee engagement is simple. Individual contributions of employees in the workplace is influenced by the strength of their emotional connection to their employer. The stronger and more positive that connection, the more likely it is that the employee will contribute their best effort for the sake of their organization or brand.

At its core, EE is based upon reciprocity. The employer works to create a work environment that is satisfying and rewarding for employees and stimulates their emotions and higher order needs. It literally invites them to bring themselves to work and become similarly invested (engaged) in their organisations long-term success. The concept is fairly simple to grasp, but not necessarily easy to implement.

One of the challenges is that emotional connections can be difficult to define and measure and are prone to shift in response to changes in the work environment. More confounding is that these relations are influenced by multiple variables (line management relationships, organizational mission and values, workload, peer relationships, etc.).

Add to this the cost/resource challenges created by the worst recession since the Great Depression and the fact that EE is reliant on discretionary budgets and EE as a business strategy can quickly become a “nice to have” in the good times.

These challenges aside, engagement as a strategy is not only important, but vital, especially in a climate of economic uncertainty, to the long-term viability of most business enterprises. According to a proprietary report just completed by the University of Akron’s Centre for Organizational Research, engaged employees tend to:

• Be more satisfied with their jobs
• Be more likely to stay with their employer even when other opportunities emerge
• Be more tolerant of (perceived) temporary economic hardships due to the economy
• Bring a consistently higher level of commitment, creativity and energy to their jobs
• Demonstrate higher levels of “good citizenship” behaviours both at and away from work

As a general rule, it’s safe to say that most employees are not engaged with their employers right now. In fact, the most recent Conference Board survey in the US found that only 45% of employees currently report being satisfied with their jobs (the lowest since the survey was started in 1987). As many as 60% indicate that they plan to actively seek new employment sometime in 2010.

Can Employee engagement really be reserved as “nice to do” strategy for when times are good? Employees are smart and quickly spot insincerity. In tough times, resorting to push communication cloaked in the trappings of engagement is like washing the car and then parking it under a tree full of pigeons.

 Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is an organisation development process or philosophy that engages individuals within an organisation in its turnaround, renewal, change and focused performance.

It’s a particular way of asking questions and envisioning the future that fosters positive relationships and builds on the basic goodness in a person, a situation, or an organization. Put another way, it’s an approach that believes in the power of positive thinking and seeks to draw out the superhero in every employee rather than a self-fulfilling belief that all employees are scheming super villains.

Used effectively, it enhances an organisation’s capacity for collaboration and change.  It’s a fantastic way of signaling an energising alternative to the depressing and draining, downsizing mentality of a recession.

Appreciative Inquiry utilizes a cycle of 4 processes focusing on:

1. DISCOVER: The identification of organizational processes that work well.
2. DREAM: The envisioning of processes that would work well in the future.
3. DESIGN: Planning and prioritizing processes that would work well.
4. DESTINY (or DELIVER): The implementation (execution) of the proposed design.

Even the headings are inspirational.

The basic idea is to build organizations around what works, rather than just trying to fix what doesn’t. It is the opposite of problem solving. Instead of focusing on gaps and inadequacies to find blame and remediate skills or practices, AI focuses on how to create more of the occasional exceptional performance that is occurring (and there will be examples), regardless of conditions, because a core of strengths is aligned.

The approach acknowledges the contribution of individuals, in order to increase trust and inspire best practice. The method aims to create meaning by drawing from stories of concrete successes with the potential of becoming best practices and lends itself to cross-functional social activities. It can be enjoyable and natural to many managers, who, let’s face it, are often sociable people when they come out from behind the badge.

There are a variety of approaches to implementing Appreciative Inquiry, including mass-mobilized interviews and a large, diverse gathering called an Appreciative Inquiry Summit Both approaches involve bringing very large, diverse groups of people together to study and build upon the best in an organization or community.

The basic philosophy of AI is also found in other positively oriented approaches to individual change as well as organizational change. AI fosters positive relationships and builds on the basic goodness in a person, or a situation. The idea of building on strength, rather than just focusing on faults and weakness is a powerful idea in use in mentoring programs, and excellent performance evaluations – where superheroes come into their own.

So if you’re wondering what to do with your employee survey in the face of an increasingly cynical workforce and are a little nervous about how any internal benchmarking activity will be received; if you’ve had enough of the pessimism and would like to know more about the power of Appreciative Inquiry or just need a hand spotting those brand champions quietly battling the economic doom and gloom, find out more. In the current climate, a change of tone may just make a difference.

WASP males don’t tend to get too many invitations to be involved in the promotion of diversity management; which is a shame really.  I’m a firm believer in the notion that the promotion of diversity should embrace the full range of stakeholders; it should truly practice inclusiveness in the way stakeholders are engaged with the philosophy or it runs the risk of being seen as a marginal activity aimed at an exclusive audience.  A “push” communication approach may be one of the reasons why the diversity flag bearers within organisations sometimes find themselves struggling for real influence at the top table.

But this thought piece isn’t to critique the notion of diversity or challenge its increasing relevance to the organisation development and employee engagement agenda. I would like to share a rare moment of Belgian enlightenment.

Picture the scene.  The wonderful and irrepressibly inspirational Myrtha Casanova of the The European Institute for Managing Diversity had enlisted my help to co-facilitate a workshop she was running with the senior executives of a global producer of cereal crops and foodstuffs.  They had been embroiled in a PR war with NGOs and pressure groups worldwide because of controversial growing techniques and what was perceived as an arrogant communication stance.

The workshops were intended to develop diversity strategies across their global businesses.  Most of their senior executives were gathered in Belgium to that end – and they weren’t very pleased about it.

It was soon clear that their beleaguered HR Director had been forced into developing a diversity strategy by the board who were in turn responding to US legislation.  The executive cadre encamped in Belgium were 90% male, mostly of Anglo Saxon origin and frankly, felt they had much more pressing priorities.  In short, the workshops quickly regressed into trench warfare.

The turning point came, however, shortly after lunch on day one when, rather than push more and more statistics, facts and process at the group, we adopted a less evangelical approach and asked them to explore their brand from the customer’s perspective. 

They had traditionally seen themselves as a business to business organisation but it took one of the more junior managers, who also happened to have the largest team and who also happened to be a woman, to point out that housewives could make or break their company.  By drawing a simple supply chain model she was able to quickly illustrate the route their product ultimately followed to market and how it was immaterial that they weren’t putting the bread on the shelves themselves. Women still make the vast majority of purchasing decisions per household and the retailers were reliant upon their suppliers to provide raw materials in tune with the ethics and values of the consumer.  An epiphany!

This simple, jaw-dropping moment proves to be a revelation for her cynical peers who had clearly spent years developing competencies and promoting values appropriate for managing their equally macho purchasing managers in the businesses they were selling to.  Suddenly the link between organisational culture and their PR problems was put into stark relief. More importantly, they realised that, without a more representative management structure they would make similar mistakes.  The business case for diversity had become clear and the rest of the session was put to productive use developing a central and local diversity policy, strategy and engagement approach which owed much to a loaf of bread!

If you want to find out more about the EIMD (a not for profit organisation founded in 1996, with headquarters in Barcelona and which operates across the European Union), take a look at their website http://www.iegd.org/englishok/who.htm

Or feel free to drop me a line and I’ll tell you more about this and similar stories.

Ian@by2w.co.uk

A client, let’s call him David, works for a formerly blue chip multi-national.  Their core HR or people processes, post SAP, were re-designed by teams of Big Four consultants to maximise efficiencies and drive out non-conformances arising from human error.  In short, HR has, in effect, been replaced by systems, standards, Helplines and KPI’s. Managerial learning and development has been re-focused on technical rather than soft skills.

David, by his own admission, is a relatively old school, line and customer service focused manager. He’s a believer in sustaining relationships and in resolving interpersonal differences before they become formal issues (often over a coffee or a beer). He has worked for his company for two decades and has received awards for his work on a number of occasions.

Recently David encountered issues in his personal life which compromised his 8am - 9pm working routine.  As pressure built he started to struggle and turned to his recently appointed executive line managers for support. They responded by citing due process, changed his reporting line from 1:1 to 2:1 and offered him the option of submitting formal Grievances and visiting Occupational Health if he had a problem. They also placed this loyal middle manager on a series of Performance Contracts when they believed his standards (loosely defined) started to slip. Unlike David, they documented every conversation.

Sleepless nights led to longer hours; stress led to Psoriasis and eventually to depression and medication and now to extended absence on health grounds. He eventually submitted a grievance but the 2 and sometimes 3:1 micro management has seen the organisation close ranks and he faces the invidious choice of turning on his own company via tribunal or falling on his own sword. 

David is passionate about the organisation and his job. He has the experience and people skills which customer and staff surveys suggest are needed to help turn the organisation around. Yet David, and it turns out, many of his contemporaries, have become the victims of “due process”.

The growing number of Davids remain voiceless despite the CEO Town Halls and surveys. Yet the organisation flounders in a short-termist backlash, woeful line management skills and mismanagement freefall.

The CEO may understand the need for culture change but what’s to become of these invisible FTEs in the meantime when the HR offices are empty and the day to day processes don’t have ears?

We’ve reached a critical point of inflection in the war for talent and it’s now time for a paradigm shift if we’re to dominate the moral high ground”(OD Director, UK Financial Services)

I met this chap a couple of years ago – let’s call him Babel.  He proudly wore the label, Head of Organisation Development and worked for a web-based financial services firm which had a reputation for funky marketing.  He represented a truly maverick brand, much heralded for its iconoclastic , irreverent approach but which, unfortunately, also had an alternative financial performance record.  I would show you a copy of their “strategy on a single page” if I could, but suffice to say, looking at it for the first time was rather like being a Victorian explorer faced with a hieroglyphic carving.  The tablet was packed with symbols which might well have been runes and had so many mixed metaphors that it looked like it had been dipped in a vat of cliché .

 He talked proudly of their collaborations with a host of specialist management gurus – although the “tablet” did most of the speaking for him.  They had “absorbed” key thinking indiscriminately rather like a sponge absorbs liquid, and we’re attempting to align their employees behind their OD strategy.  Well they would have done if they managed to translate it for their leaders in the meantime, of course.

In fact, Babel-speak, as it came to be known, became so infamous that the employees had invented a game which they came to call BS Bingo.  An enterprising cultural guerilla had created a spreadsheet populated by the most infamous and prevalent metaphors.  On the internal communication black market, he offered a financial incentive for his contemporaries to seek out, site and mark off those metaphors appearing in officially sanctioned communication within a given period.  The first to spot and report back a “full house” of BS metaphors was awarded the BS Bingo prize.  You were at a distinct advantage if you were a middle manager and attended the Babel-sanctioned conferences and engagement events.

Two years on and Babel left to start up a consultancy, which has since sadly folded.  His former company has just been sold by its parents after years of underperformance and the OD team was severely right-sized a year ago. It didn’t have to be that way as they had some very good ideas.  Sadly, however, they were seduced by compulsive innovation, obfuscated the obvious and forgot to deliver the basics consistently well.   They lost their audience in purple prose.

As we all know, a metaphor’s a figure of speech that uses one thing to mean another and makes a comparison between the two. At their best metaphors add a powerful dimension to communication by conjuring up imagery which, in turn, evokes emotions that help with understanding, empathy and impact. So why are metaphors so abused in the internal communication market?

To find out - take a look at Ian’s chapter in Phillip Kitchen’s book  Marketing: Metaphor and Metamorphosis or drop one of us a line:  theteam@by2w.co.uk

Ian Buckingham’s blog -  celebrating the little people who really bring big brands to life.

It may be an employer’s market at the moment but only the foolhardy will fail to recognise the fact that they need to keep the eyes of their key performer’s firmly focused on the horizon! We all hate rubber necking and failing to pay due care and attention to your brand superheroes is an accident waiting to happen!

But how exactly do you consult with employees at such a sensitive time; when the risk of bursting the delicate dam of indifference with the inquisitive force of attempting to “move people on” is a very real risk?

Well, first and foremost, involvement is key to employee engagement.  Better still, actively seeking out champions and positive best practice is energising and invigorating.  An alternative is clearly needed to problem based and problem bound modes of inquisitiveness.

Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is an organisation development process or philosophy that engages individuals within an organizational in its turnaround, renewal, change and focused performance.

It’s a particular way of asking questions and envisioning the future that fosters positive relationships and builds on the basic goodness in a person, a situation, or an organization. Put another way, it’s an approach that believes in the power of positive thinking and seeks to draw out the superhero in every employee rather than a self-fulfilling belief that all employees are scheming super villains.

Used effectively, it enhances an organisation’s capacity for collaboration and change.  It’s a fantastic way of signaling an energising alternative to the depressing and draining, downsizing mentality of a recession.

Appreciative Inquiry utilizes a cycle of 4 processes focusing on:

1. DISCOVER: The identification of organizational processes that work well.
2. DREAM: The envisioning of processes that would work well in the future.
3. DESIGN: Planning and prioritizing processes that would work well.
4. DESTINY (or DELIVER): The implementation (execution) of the proposed design.

Even the headings are inspirational.

The basic idea is to build organizations around what works, rather than just trying to fix what doesn’t. It is the opposite of problem solving. Instead of focusing on gaps and inadequacies to find blame and remediate skills or practices, AI focuses on how to create more of the occasional exceptional performance that is occurring (and there will be examples), regardless of conditions, because a core of strengths is aligned.

The approach acknowledges the contribution of individuals, in order to increase trust and inspire best practice. The method aims to create meaning by drawing from stories of concrete successes with the potential of becoming best practices and lends itself to cross-functional social activities. It can be enjoyable and natural to many managers, who, let’s face it, are often sociable people when they come out from behind the badge.

There are a variety of approaches to implementing Appreciative Inquiry, including mass-mobilized interviews and a large, diverse gathering called an Appreciative Inquiry Summit Both approaches involve bringing very large, diverse groups of people together to study and build upon the best in an organization or community.

The basic philosophy of AI is also found in other positively oriented approaches to individual change as well as organizational change. AI fosters positive relationships and builds on the basic goodness in a person, or a situation. The idea of building on strength, rather than just focusing on faults and weakness is a powerful idea in use in mentoring programs, and excellent performance evaluations – where superheroes come into their own.

If you’re wondering what to do with your employee survey and are a little nervous about how any internal benchmarking activity will be received; if you’ve had enough of the pessimism and would like to know more about the power of Appreciative Inquiry or just need a hand spotting those brand champions quietly battling the economic doom and gloom, get in touch. We’re happy to share ideas.

ian@by2w.co.uk

It’s easy to dwell on examples of negative customer service. But how often do we stop and think about the people behind a positive interaction with an organisation or a brand? On the occasions when we do receive exceptional customer service, however, chances are we will have met an Engaged Employee.

Engaged Employees are:

1.     Obvious – it may be an elusive quality, difficult to describe but an engaged employee is more likely to be exhilarated by their role.  Different cultures show this in different ways but most of us can spot and will be drawn to a genuine smile and welcoming, inclusive attitude.

2.     Authentic – our recent survey of almost 4000 communicators listed “being yourself” as one of the key motivators for employees.  It also proves that employees who are themselves in the workplace are more effective. Employees who are clear enough about what their organisation stands for and are at ease with the culture are more likely to bring themselves to work and to share stories about their family lives, hobbies, likes and dislikes.

3.     Receptive – we all know that if we’re engaged, we’re far more open to opportunities to be involved with new initiatives and share new experiences.  Engaged employees listen actively and offer support and challenge, largely because they care about the outcomes.

4.     Involved - they are part of the programme not recipients of it.   They feel they can influence their personal fate through influencing the fate of the organisation. Involvement leads to a greater sense of ownership. It’s also the way most of us learn best.

5.     Proactive – engaged employees understand the goals, culture and values of the organisation so they make suggestions or take initiative, even innovate for the greater good, without being asked. Their primary focus is on adding value to the organisation rather than obsessing about what the organisation gives them.

6.     Energised – engaged employees have correspondingly high energy levels.  They do things and maintain appropriate momentum. They are the heartbeat, rather than their managers, and they set the pace.

7.     Achievers – because of enhanced levels of understanding, clear goals and boundaries, an appropriate mix of support and challenge (and in light of the characteristics above), they tend to be focused and, therefore, more productive. The things they do tend to get results.

8.     Advocates – whether at conferences or recruitment fairs even dinner parties or sitting next to you on a plane , engaged employees are proud and happy to recommend the organisation and to represent the brand. Want to know how engaged your employees are?  As a starting point, find out how many buy/use your products.

9.     Ceos - they are chief engagement officers. They inspire others by example. They are communication role models in all stakeholder engagements whether with customers, fellow employees, competitors or even shareholders.

10.  In demand - take care, engaged employees are a precious commodity. The war for talent rages irrespective of market conditions. Who and where are your ceos?  What measures are you taking to clarify your employer brand and to engage and manage your talent?

Yes, we’re in the middle of  global recession. Yes, this is an employer’s market.  But remember, your brand is the sum of your customer’s interactions with your people and in a downturn this simple truth becomes all the more salient. So what are you doing to engage your employees and are you valuing your brand engagement role models as highly as you should be?

Ian