I was at a dinner party thrown by a former HR director friend recently and as I arrived at his house was struck by the number of high performance cars on the driveway and then, once I was introduced to his guests, was equally surprised by the fact that most were from the HR community.

Now, I’m not deriding folk for their success. It just took a little getting used to, especially as most of the conversation revolved around the financial benefits associated with acquiring a reputation as a downsizing expert and “being the last one to turn out the lights” before moving on.

It’s clearly wrong to claim that re-sizing has become the raison d’etre of the modern HRD. But this perception wasn’t helped by the dinner party conversation about what it really means to trust and whether trust has any place at work?  

One premise was that the last two years has seen employees’ trust in their organisations fall dramatically and that organisations need to work at ways of re-engaging and re-establishing the psychological contract. The opposite - and prevailing view - was that there are certain things in business that have to remain secret, that being open and honest is often impossible and people should be mature enough to accept that.

The concensus was that trust has no real place at work any longer and that a healthy scepticism should prevail recognising that the employer/employee relationship is “a marriage of convenience”. Neutrality was seen as preferable but is it possible or even desirable to remain neutral in a vocational environment you devote the largest portion of your life to?

I appreciate that many of the HRDs I seem to meet these days are vassels for the process re-engineers and have become de-sensitised to emotions in a similar way to soldiers on the frontline. But is this a reflection of behaviour born of survival or how they really believe things should be?

Trust is a fairly fundamental emotion. If there’s no trust there’s no psychological contract between employees and the employer. Without that there’s no “extra mile” and no relationship development.

I guess you can have a relationship or marriage of convenience based on neutrality, without passion; empathy and drive. But then you can also join Victorian role playing societies to escape from reality.

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

Legacy is a loaded term. If you’re the glass half empty type it smacks of “ old fashioned, out of date, redundant”. If you favour the glass half full approach you’ll make associations like “firm foundations; proven track record and relationship equity” when you hear this term.

As a brand and engagement specialist, I’m acutely aware that one of the strongest but often most underappreciated assets many Old World brands have is their legacy. In times of crisis and change it can be comforting to employees to know that this organisation has withstood worse in the past.

As individuals, we seem to be increasingly interested in notions of legacy, family heritage – where we come from. The Haka, the famous tribal dance of the feared New Zealand rugby team literally attempts to summon up the spirits of the ancestors of the combatants to provide strength and courage as they face a new challenge. Perhaps this was what organisations like Walmart have tried to replicate with their company songs or may explain the communal song and dance rituals at employee conferences?

Now this overt attempt to conjure up corporate spirit isn’t to everyone’s taste. It illustrates the point that employee engagement has to be fit for purpose within local employee markets. But by mentioning what some may consider to be “naff” engagement initiatives that are puzzlingly powerful mutu for others does beg the question “what are you doing to engage your employees during the downturn”?

It comes as little surprise to me that I’ve seen a rise in the number of complaints from employees across sectors about the availability of their line managers.  There has also been a decline in face to face communication like Team Briefings and a rise in what I term e-mail management. When they can’t come up with answers to tricky issues many line managers are choosing to lie low.

In these dark days, leaders need to call upon all of their resources to speed up the recovery process. If your brand has a legacy, what initiatives are you undertaking to make the most of that heritage to provide confidence, assurance and a sense of stability?  Most importantly, how are your most important communicators, your line managers, being recognised and utilised as the eyes, ears and voice of the business?

This piece first appeared in print Q1 2008…………….

Critics claim we’re facing an imminent recession. The signs aren’t great when the marketing advice from commentators like the Harvard Business School professor, John Quelch* is that companies should focus on family values rather than appealing to conspicuous consumption. It’s pretty unpalatable stuff to stomach for a society dominated by consumerism. But, ironically, anyone who cares about internal communication should sit up and take note.

While researching Brand Engagement and the pending sequel, Brand Champions, my aim has been to expose the obsession with the material manifestations of brand and to identify and articulate the true behavioural DNA of a brand. I know that authentic brands are more than promises made to employees and staff. They’re about promises delivered. And I know from my own experience of running businesses that there’s nothing quite like tough economic conditions to sharpen focus.

Whatever the rhetoric of the internal marketing zealots may imply and despite what manages may sometimes believe, organisations have little choice other than to rely upon their people to give something of themselves if they’re to connect with the organisation, their peers and customers alike. This is tricky to achieve at the best of times but especially elusive when economic conditions turn sour.

Having worked across sectors in the internal communication and engagement fields for nearly twenty years, it’s frustrating to hear the persistent language of alignment. The conviction that some form of corporate internal media is the way forward is depressing. It reminds me of the culture which dominated institutionalised post war media and led to the phenomenon of pirate radio which emerged as a reaction to the establishment stranglehold of state owned communication. In the UK, Radio Caroline has become the literal flagship for iconoclastic broadcasting http://www.radiocaroline.co.uk/history1.asp.

It’s my firm conviction that corporate engagement can’t be conscripted. Internal media which is out of touch with the true culture of the organisation may dominate the internal airwaves but sadly few people truly listen in.
Unfortunately, one of the side effects of tough market conditions is that the language of corporate command and control increases as does the tendency to focus on “push” communication as managers struggle to cope.

Whether we’re faced with a market downturn or not, the internal communication community has a pivotal role to play in ensuring that employees engage with the brand. Irrespective of market conditions, I would argue that clarity about brand can never be a bad thing especially if it’s based upon authentic dialogue and trust.

If you agree, try the following five tips for bridging the engagement gap:

1. Always role model an open door policy, especially in turbulent times. If in doubt, increase consultation. It’s an unfortunate fact that managers tend to adopt a “laager mentality” when faced with problems. It’s the worst thing they can do. Ignorance breeds insecurity which in turn breeds misunderstanding - the sibling of poor performance.

2. Be honest with your people and really emphasise the personal qualities needed in tough times, the type of culture that is needed to thrive in adversity. I’ve consulted in a number of downsizing situations and this is a proven way of giving people some sense of control over their fate. Regardless of the outcomes of tough trading conditions, when people come out the other side of a downturn, whether they were directly impacted or not, they are always grateful for straight, empathic but honest talking

3. Take the temperature more frequently. Measure the impact of internal communication constantly via concentrated pulse takes rather than with cumbersome, seemingly expensive surveys

4. Seek out and promote positive role models and good news stories. Whatever the conditions, they will be there.

5. Don’t underestimate the power of core values. A downturn is just the time to reflect on the reassurance of a legacy which implies that “we’ve been here before, we’ve survived and even thrived”

Quelch points out that “when economic hard times loom….we tend to retreat to our village….as uncertainty prompts us to stay at home and also stay connected with family and friends”. Clearly internal communication has a vital role to play in keeping those communities informed, in recognizing their core motivators, consulting with them and in setting the tone. But lose touch with the core audience and don’t be surprised if employees seize the airwaves themselves. Pirate radio anyone?

*Financial Times February 18, 2008

Biog

For those of you who don’t know him, Ian Buckingham is the author of Brand Engagement – How Employees Make or Break Brands http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?PID=281268 and is currently working on the sequel Brand Champions.

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

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.

I recently met the Marketing and Brand Director of a very well known (thanks to their quirky advertising strategy) but struggling (possibly also due to their quirky advertising strategy) telecomms brand.

Needless to say they have been wrestling with employee brand engagement for some time and although they reeled out the “our greatest asset” clichés, they also spoke about their internal culture as if the employee demographic was loitering by the bus stop with contraband fags and cider.

The corporate HQ had a frankly schizophrenic feel full of jazzy gimmicks like “oh so witty” voicemail and Dali-esque interior design.  It was certainly matched by the surreal logic of the marketing team and their talk of “magic moments”.  In a market where even their owners confess to being baffled by their brand, the director answered my question about what an engaged employee looked like with a remarkably casual “oh we’ll know one when we see one.”

I tried but I couldn’t see the tv cameras in the Board room and I swear I’ve rarely spent a more baffling hour and half.  The brand engagement strategy was so baffling I half expected the CEO to waltz through the room in his birthday suit, leap over his stretch goals and reveal his burning platform.

Why, oh why do so many leaders persist in believing that the art and science of engaging customers with brand is the same as engaging employees with it?

Customers seemingly crave fantasy as part of the purchasing process.  As gurus like Seth Godin or Phillip Kitchen remind us, convention dictates that the stories marketers relay to the market about products, services and brands are laced with illusion to such an extent that customers don’t just expect magic dust sprinkled over the marketing mix, they demand it.

Employees, however, have a very different, much more intimate relationship with the brand.  They not only demand but need sincerity and authenticity. They have an intrinsic understanding of the values underpinning the culture (whether officially sanctioned or not). They largely reject and often subtly undermine communication which is not in touch with this reality.  They’re a tough and demanding audience, particularly for leaders who are so blinded by notions of the aspirational culture that they overlook and underestimate the prevailing culture. 

By all means ensure that employees are aware of and are even excited by the new ad campaign or better still embrace storytelling as an engagement advice. But don’t forget that it isn’t just Seth Godin who believes that all marketers are liars.  Internal marketing campaigns, glitzy launches and suave internal PR may serve a purpose but cynical modern employees, in the words of rap pioneers Public Enemy’s Flava Flav simply “don’t believe the hype”. True and lasting engagement can only be built (and please pardon the pun) from the bottom up

So the next time someone makes the smart suggestion that they can align the employees behind the brand strategy with a video and supporting powerpoint slides, please remember to point out that office lighting is fairly unforgiving.  And who in their right mind would want to be an internal marketer, today’s naked Emperor?

These are complex corporate times but as the fingers of blame for the global economic downturn have been pointed at various external stakeholders, it’s interesting to hear the term “culture” creeping into the post mortem about the banking sector.

I’ve become increasingly fascinated by the growing abuse of the term performance culture within performance management parlance. For me this phrase has become inextricably linked with the drive for delivering shareholder value in quarterly increments and the “up or out” mentality which has spilled over from investment banking.

But where does this leave the zealots now that a number of the investment banking super-tankers have holed themselves on the reefs of greed, selfishness, arrogance and some fairly suspect practice? It’s time for a fundamental re-think. The infrastructure underpinning many employment brands is clearly in need of a dramatic overhaul.

The current witch hunt for high profile scapegoats amongst the executive leadership cadre may “give good headline” but this sideshow threatens to distract from the core issues. Controversially I would go so far as to suggest that the culture problem is a widespread issue every bit as serious as the accusations of systemic racism levelled at the police force back in the 90s. Arguably this crisis will have even more far reaching consequences.

Far from being advocates of what have often been derided as “nice to have” initiatives, in these tough times, organisation development should be prioritised as part of the recovery process and OD professionals should be leading the revolutionary line. The time has come for comprehensive internal reviews followed by an energetic re-positioning of the vision, mission and values and associated people processes within many of our leading brand names. This should be the first step towards a re-framing of the definition of performance in the context of the employer or employment brand

This is a complex issue but consider for a second the long established theory that an individual is at their most effective within a role some 2.5 years into the job. Or reflect on the equally established best practice that leaders should spend most of their first 100 days listening and gathering information. Contrast this with the notion of “hitting the ground running” and the obsession with quarterly shareholder reporting and year on year incremental targeting regardless of conditions. Mixed messages?

It seems a little old fashioned in these high octane times but there’s sound logic underpinning leadership best practices which call for considered, well paced decision making based upon an understanding that the decision makers will still be around when the impact of their decisions come to fruition.

Bankers, for example, used to be remunerated on the basis of loyalty bonuses and benefits packages at preferential rates. Not so long ago, any posting on a c.v. revealing tenure in a role of under three years was viewed with suspicion. Lift the drains on the recent recruitment drive amongst the retail banking sector and you will be greeted by whole teams made up of job-hopping former investment bankers.

Of course the flipside of low employee turnover includes problems with innovation, pace and inertia. But inertia and stability are two very different things. The latter was once a highly prized commodity even in important parts of the investment market but was derided by the “short termists”. What wouldn’t shareholders now give for even incremental returns on their investments?

Those in the know suggest that many of the high profile leaders who will be appearing in committees over the next few months have been off the record advocates of culling grey hair in their staff ranks. What price wisdom now?

Don’t get me wrong. I very much believe in the notion of a culture of performance. That’s why we’re all in business after all. I just don’t believe in the notion of winning at all costs.

I’m realistic enough to understand that sustainability, network building and relationship development are the bedfellows of integrity, accountability, security and trust (the values, ironically, most popularly used to advertise the wares of financial services companies). I’m certainly not calling for a complete return to the old hierarchies and command and control regimes but it’s clear that there’s going to have to be a large dose of mature, “back to the future” thinking if the nirvana of an appropriate and authentic performance culture is ever going to be achieved by arguably our most influential businesses and brands.

If you would like to know more about how to develop a people centred approach to culture development and brand engagement drop us a line.

Ian Buckingham is the author of Brand Engagement: How Employees Make or Break Brands

http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?is=0230573061