Coco the Clown and the Man Who Wanted Windows

This is a true story. I once saw an ex-boss lock herself into a cupboard rather than confront the bobble hat wearing would-be editor who turned up for a job interview at our creative comms agency. As the candidate - looking more like Coco the Clown in her equally shocking, bright stripy tights, mismatched skirt and tie-dye top - cycled across our courtyard, there was nothing else for it. It had been a long, tiring day of interviews and my MD was laughing so hard that tears were coursing down her face and she simply couldn’t face this candidate and take her at all seriously for a client-facing job. So into the cupboard she hopped. An extreme reaction perhaps but often people find it hard to imagine how important first impressions are to a potential employer. It’s the same with the bit at the end of every interview when your ‘maybe’ next boss asks you if you have any questions? Asking about holiday entitlement or salary as the only question or, even worse, not saying anything at all are a definite no-no. Particularly if you are going for a communications role. Equally unimpressive are questions of no relevance whatsoever. A candidate once asked me whether our company had windows. It was the only question, it was the early 90s, so I assumed he meant the Microsoft Operating System. But no, dear readers, he was talking about the glass variety you can see out of. Apparently his current office had no natural daylight. A shame. However, as I was potentially employing him as a comms consultant I felt there were way too many other more strategic and insightful questions he could have put to me – old fashioned future employer that I was. And, as I showed him the door, I really couldn’t imagine him working with any of our clients, asking them the right questions or giving them the best solutions. So my top tip if you can absolutely not think of anything worthwhile to say is to just say this: “What are the key objectives you would expect me to achieve in the first three to six months?” True it can flummox them but switched on folk should be able to respond. Just don’t say it wearing fancy dress!

Why 'cascade' is a corporate comms myth-take

There is one dreadful word still bandied about in internal communication. There are several but one I'd particularly love to see buried in the corporate comms nonsense graveyard of terms and practices is 'cascade'.

I know it still exists because a well-meaning FTSE big boss recently mentioned to me he had 'cascaded our annual results so every one of our 20,000 employees now knows and understands where the business is going'. Fingers crossed with that one.

I have also spotted 'cascade' lurking in Linked In forums, in IC articles and as a key achievement in communicators' CVs.

And we are not in 1990 anymore, Toto!

Anyone reading this post (apart from my mum) will have a few such archaic words they loathe too. Would love to share those. But surely in internal communication, and in a world where people are connected more than ever before, 'cascade' should have died out dinosaur-like a decade or two ago?

'Cascade' is no way to do business, folks. It is a corporate myth to imagine information cascade's like a waterfall through a business from the top to the bottom just because the CEO speaks about strategy and a thousand managers' not-very-brief briefing packs are produced. Even if the approach does start with lots of good intentions, as one comms grandee suggested brilliantly, the process 'leaks meaning at every level' and mostly grinds to a halt somewhere  in the middle because people have more important things to do - like work.

Conversation and helping facilitate that is what matters and that is sometimes a whole lot harder to achieve yet ultimately more effective and a tad more grown-up.

Cascade can always reinvent itself -  as a name for a bathroom company.

A real tale about bad internal communications

This isn’t an award-winning case study in great internal communications. Just a real life story where the absence of it is all too evident. Lessons can be learned which is why I am sharing it.

The normally cheery and uber helpful ticket check guy at my local railway station told me today he is being replaced by a machine. Indeed, rather like the Sword of Damocles, said machine is already in situ, right behind him silently waiting to take over his job.

Now I love change – particularly when it’s for the better – but my current operator Southern Rail and the equally appalling bunch waiting in the franchise wings - haven’t a clue about running trains. Which is really frightening when you consider that’s all they are supposed to do. When you throw in Network Rail it’s a rail recipe for disaster.

None of them communicate well – with staff, with commuters/customers or with each other. That means every day feels like a crisis comms scenario. And as a comms pro I have managed a few of those. Indeed, good old Southern Rail isn’t doing great on employee engagement bearing in mind the machine that’s replacing my experienced, cheerful, helpful chap has already been installed before he’s even collected his P45. I could fly to New York in the time it has recently taken me to get to work in London but thanks to my chap at the station and his help and advice he does make me feel valued as a customer, albeit one spending some thousands of pounds for the sheer, giddy pleasure of delays, cancellations and random jettisoning on to freezing platforms. He sadly tells me the service we are all getting is ‘disgraceful’. Not surprising when everyone can see it is and he doubtless gets the brunt of commuters’ increasing rage on a daily basis.

Where is the company’s leadership in all this?

I politely enquired when I might have an opportunity to find out why the service is deteriorating so and was told senior managers prefer their ‘Meet The Managers’ sessions on the concourses of large, open stations rather than smaller ones.

“They are very scared of actually meeting customers face-to-face”, says my man in the know.

Nuff said.

Shame of the macho managers on the 18.47

A man on my London train today referred to his colleagues as mostly 'dead wood.'
His travelling companion boasted he was relishing a major restructure involving the 'low hanging fruit' in his team.
A third besuited assassin smiled as he described wielding an 'axe' to decimate his 'headcount' by 25% in the next six months.
It's not the first time I've heard employees described like this and with such obvious disdain.
Sadly it won't be the last.
Macho posturing on the 18.47pm? You betcha!
But something else too. What struck me about the very loud conversation across the aisle was the realisation that someone somewhere had given these three men responsibility to manage people in their respective organisations through difficult times.
Can't imagine this terrible trio of horrible bosses doing that with any sense of leadership.

Here are some tips for communicating a restructure the right way http://bit.ly/zaDJPI 

A taste of things to come

I have just started an exciting new job full time at VMA Group and had a great first day which in more than 20 years I can honestly say hasn't really been matched.

And no, this isn't me sucking up to my new employers (an unattractive trait at the best of times). I am just slightly agog as I have worked for some big old companies who should know better about how they treat new staff (as well as their existing people) and pride themselves on checking how they are doing it at least once a year with those marvellous engagement surveys that cost the GDP of a small nation.

Many of my other new starter experiences have felt like that old Japanese game show Endurance, battling to try and get a computer pre-ordered three months' ago; tussling with security guards on the door the first morning and for the following fortnight saying over and over again mantra-like "but I DO work here"; devising my own induction when there was no obvious one coming and lack of it got me locked in the office with no escape; and, in one memorable case, pleading to be given a security pass so that I might meet the CEO without an armed guard. 

First days at work can feel like this!

It's a funny old thing being a Head of Internal Communication and perhaps actually wanting to meet and work closely with the biggest cheese from the outset. Moving freely around the organisation so you can do your job. I just felt that six weeks after starting with this huge organisation with its robust People Strategy promising great things for employees that getting a security pass to the building on the first day should have been a tad easier.

 

But back to my new role and Day One. Firstly I got introduced to everyone in the company - at least 50 people and a handshake with all of them; was handed all my equipment, including the Crackberry; given a two week planned induction timetable with lots of sessions working with various colleagues and a two day training course; welcomed by my own personal 'Buddy'; given a delicious box of chocolates and taken out to lunch with my new team.

I shall report back if it goes downhill from here. But these are very good signs. Lessons should surely be learned. I am also available, for a very low fee (!), for any HR colleagues who need to know more about how it should and shouldn't be done!

Advice on strategy that's out of this world

Always an interesting moment when you tell a client the only way they will make head or tail of the company's complex, strategic goals is to imagine they are talking about them with a Martian.
Today isn't the first time I have suggested it but it got to the point where both of us were reaching for the paracetamol and the gin in our bid to bring clarity to the corporate strategy. Sure I have no idea whether a) Martians exist b) they can speak English or c) if they do, whether they give a toss about articulating strategic goals on the red planet. But it is a fun and surefire technique to help you cut through the gobbledegook that sometimes even comms folk find themselves bogged down in.
Today was a prime example as we vainly tried to retrieve some key messages from a raft of almost incomprehensible acronyms, jargon, and nonsense. We were in danger of repeating the same language in our comms plan, so tough was it to decipher and so immersed were we in trying to make sense of it all.
"Wait!" I said. "Step away from the plan. Let's pretend we are talking to Martians."
(Client looks at me as if totally off rocker).
Me: "If a Martian wanted to know what we were trying to do, what would we say to keep it simple?"
Six clear messages were duly produced.
Client smiles with delight and says: "You are a comms genius and deserve twice your daily rate, Sarah!"
Yeah, well maybe she didn't actually say that but am sure she meant it.

Back of a napkin comms tips

Note to self. I must stop going out at weekends and ending up sitting next to people at dinner who want me to help them communicate better with their staff but would like my gratis top tips for it between the main course and pudding! This weekend's impromptu surgery/counselling session took place during a wedding reception and actually did involve me writing on the back of a napkin - albeit one with lovely confetti shapes on it.

All common sense, of course, but it still amazes me how much common sense gets overlooked in the hurly burly of business life.

My top tips for the lovely manager sitting on my right (cousin of the bride, no less) are repeated here and are in no particular order:

• Communicate with integrity: tell the truth always and without exception. If you don’t know the answer, say you will find out and come back to people
• Make time to communicate and make the most of that time
• Remember the basics: people want to know the who, what, where, when, why and how of any communication and ‘what’s in it for me?’
• Think about what you want people to Think, Feel and Do as a result of any communication
• Use stories. The right anecdote can be worth a thousand theories or facts and people are more likely to remember them
• Build trust and credibility. Be visible and approachable, engage the people who work with you openly and fully
• Check for  understanding. Ask questions and provide context and further information if needed.