Category: Blog

It was a whirlwind week last week, with a stimulating couple of days at Melcrum’s Strategic Communications Management Summit.  Some strong themes emerged, but one in particular stood out….the increasing need for dialogue and involvement in organisations.

I usually come away from this event feeling that the biggest issue is always the same issue – that of the problems encountered at middle management level in communicating vital strategic messages.  This still exists of course, but this year the spotlight seemed to veer away from this tier of management to focus on the subject of dialogue at every level of the organisation.

We have been promoting the concept of dialogue, innovation and involvement as key to a high-performing culture for years.  It’s vital for engaging a workforce and the key to stimulating a sense of ownership, which unlocks the inertia that often challenges change.  I never cease to be surprised, however, at the number of large organisations that are still relatively paternalistic and command-control in their culture, driven from the top.  Ironically these organisations are often the ones which have performed well over the years, with no obvious burning platform. So why bother?

We are encountering more and more examples – particularly in the world of financial services – where this is the case.  Yet platforms are beginning to smoke.  Consumer expectations are changing. Employee profiles are changing.  Technology is changing.  The world is changing.  What, in fact, isn’t changing?   What has made these organisations successful in the past are not the ingredients for success in the future. Add to this a different generation of workers whose expectations and attitudes are wildly different from the ‘employee lifers’ that have existed in the past.  Mix into this the loss of pride and trust in leadership that has come with the recession and media battering over the last couple of years.  If these organisations don’t start to change their working practices and culture now, their position in the market place may come as a shock in three or four years time, together with a heavy recruitment and training bill.

So at Melcrum’s conference I was encouraged to hear more and more examples of companies who have deliberately involved their employees in shaping the culture and direction of the business;  Maersk, Volvo Trucks and Merseytravel to name just a few.   Whether it be through surveys, focus groups, via social media or other interactive communications channels it seems that more organisations are taking this very seriously.  Dialogue begins at the top, with a visible and accessible Executive presence.  Enter the CEO blog…

There was a lot of talk about doing away with cascades too, although I must say that in my view the word ‘cascade’ (ie top down communication) has its place.  The ideal is to wrap dialogue and conversation around the cascade, perhaps with the help of ambassadors, change agents or influencers.  Leaders and managers still have an important role in communicating strategic and operational messages, especially when you take into account the fact that trust lies with the line manager, not the most senior managers at the top of the tree.  Hierarchy still counts.  It’s how you make the human element of hierarchy work that matters.

Good on Melcrum for an excellent conference.  As spending cuts loom, it’ll be fascinating to see what the hot topic will be this time next year.

I was mildly incensed the other day.  There you are….an immediate oxymoron, but it’s deliberate so doesn’t count.  The point I’m about to make is that I fear that we are becoming increasingly lazy and ignorant when it comes to our language – both written and verbal.

I don’t normally pay much attention to announcements on trains as they tend to be intrusive, repetitive, unnecessary and usually hard to decipher.  That is, with the exception of a very nice Spanish gentleman who works on First Great Western who’s a pleasure to listen to.  Anyway, for some reason, on my daily commute at the end of last week, I heard the train manager say “we will not be platforming this train at Twyford”.  Platforming this train? Since when has the verb ‘to platform’ entered our vocabulary? Did it make it in with ‘onboarding’ staff, or ‘medalling’ at the Olympics?

I was quite tempted to go and find the said gentleman to explain the correct way of helping his passengers understand that they wouldn’t be getting off the train at Twyford.  The train would not be opening its doors.  The doors would remain locked.   Passengers would neither be allowed to get off, get on, leave or exit the train, nor descend to the platform.  The train doors were not going to open.  Getting off at Twyford, in fact, was simply not going to be an option for any of those passengers on the 18.47 to Swansea.  But never let it be said that it might not ‘platform’ there.

Turning a noun into a verb is annoying, but so is putting apostrophes where they shouldn’t be, and not putting apostrophes where they should.  So are rogue commas before the word ‘however’ when there should be a full stop.  I know, I know, we all have the occasional lapse in concentration every now and again, but you’d think that professional communications people would get it right.  All too often they don’t.

Okay folks, I know I’m going to be lambasted by my team the very next time I make a grammatical mistake.  But please let’s remember what our English teachers taught us, and while we accept that language evolves over time, let’s not get lazy or complacent, and just make up new rules because we can’t be bothered to stick to the current ones.

Lecture over.  I’m now going to kettle some tea.

David Macleod, author of The Macleod Review, has again called for every business to underpin its employee engagement efforts with a ’simple, clear and compelling narrative’ that articulates the journey the organisation is on, articulating where the business has come from, where it’s going and why.

This widely reported piece of research, which brought together the opinions and examples of best practice from dozens of some of the most respected business leaders, has received wide acclaim from business journalists and leaders across the globe since it was published in 2009.  Macleod, who was speaking at Osney Media’s Employee Engagement and Employer Brand conference in London, was accompanied by his co-author, Nita Clarke, and opened the conference by reiterating the need for a narrative and an ‘aligned senior team’ to drive engagement through the organisation.

Macleod’s recommendation was endorsed at the same conference in an articulate and passionate presentation by Andrew Powell, MD Human Resources at Colt.  Powell explained how Colt, which has gone through momentous change in transforming itself from a product-led organisation (with a heritage of expertise in fibre-optic cables) to one providing a network and IT infrastructure with expertise in IT managed services, networking and communication solutions, drove rapid, momentous change through the organisation starting with a clear, simple narrative or Story that explained what people needed to do differently and why.

The change that took place in a matter of months was astonishing, driven by a truly invigorated and united workforce that worked together to demonstrate that it really could change the way it worked – and quickly.  Powell made repeated references to the role played by the senior leadership team in driving this change, saying that had they not achieved alignment behind this Story and the change that was needed, it simply wouldn’t have happened.  Engagement scores have improved, behaviours have changed, and leadership understanding and commitment universal.  Interestingly, the role of ambassadors has played a critical role too in supporting managers in engaging their teams.

A simple narrative and an aligned senior team – two critical success factors to change which have been amply demonstrated by Colt.  The Storytellers are proud to have played our part in building this narrative and providing an effective methodology to cascade the Story to 34 cities throughout Europe and India.  Change often takes time – and relentless energy from the business – but with the pride, passion, understanding and business-wide alignment it seems that it can be done in a relatively short space of time.

I couldn’t resist this one.  Great story in the news today about how a letter, written by a pupil in a South London primary school, resulted in a very unexpected celebrity dropping in to her school assembly.

Nine-year old Beatrice, a fan of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, wrote a letter to Johnny Depp, inviting him to visit her own ‘bunch of pirates’ at school and offering ‘copious amounts of rum’. Aaaaarrr.

Result?  Johnny Depp turns up at their assembly, in full Captain Jack Sparrow regalia.  Much fun was had by all.

I can’t remember school visits being as exciting as this.  I think a lecture by explorer Sir Ranulph Twistleton-Wickham-Fiennes topped the bill (don’t we British have the most amazing names?), followed closely by author Gerald Durrell.  The point of all of this, though, is the power of the written letter.  Email is alive and well in the 21st Century, and letter-writing fading, but in Beatrice’s case it worked.  Well done Beatrice.  Never stop writing.

I’m sure you have the same kind of debates in your office as we have in ours:
“Do I spell the word programme with one or two m’s?’ and ‘what about fulfil – should it have two l’s at the end, or just the one?”
This kind of question certainly has the potential to spark debate here in the UK, especially if you work in a multi-cultural office.
But the other reason for confusion emanates from the fact that most of us are using office software produced in America and, even when we’ve got our spellchecker set to English (UK), we’re constantly told that our way of spelling certain words is incorrect:
“I’m sure ‘emphasize’ didn’t have a ‘z’ in it last time I looked” etc.
An even greater dilemma arises when dealing with American clients. Should we, give in to our computers and spell words in a way that our US cousins will appreciate, or should we stand up for the language we (arguably) originated on this side of the pond and risk looking, to them, like we can’t spell the simplest of words?
With most of the world now using the same US-produced software, might it be that the ‘correct’ English spelling of many words will soon become extinct?
One final thought – Language is, and has always been, a constantly evolving thing – maybe this is just the next stage of evolution for English?

India Knight (Sunday Times, 14th May) wrote an interesting article on handwriting, and highlighted a recent survey that a fifth of schoolchildren have never [hand]written a letter, while a tenth have never received a letter themselves.

Is handwriting really dying?  Has letter-writing already died?

Personally this makes me really sad.  As a child, writing and receiving letters was a joy.  I wrote letters to anyone I thought might enjoy them, and the number of Blue Peter badges I received is testament to the number of letters I sent producer Biddy Baxter at the BBC.  I still have the letter from a deeply appreciative ad-man after I congratulated BT on its inspired ‘It’s For You-Hoo’ campaign.  And one from the Queen, after I sent a short letter, aged 8, to tell her about the fact that we too had a throne-room (except it was what we nicknamed our bathroom at home).  I don’t believe my parents ever knew that I’d sent that particular letter at the time.

Perhaps it came from my school days.  As a boarder we were ‘required’ to write home once a week, although to me it was an event I always looked forward to.  By sending letters it meant we’d receive letters.  It was a big deal.  To me, opening an envelope to read someone’s personal story of the day and an expression of their feelings, personally addressed to me and only me, was deeply gratifying and part of a bonding process which meant everything to me. It wasn’t just about the content either – the paper, the ink, the style of handwriting, the odd little doodle, the construction of sentences…. all contributed to the pleasure in receiving a letter. My parents too insisted we write letters of thanks for the smallest little gift.  I remember a comment from my aunt’s father-in-law (who happened to be one of the wealthiest businessmen in the UK) saying how much it meant to him to receive a handwritten letter in return for a smallest little financial gesture, and how well-mannered it showed us to be.  It won’t surprise you to hear that I get extremely irritated by godchildren and nephews/nieces who never bother to send a thank-you (not even by email) after they receive a birthday or Christmas gift.  A letter would make all the difference, but – sigh – SMS, computing and a change in attitude seem to have put paid to all that.

It’s rare to get a hand-written letter these days.  Even TV programmes don’t boast about their burgeoning post-bags any more, because – let’s be frank – they don’t have any.   I really miss it.  E-mail hasn’t just taken over corporate communication, it’s the way we communicate personally too.  I have only one particular friend with whom I still correspond on paper, even though (we will both admit) invariably it’s word-processed these days, with some creative font to compensate.   She too understands the importance of good quality paper.

I look back on my prolific letter-writing days with nostalgia and a little sadness.  Feel free to write to me anytime.  It would really make me happy.

I’ve just been reading an interesting article from Nick Robinson (BBC) about the content of today’s Queen’s speech.

Nick begins by asking if we can remember any previous Queen’s speeches – not the visual elements of the speeches such as Black Rod, the throne or the horse-drawn carriage, but the content of the speech itself.

Can’t say I do…

Nick says that, when preparing their script for the Queen to deliver, every government tries to create a narrative that connects their disparate pieces of legislation in a way that will be compelling and inspiring for the public. He also states that so far no government has managed to succeed.

His thoughts got me thinking: Surely a set of clear objectives (the legislations), a strong narrative (the word crafted speech) delivered by a compelling leader (in this case the Queen) should stick in the mind – aren’t all the necessary ingredients there?

Well, the answer is no. It occurs to me after reading a few of these speeches that the ‘what’ is always very clear but the ‘how’ is not.
In other words, ‘here’s what we’re going to do’ but not ‘and this is how we’re going to do it’.

You might argue that the Queen’s speech is not the place to outline the how, but I disagree. If you want people to listen and believe, then you need to make what you’re saying believable, otherwise you risk disengaging those who can’t see how your objectives can ever be made reality.

When we work with an organisation to create the senior leaders’ Story (the story of the journey the business is on), we use our six-chapter StoryMap framework to create a clear statement of that business’s vision and purpose, linking together the component parts of its journey.

What we also do though is help its leaders communicate a very clear set of ‘how’s’ – whether these are practical actions, behaviors or values. They’re things the business wants and needs every employee to do in service of reaching its desired destination. This minimises any questions employees may have about the believability of the business objectives and the role they will need to play in achieving them.

Wow.  If there was ever a group of people in need of a story, it is the UK’s new coalition government.

I have personally watched hours of tv election coverage and debates, and read even more in the papers and online… and I’m fascinated.  But still a little bit baffled as to how we’ve ended up here, and potentially for five years. Is this really what we voted for?

Yesterday, we saw a fantastic example of two people uniting behind a common purpose in Downing Street: to form a stable government to serve in the national interest.  For David Cameron and Nick Clegg, the power of that purpose allowed them to rise above their differences.  Now we have to wait to see whether they can take their parties with them.  And the ministries.  And the civil service. And the markets.  And the country.

It is going to be a difficult few months, if not years, for the two parties just to stick to a ‘party line’, before they get to grips with the language of this ‘new politics’.  Having a story framework to describe the journey that this Government has embarked on, would put the complexity of their policy negotiations and compromises into a context.  It would also express a compelling vision of the future for all the people that they need to take with them.  Finally, it would develop the values of ‘freedom, fairness and responsibility’ that need to become the principles used to guide the decision-making processes.  For Whitehall at the very least, that clear direction is going to be critical as they battle with the inevitable spending cuts.

And, wouldn’t it be interesting to work on a story that this new team could align behind in order to drive the progress we need?