I was lucky enough to spend a week on a whirlwind business tour of India a few years back travelling to five cities and meeting executives from many of the leading Indian brand names from Tata through to Titan. As many people are, however, I was struck by the contrast between extreme wealth and the tenacity of the so called untouchable class of fervent entrepreneurs who keep India buzzing.

 

One of my contacts from that trip sent me this story. It speaks volumes:

 

A Blackberry addict discovers grassroots enterprise in India

 

A greater ‘hole in the wall’ you cannot imagine.  A small fading sign on the top saying “Cellphoon reapars” barely visible through the street vendors crowding the Juhu Market in Mumbai. On my way to buy a new Blackberry, my innate sense of adventure (foolishness) made me stop my car and investigate. A shop not more than 6 feet by 6 feet. Grimy and uncleaned.

‘Can you fix a blackberry ?”

‘ Of course , show me”

” How old are you”

‘Sixteen’

Bullshit. He was no more than 10. Not handing my precious blackberry to a 10 year old in unwashed and torn T shirt and pyjama’s ! At least if I buy a new one, they would extract the data for me. Something I have been meaning to do for a year now.

‘What’s wrong with it ?”

‘Well, the roller track ball does not respond. It’s kind of stuck and I cannot operate it”

He grabs it from my hand and looks at it

“You should wash your hands. Many customers have same problem. Roller ball get greasy and dirty, then no working’

Look who was telling me to wash my hands. He probably has not bathed for 10 days, I leaned out to snatch my useless blackberry back.

” you come back in one hour and I fix it’

I am not leaving all my precious data in this unwashed kid’s hands for an hour. No way.

“who will fix it ?”

‘Big brother’

‘ How big is ‘big brother?’

‘big …. umm ..thirty’

Then suddenly big brother walks in. 30 ??? He is no more than 19.

‘What problem ?’ He says grabbing the phone from my greasy hand into his greasier hand. Obviously not trained in etiquette by an upmarket retail store manager.

‘Normal blackberry problem. I replace with original part now. You must wash your hand before you use this’

What is this about me washing my hands suddenly ??  19 year old big brother rummages through a dubious drawer full of junk and fishes out a spare roller ball packed in cheap cellophane wrapper.  Original part ? I doubt it.

But by now I am in the lap of the real India and there is no escape as he fishes out a couple of screwdrivers and sets about opening my Blackberry.

“How long will this take ?”

” Six minutes ”

This I have to see. After spending the whole morning trying to find a Blackberry service centre and getting vague answers about sending the phone in for an assessment that might take a week, I settle down next to his grubby cramped work space. At least I am going to be able to watch all my stored data vanish into virtual space. People crowd around to see what’s happening. I am not breathing easy anyway. I tell myself this is an adventure and literally have to stop myself grabbing my precious blackberry back and making a quick escape.

But in exactly six minutes this kid handed my blackberry back. He had changed the part and cleaned and serviced the the whole phone.  Taken it apart, and put it together. As I turned the phone on there was a horrific 2 minutes where the phone would not come on. I looked at him with such hostility that he stepped back.

‘you have more than thousand phone numbers ?”

‘yes’.

‘backed up ?’

‘no’

‘Must back up. I do it for you. Never open phone before backing up’

‘You tell me that now ?’

But then the phone came on and my data was still there. Everyone watching laughed and clapped. This was becoming a show. A six minute show.

I asked him how much.

‘ 500 rupees’ He ventured uncertainly . People around watched in glee expecting a negotiation. Thats $ 10 dollars as against the Rs 30,000 ($ 600)  I was a about to spend on a new blackberry or a couple of weeks without my phone. I looked suitably shocked at his ‘high price ‘ but calmly paid him. Much to the disapointment of the expectant crowd.

‘do you have an Iphone ? Even the new ‘4′ one ?

‘no, why”

‘I break the code for you and load any ‘app’ or film you want. I give you 10 film on your memory stick on this one, and change every week for small fee’

I went home having discovered the true entreprenuership that lies at what we call the ‘bottom of the pyramid’. Some may call it piracy, which of course it is, but what can you say about a two uneducated and untrained brothers aged 10 and 19 that set up a ‘hole in the wall’ shop and can fix any technology that the greatest technologists in the world can throw at them.

I smiled at the future of our country. If only we could learn to harness this potential.

‘Please wash your hands before use’ were his last words to me.

 

Now I am feeling seriously unclean.

 

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)

 

 

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.

Would it surprise you to learn that the most senior communications professional within one of the leading petro chemical companies currently uses sensitive state of the art IT technology to monitor webinar and teleconference effectiveness and participation?  

Would you be shocked to hear that one of the most high profile government departments has the slickest team briefing process you’ll ever read or that  one of Europe’s leading utility companies has the highest intranet and so called “social media” involvement rates you’re ever likely to see? 

I guess we all expect major corporates and professional organisations to be at the forefront of internal communication management. So why is it that each of these organisations came bottom in a recent cross industry employee engagement poll? 

The bare faced truth of the matter is that, despite their focus on state of the art technology and exceptional process design, they just don’t get the basics right.  

The petro chemical company has no top level communications calendar, their intranet is an over-burdened supertanker which has run aground on a reef of indifference and employees have started voting with their feet at Town Halls held by their senior leaders. 

The government department employed an expensive creative agency to develop their team briefing collateral but thousands of worthy, well-meaning newsletters are casually cast aside. Forgotten, forlorn and unread because the newsletter content ignores the interests of the audience they have:

-         no explicit link to strategic objectives

-         they discourage feedback from readers

-         they are full of self-congratulatory spin and HR propaganda

 -        they fail to acknowledge the real issues

-         and they lack humanity and authenticity.  

Their team briefing process has become a written cascade because their senior civil servants find it difficult to overcome the traditional hierarchical structure and few have the skills and ability to engage effectively with their line reports. 

Each organisation talks about “inverting the pyramid” and bringing the employee voice to the fore.  But in the admirable pursuit of internal communication excellence they’ve lost sight of the basics and the employee voice is more of a nervous whisper. 

An interesting contrast comes in the unlikely form of a technology company I’ve had the pleasure of working with over the past few years and have watched grow both in the UK and globally. They are true innovators and leaders in the field of technology driven customer communication yet their own intranet is only an afterthought in their ten strong internal communication channel strategy. 

Their directors strive constantly to ensure that they and their line managers work in partnership to prioritise:

 -  global face to face communication and only host webinars and teleconferences as an absolute last resort

-    communication skills training and include employee engagement in their line manager’s performance contracts

-   fundamental communication skills courses in their management development programme including writing and personal impact skills

-   storytelling structures in the way they communicate the evolution of the brand both internally and externally

-    best practice in the way they facilitate their team briefing sessions

-    face to face conferences, events and induction processes and refuse to communicate by email bulletin cascades

-     achieving balance between process management and culture development

It’s refreshing to see that the most effective approach to internal communication is to get the basics right first and foremost. In these austere times it’s just as good to be reminded that, with a professional internal communication team in place, much of the above can be achieved relatively cheaply.  

We all love a flash new toy or two but whether you can afford it or not, whatever you do don’t develop a case of technology envy at the expense of promoting classic skills. With an objective nudge in the right direction and the modest investment of time, easily financed by a relatively simple re-focus of learning and development priorities, there really shouldn’t be any need to re invent the wheel.