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

As the Lloyds/TSB/HBOS shareholders attest, massive change is upon us.  And there’s nothing quite like the threat of change to test the metal of your leaders.  If leadership is partly about inspiring a community of individuals to undertake a collective endeavour, then stories are essential to articulate that vision. Noel Tichy in his book The Leadership Engine remarks that

“the best way to get humans to venture into unknown terrain is to make that terrain familiar and desirable by taking them there first in their imagination”

And Antoine de Saint Exupéry remarked that

“if you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea”

When a leader inspires, he or she breathes life and energy into their followers. When we reflect on the extraordinarily motivating speeches Churchill made, it’s clear that no amount of PowerPoint (had it existed) and no amount of consultancy or accountancy models would ever have had the effect of his well chosen words. And Martin Luther King had a dream, he didn’t have a change goal and wasn’t at a critical point of inflection. Or was he?

The results of a study at the London Business School show how much of the message we retain depending on the vehicle of communication.

• Statistics = 5-10%
• Statistics and Story = 25-30%
• Story = 65-70%

And the moral of this story is that if you are delivering the ‘Who we are’ (Brand Identity), ‘this is where we’re going’ (Mission/vision), and ‘this is how we’re going to get there’ (strategy)’ piece, then don’t rely too much on statistics alone to land the message.

Business, emotion and non-sensory language (or why so many business speakers are frighteningly uninspiring)

Change may be scary but there’s nothing more terrifying than uncertainty and vagueness.

Do you remember the strapline to the ‘80’s movie ‘Alien’? ‘In space no one can hear you scream’. These few words create an image (space), a sound (screaming) and a feeling (not a very nice feeling). Compare it with ‘dedicated management capability’ or ‘randomised user-orientated response’ – These are non-sensory words, and they abound in the corporate world. Now, if you put enough of these non-sensory words together you will trip something in the listener’s brain and a film and a fog will appear before their eyes as they fall asleep or escape into daydream. These non-sensory words are the vocabulary of science, borrowed in business to give a veneer of credibility (‘it must be true, it sounds scientific’) Somehow we are not reassured by too much feeling or emotion in business. After all, the language of love, romance, of the emotional life is the language of metaphor (‘shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?…). This language excites the imagination; it creates feelings, images, sounds, smells. Remember your first kiss? The first record you bought? The smell of coffee roasting? The visual imagery of being surrounded by your loved ones? Often we believe that these feeling, these emotions, cloud and corrupt the experiment and enterprise we call business. Yet if you want to tell me about values, like trust and integrity, don’t give me the science or the text-book definition, give me the metaphor, give me comparisons to help me understand, give me examples, tell me the story.

 Getting the story straight: The Hero’s Journey

The most effective and versatile storytelling tool must be The Hero’s Journey. There is no space to do justice to it here, but by way of a simple explanation, the Hero’s Journey represents the central narrative that underlies any story of growth or change regardless of cultural origin. It is a framework which allows an organisation, team or individual to examine past and present change, both personal (largely emotional) and corporate (largely rational) and to anticipate and explore future change. Applied as a change management tool it can be a hugely effective way of making sense of  and embracing change.

But as senior leaders tumble, where will the heroes who will lead your people through these turbulent times come from?  Well, they’re all around you.  But sometimes it needs a little external facilitation and support to help you find them.

It’s a while since the ancient art of “tug o’ war” featured in the Olympics, but it’s alive and well in a boardroom near you.  Internal communication, that golden thread between employees and customers, is starting to take the strain!

According to a Melcrum study back in 2006 which compared the generic site of the internal communication function between 2003 and 2006, there’s a very real “heave ho” taking place between HR and Corporate Communication to control the internal communication strings. 

During the period in question, 44% of corporate communication functions across the multi-sector survey claimed to include internal communication among their reporting lines.  This was a 14% increase in three years. The HR figures were roughly half that amount, but increased by 10% over the same period.  It is also evident that, in that time, a number of HR functions were attempting to sweep internal communication into the employee engagement and industrial relations pot.

The growth in the demand for control over internal communication within HR and Corporate Comms was apparently at the expense of functions like the office of the CEO, Organisation Development and Marketing. I believe that’s a worrying trend.

These figures become most interesting, however, when seen in the context of a 2005 study by the same organisation (see Buckingham, Brand Engagement, Palgrave/Macmillan 2007 )* which reports that where organisations claim to have a formal employee engagement programme, 67% claim that this falls within HR, 55% attribute engagement to Internal Communication as a distinct function and 27% claim it is the responsibility of their Organisation Development function.  There’s no mention of Corporate Comms which is worrying when you consider that employee engagement is, in effect, the highly evolved form of internal communication at the opposite end of the spectrum from tactical “push” communication campaigns.

Now the more statistically astute of you will have detected that the figures in the last paragraph don’t add up to 100%.  And that’s the crux of this argument. Internal communication is not simple message management controlled by the HR or Corporate Comms function.  Truly evolved internal communication requires partnerships across the business functions and professional collaboration which is why so many departments believe that employee engagement, its most glamorous manifestation, falls within their remit.

Unfortunately, take a look at the recruitment press and it becomes clear that the internal communication profession is still dominated by message managers.  Where’s the glamour in owning the intranet and newsletters? 

The cream of the profession, however, are skilled engagement specialists with solid, credible business pedigree who are as comfortable in the newsroom as they are in the boardroom. They have the respect of their executive peers given that the best internal communication role models a partnership mentality. 

Internal communication should bring together the key people disciplines to ensure a clear and consistent representation of the vision, strategy, goals and employment brand.  That’s why any formal engagement programme needs to evolve out of what I call an engagement axis!  If too closely aligned to any 1 department it becomes subjugated to and inevitably falls foul of issue cherry-picking and internal politics (creatives vs pragmatists vs authenticity vs budget hunters etc).

It’s time we all afforded Internal Communication and the respect it deserves and credible practitioners similar kudos.  It’s vital to the management of the brand, employee motivation and retention, innovation and ultimately customer service, needs to be led by specialist practitioners and must be properly funded by budgeted not discretionary spend. 

Come to think of it, that just might be why so many of the internal generals are bracing their backs and tugging at that rope!

I’m intrigued to hear about the fun and games where you work.