Change & Internal Communications

How to handle a crisis in business

David Ferrabee — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 08:29:00 GMT

SOHO SQUARE -- My friend Tim Luckett has got to be one of the best crisis communication guys out there. He always seems a little stressed. And that's got to be a good thing.

Tim gets it coming and going. Both when that dreaded thing happens -- the proverbial mouse in the box of chicken -- and when you are just planning for it -- what happens if...

So, if you're in either of those situations, call Tim.

But I am interested in the times when we use the word crisis and we don't mean it. I am interested in the management-adrenaline-junkies who create difficulties just to get through the day. And I think that our business, the "creative industries", are particularly strong at that. We could stage the Crisis Olympics in Soho Square and competition would be fierce.

So, here is my list of things that I think do not amount to a crisis:

Anything to do with your hair or grooming -- or anyone else's, for that matter
Your failure to meet a deadline or do work in a timely way
The weather (even if you run outdoor events, I mean, this is London!)
Your love life... real or imagined
A client, colleague or passer-by saying something mean to you; unless the police are involved
A last minute cancellation

In these days of insurance and promised reparations for just about anything, you should have a plan. Crisis plans are the business equivalent of having the fire department number beside your home phone. It's just something you learn to do as you grow up.

Everything else is, frankly, poor planning.

/df

P.S. I would certainly welcome any other suggestions of what does not qualify as a crisis.

Change management: When will it end?

David Ferrabee — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:12:00 GMT

THE CENTRAL LINE -- "All I want to know is when to cancel the milkman?"

The single hardest thing about managing change seems to be one of the easiest: telling those affected when the key events are happening... and when it will all end.

We are creatures of habit, after all. We like to play on our spontaneity. We think that we're unpredictable and wild and crazy. But we're not.

I read a great book a few years ago called Chasing Daylight. It's the true story of a senior exec at a global accounting firm who found out he had a limited time to live. So he set about putting all his relationships in order. It's compelling reading. Not least because it highlights our fear of uncertainty and death. And what we might do if we really knew what the timetable was.

(Sorry about that morbid side-bar.)

If people know what the future will look like they're pretty good at making plans. We can adapt to almost everything. I have been talking a lot recently about living in a car under a bridge. Because I see that as a future option for me. And with that knowledge I feel that I can adapt.

Without a view of 'when we will know what' we cannot plan properly. And then we start to plan for all sorts of possibilities. And that's when things get ugly.

In a vacuum the smallest scrap of information becomes incredibly important. Minor details take on massive significance.

All that because we couldn't communicate an end-date.

This entry finishes now. You'll be okay.

/df

Jay-Z at Glastonbury & the culture gap at work that we ignore

David Ferrabee — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 16:12:00 GMT

SOUTH WEST LONDON -- On Friday night I stood on a chair in our sitting room watching Jay-Z on Friday night with Jonathan Ross. I was on the chair because we have mice passing through. But the image is not unconnected.

I was surprised to see Mr Z in person and hear him talk and laugh. He did well on a show that makes many people uncomfortable. Like other Americans before him, he asked quietly "Can we curse on this show?" before letting out a string of mild expletives. He was big and awkward and funny looking. But modest, self-assured and funny.

Not what I expected.

He then went on to be one of the biggest hits of this weekend's annual Glastonbury mud-festival on a pig farm in south-west England. He crossed a divide that is larger than just the Atlantic Ocean I suspect. His audience in the USA is big. Far, far bigger than in the UK. But it's also young and urban.

Glastonbury is anything but young and urban. It's a festival for well-to-do, aging hippies. It has done a lot to try to change that image, but that's essentially what it is. Witness, for example, how the festival closed this year: 71-year old Neil Diamond, followed by 73-year-old Leonard Cohen were both staying up late for their age. And they were followed by The Verve. Relative newcomers by comparison, but who started almost 20 years ago in 1989.

What does this have to do with Change & Internal Communications?

A lot.

I recently returned from a tour around the globe for a great client who is going through a big change. We visited four continents and five English-speaking countries. All of these places are countries that work with each other daily and share many cultural touchstones. In fact, the English-speaking world assumes a certain amount of homogeneity in business -- "You speak English, you'll get this..."

But that's not the case.

In fact, Jay-Z came up on that trip too. At a workshop in South Africa with a group of 25, predominantly black participants a successful and beautiful company executive announced that only Jay-Z could take her attention off her job.

Really?

What do we really know about our own English-language culture and the people who inhabit it?

Very little.

"I'm not a 'Business-Man'! I'm a Business... man! Let me handle my business, damn!" - Jay Z.

Can't really hear that coming out of the mouth of a Member of the House of Lords, can you?

We pretend we're all the same, but we're not. There are pockets of diversity and commonality in communities and cultures around the world. What is common currency in one place is far from understood in another. And we gloss over it, without trying to understand it, at our own peril.

/df

Boys and girls forever

David Ferrabee — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:52:00 GMT

BATTERSEA PARK -- When I dropped off my giant 5-year old son at kindergarten this morning, he was surrounded by chatting boys. I asked him for a kiss. They snickered and he compromised with a running hug.

Now we're at a sports day for my older daughters. My eldest wins the 800 meters by half a lap, (proud dad) and I run into a group of boys from her year in the men's loo. They're wound up like crickets on coke. They could no more stand still than I could dance a rumba. They are all energy and motion like buzzing bees. It would take fireworks to divert their attention from the joke at hand. Whatever it is.

And they're big. They are only 10-11 but I reckon they could take me.

The girls, meanwhile, wander about in tight-knit circles, whispering and casting an eye over each other's shoulders. They are women in a Jane Austen novel.

The groups of boys and girls couldn't be more different. And they may be young, but they're only slightly less practiced versions of me and you as working adults.

For every argument I can make that boys and girls, when they become women and me, are much more complex than that, and we don't behave by gender stereotypes... I see two indications that we do.

We are boys and girls for life. If we start to factor that into our business dealings, we'll make a lot more progress, faster.

/df

Employee engagement in a downturn

David Ferrabee — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 07:56:00 GMT

BACK ON THE TUBE -- There was a good note on the Communicators' Network today by Jim Shaffer about employee engagement. Maybe you saw it?

Jim's an interesting guy. He was leading the communications business at Towers Perrin when I first joined that company. Now he's got books out and is doing some interesting stuff.

His view can be badly summed up as follows:

'Engagement is a state of mind. It increased productivity. You want that. And it's improved by a lot of small things, many of which the communications team can deliver.'

And, of course, he's right. He's even got the numbers to proved it.

The bigger question for me remains, how do you sell that to the CFO and the Director of Strategy? Jim alludes to it in his note but misses the biggest issue. IMHO.

Executive Committees aren't generally seized by issues they don't know they have. And engagement tends to be one of them.

Do you recogmise this:

"When I started out, No one asked me how I felt. I just did what I was told. And I liked it!"

So, what do execs care about?

Business leaders focus on issues that they know they have like:

delivering the strategy
managing organisational change
hiring top performers
fighting off hostile competitors and suitors
reducing costs and
increasing sales

Is employee engagement the answer to all of these?

No. (If you think so, re-read the top bit.)

But most of the things you do to increase employee engagement are.

/df

P.S. Readership of this blog appears to have more than doubled in the last 36 hours. Anyone know why?

Dining etiquette

David Ferrabee — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 15:05:00 GMT

MARCHE BONSECOURS -- What do you do when you sit down with a dozen people from all around the world and start to break bread?

You focus on what you have in common. Tonight we laughed about the strangest things: German words, air sickness bags, French accents, violent criminals, mining, the Irish... All of it.

We talked in an animated way about Canadian history. We talked about the funny things you see in Australia... like kangaroo poo. And the local taxi's lack of suspension. And we're completely exhausted. Our dinner tonight is on the last night of a two week world tour of training on four continents. However, somehow we rise to the occasion.

You talk to the person on the left a bit, then to the person on the right... And tonight the person across the table.

Not everyone is comfortable at these things. I don't think I was until a few years ago. But one of the things that made me most comfortable was my mother telling me how to manage the niceties. Holding a fork and knife. Tilting your bowl. Opening and tasting wine. And other such things.

It's actually hard to say you appreciate these things and that they have a role in modern business. But they do. And when you go out with global clients it becomes readily apparent.

If you've got these fundamentals right then you are safer to go off-piste in your conversations.

/df

"Can't talk, I'm busy saving the world."

David Ferrabee — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 22:56:00 GMT

MONTREAL -- There's a great set of drawings by Matt Groening that pre-dates The Simpsons called "How to waste 8 hours a day and still keep you day job." It's one of the great, lost management tracts. I must look for my copy.

In it there are a number of suggestions like how to make animals out of paper-clips and erasers. But my favourite has to be "always walk quickly, with paper in your hands."

It's always worked for me.

But I can now spot it in others... and it's starting to irritate me a bit.

Why is it that whatever we are doing at this minute is so important that nothing else can be done. We read Blackberries while crossing the street, or sitting in bed. We step out of meetings to get involved in things that would have been perfectly good without our input. We play to the latest issues... chasing fires... because it's easier than doing the real work that is piling up on our desks.

We need to be needed. And we make bad decisions and treat people badly as a result.

"Can't talk, I'm busy saving the world."

Really?

If there's one thing that every business I have ever consulted to needed, it was less action and more careful consideration.

Stop what you are doing and think about stuff for a while. That's what they are paying you for.

Bon soir.

/df

How environment affects employees

David Ferrabee — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 11:56:00 GMT

SALT LAKE CITY -- I don't know what else I expected as we flew into this Utah town. There's a large body of water between the mountains and miles of marshes, all full of a white silt.

I have never been to Utah before and it is quite a site to behold. The physical landscape is the most impressive I have seen. Ever. Snow covered mountain ranges in a desert, with a big lake that no one can drink from. And therefore it's not surprising that Joseph Smith said "This is the place" when he arrived here. (In fact, he's meant to have said "this is the right place." But whose to argue?)

And the spirit of the Mormon fathers is not too far away from the physical environment at any time. There are mountains and ski runs that stay open well into June. The heat today reached 95F and there are so many people doing so many things out of doors, that you won't confuse this with Florida, Texas or California. There's too much activity.

Who wouldn't want to live here?

At the same time the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS) is never too far from the surface either. We even passed a "Latter day Weddings" shop, and visits to the Tabernacle and Temple are met by people who speak many languages, who want to tell you a lot about the father.

In business it's not as noticeable. In fact, everyone is lovely. But there are also LDS businesses and non-LDS businesses, as well as schools, etc. There's even an LDS daily paper.

How does it impact on your work? I can't say for sure. But the impact of then physical environment is much more obvious. People here are healthy, happy and fun to talk to. Business is booming. The famous US real estate downturn isn't hitting here as hard. Happiness will always be a draw.

/df

Down and out on conference calls

David Ferrabee — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 17:54:00 GMT

BRISBANE -- It's a little before 4 am, local time. I am waiting to call into a client meeting on the east coast of the USA. They'll be perky and happy on a Friday afternoon. I am down and out in Queensland.

I am not sure that this is really what Alexander Graham Bell had in mind when he came up with this device. But then again he was a Scot who is now claimed as a native son by Britain, Canada and the United States, so maybe he could forsee how nations might come together to increase misunderstanding.

And then the number doesn't work...

And it often feels like conference calls are set up with the sole intention of torturing the people on the end of the line. There's that person who sits far away from the telephone and mumbles. And then everyone laughs. That's not fun.

And then they ask for your opinion, just as you have put on the mute button and gone to the loo...

The problem with conference calls is that they tend to have too little structure, just like the meetings they are imitating. But it is worse with conference calls because the listeners are captive. You cannot really make eye contact or read a room when you are on a phone. This means that people talk too much and listen too little.

And someone keeps getting cut off... "Hi, I'm back... sorry I got cut off..." You did? We hadn't noticed...

And cultural differences are also exacerbated on calls. Sometimes in ways they wouldn't be otherwise. So a group of people in Brittain can't stop laughing when someone says they had to go home and change their pants. Then there's a long explanation about "pants" that no one needed and on it goes.

And that guy's mother/ child/ dog comes in and he has a long muffled conversation that no one wants to hear...

More often than not it's about pants again. Then he comes back on and tells you more about his environment than you want to hear, like what he's got on.

Here's a simple format for a successful conference call.

Pre-agree a maximum time. No more than 30 minutes.
Test the line.
Assign roles and a timed agenda.
Leave a few minutes at the end for questions.
Be brutal with people who are long-winded or try to take things off track.
Deal with regular recalcitrants offline.
Wrap up call and summarise next steps.
Sign off all at once with authority.

And then it's over and 20 people try to have individual conversations. 'Trudy can you stay on the line?' 'Thanks St Louis.' 'What perfume is that? I'm itchy.'

And the line goes dead.

/df

Living large in Australia: Are women different?

David Ferrabee — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 00:33:00 GMT

BRISBANE -- There's been a story this week about a female MP called Belinda Neal who is said to have had heated exchanges with civilians. She's been ordered into "anger management" classes by the new PM Kevin Rudd.

As a result there are a series of articles and MP comments about her only being singled out because she's a woman. Her husband -- also a political worthy -- participated in the arguments, but has received no sanction. And there's a brilliant long list of misbehaviour by male pols that follows in true, swashbuckling Aussie form.

Tentatively, I ask: Why would anyone assume that she wouldn't be treated differently because she is a woman?

Of course she will. The workforce and the workplace definitely holds women to a different standard... In pretty much every country and company I have ever worked in.

Is it right? No.

No, blooming way. But it definitely happens. And will continue to happen for at least a few more generations.

In part because there are fewer women in senior roles. So ALL women in senior roles are held out as role models, who have to maintain a higher standard at all times. A standard that is so high, no one could maintain it... even a divine.

And also in part because we men are simple creatures and can't get over the fact that we fancy women, and women can have babies and we can't, and they tend to be smarter, and get along with people better, etc. So we just wait for one to do wrong and then make an example of her.

I know you are not like that, reader. Of course you aren't. But the rest of us are.

So, one day a future prime minister may feel compelled to apologise to women the way Mr Rudd did to the aboriginal population not that long ago.

Ideally that apology would be like Stephen Harper's. The Canadian Prime Minister yesterday offered cash to the native populations of Canada yesterday.

Imagine how much money Belinda Neal could get? Or her descendants?

You read it here first.

/df

'Always go' and 'just ask'

David Ferrabee — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 03:51:00 GMT

PERTH -- I am having dinner with a dozen people I trained today. I will admit, I really didn't want to. I would rather have gone back to the hotel and swam, or sat in a corner and hummed softly to myself. But I am glad I did.

That's often the way. You try to duck out of something, often a social things at work, and then you realise it's good you went. It often seems the way for me anyway. I guess it's worth admitting that I am a people consultant who doesn't really like people...

I went to a few boarding schools and have lived in some very big cities. The one I live in now has a population of 7 million people. That's too many. So, if given the opportunity I will always go home and hide in the shed.

But that's not really the right thing to do.

Tonight we are drinking a nice red wine that my colleague Fiona chose and I am talking to the lady across from me about adjusting to life in this big city after 17 years in a town of 1,500 people. It's a really amazing things.

"Was the weather there nice then?"

"Oh, no. It was awful. I hated it."

"Oh."

You never really know what people have to say until you ask them. And we're not really programmed to ask enough questions. We'd much rather talk about ourselves. But if you ask a lot of questions you usually get some really interesting answers.

About 22 years ago I had to be convinced to go out one night. So did my wife. I introduced myself to her and asked her lots of questions. We've now been married for 16 years.

(So what if she thought I was someone else at the time...?)

Always go. And when you get there, just ask lots of questions. Trust me.

/df

World tour: What I have learned so far

David Ferrabee — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 13:07:00 GMT

PERTH -- I am travelling around the world from left to right with a lovely client at the moment. Yesterday we were in South Africa and today we are in Australia. I had never been to Australia before, so much of this trip is and will be new to me. As a result I have been collecting information and observations. Here's what I have learned:

In some posh parts of South Africa they fill the men's urinals with... ice cubes.
I wish I had got a photo. It was very odd. I half expected to see a few tins of beer in there chilling.
Sugar packs in Australia are white for brown sugar and brown for white sugar.
Go figure.
The Dutch got here first.
The looked around and left again.

I think that's enough for this week.

/df

Welcome home, it's not what you remembered

David Ferrabee — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 06:35:00 GMT

LORD'S, JOHANNESBURG -- I don't know why I should be indignant that Africa has changed since I lived here in 1978... but I am.

I was last in Johannesburg 30 years ago and I have strong memories of it. I remember trying to find a loo in a public place and having six loos to choose from -- so I held it in. In spite of that I remember a town with a great deal more diversity than I see today in Sandton.

I wish I had more time, because I know Africa is out there. This new suburb of Johannesburg feels like a Florida town or gated community of some other type. It is not without soul, but it's not long on it either.

Knowing how peoples' brain's work, I should hasten to point out that I don't think apartheid was better. I lived in Nairobi as a boy and have visited Southern Africa only a few times. There is no doubt that the progress and integration that has happened here (as far as I can see) has been amazing. This is a first world country. But it also feels like it might just be a first world suburb only.

I have always felt that Africa has so much to teach the world about how to live life... Have we instead just applied our models to Africa?

/df

'Rain in the plane' -- we're not heroic

David Ferrabee — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 09:09:00 GMT

THE 21h15 TO JO'BURG -- As the plane lifted off from Heathrow the brown liquid poured out of the bulkhead and compartments above us, and the Asian businessman beside me stood holding a soaking pillow above his head to ward off the rain. Two seats over an enterprising Englishman lifted his open copy of The Mail over his head with a skill developed in many a London drizzle.

A few of us tried to get the cabin crew interested. Having what looked like oil running all over the plane as it headed down the runway didn't seem a good thing. The African man on my left slept right through it, as his trousers slowly changed colour with the wet.

Once up the air, we tended to our moist luggage. And started wiping the bulkhead with blankets and pillows. An attendant finally showed up with a sizable wet patch on his own left shoulder. The Mail-man said "it smells like soup." And a larger South African lady replied, "mine was definitely coffee."

"Put them together and you've almost got a meal," I said to the general appreciation of no one, except me.

What interests me, is that the staff were so complacent. Two passengers were on their feet as we sped down the runway, and that we in the cabin were so useless at responding. The call buttons didn't work... And we all looked around nervously, and wondered what act of magic or courage we were meant to be performing as the plane seemed to be liquefying around us.

It didn't of course and we've flown safely for 10 hours. The head steward gave us all a nice dry-cleaning voucher and nothing more was said about it. No explanation, no mention on the tannoy, no excuses... No new pillows!

At least we know. When the chips are down and all seems to be coming apart, we'll be... ill-prepared and struck dumb into complete inaction.

/df

My first century: 100 books sold

David Ferrabee — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 09:04:00 GMT

STARBUCKS -- Late last month some lucky punter bought the 100th copy of my book People Power. It looks like it was through Amazon -- as my revenue was less than 10% of the cost. But I am not complaining.

That gives me my first century... in book publishing anyway. I think I may have had one in cricket in the late 70s.

I take some comfort in the knowledge that recent high profile biographies haven't sold much more. Lord Levy, John Prescott and Cherie Blair had only sold small numbers last time I read about it... And they've got bigger publicity budgets than I do.

So, I'll put this down as a good start.

And thank everyone who has bought and read the book. (Including another one today thanks to a mention in the Toronto Globe & Mail.)

/df