Kathleen Frith

Sensitivity and Sensibility

Kathleen Frith — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 14:30:00 GMT

A recent study of over 50,000 employees in Canada and the US found that every employee despises at least one thing about the way their boss treats them at work. The results are interesting and have a leadership and communications impact. Below are some of the summarized findings and a few thoughts about how Internal Communications or general interpersonal communications can mitigate the impact. For the entire article in the Globe and Mail, click here.

The Gripe - Management doesn’t listen.

Sixty-six per cent of employees feel management doesn’t pay attention to their concerns and 67 per cent said management doesn’t act on their suggestions.

The Internal Communications Impact – Communicating “wins” and profiling champions

Besides from good old fashioned active listening (taking notes, rephrasing and closing the loop), it’s important to communicate wins across the organization. If employees see other employees’ ideas being put into action (through newsletter articles, employee blogs on their successes, case studies in meetings, etc), the perception that “management never listens” has little to no credibility and will fizzle.

The Gripe – Fear Factor

Fifty-two per cent of employees fear that if they make their opinions known they will face retribution.

The IC Impact – Diffuse the grapevine and the fear factor

The best way to diffuse fear is by walking the walk consistently over time to show employees you value their honesty and act upon it as appropriately. However, many managers are promoted on technical skill, not their ability to manage. In this regard, it’s important to support managers through training and clearly defined expectations – The Manager is the Medium!

A short-term tactic is to establish an anonymous Q&A forum or “grapevine” where employees can ask for clarification about rumours they’ve heard or communicate general concerns to managers. In the case of communicating general concerns, there should be a code of conduct to prevent defamation/unconstructive gossip/etc. Other general thoughts include consciously asking employees for a “temperature check,” close the loop with suggestions and feedback and be open with regards to your own thoughts on an issue to “open the door.”

The Gripe – There’s no appreciation

Forty per cent of respondents said their good work goes unnoticed.

The IC Impact – Champion success and cultivate a culture of recognition

Championing success is briefly described up above. Recognition is an interesting one, and there have recently been spatterings of media coverage about different systems of recognition various organizations have put in place. A colleague told me today about the system Rare Method has in place, in which employees nominate peers for a job well done and that employee receives points. At the end of each month, the employee with the most recognition points can draw for a prize (and they’re good prizes). One of H&K’s SVPs in Ottawa gives away iPods for excellent participation (offering critical thought & strategic insight, problem-solving, etc.) in meetings and presentations. While I hope your employees or colleagues aren’t motivated by entirely extrinsic factors, they certainly don’t harm when the team is constantly burning the midnight oil or going above and beyond.

The Gripe – Lack of respect

56 per cent of respondents said their needs and interests are not acknowledged by managers.

The IC Impact –

If in doubt, communicate face-to-face; don’t “hide” behind email to avoid difficult conversations; share the credit for a job well done and take accountability for your mistakes; practice strategic delegation where possible – give people tasks they enjoy and want to learn.

How sensible.

Social Networking - Disney Style

Kathleen Frith — Thu, 03 May 2007 14:55:00 GMT

Earlier this week, The Walt Disney Company launched a social networking site for the under 14 crowd. Disney Extreme Digital (Disney XD) is aimed at attracting those too young for sites like MySpace, has parental and content controls and limits users to posting content from Disney's own website. Pretty clever from a marketing point-of-view, but that's not why I'm posting about it.

(Bear with me for a minute and I promise I'll connect the dots) I was recently told that a private school in Maryland is banning students from having MySpace pages. That's right, banning. For this school (Unfortunately I don't know the name if it - this came up in casual conversation with one of the students), the debate if students should be able to log in to their MySpaces at school has long since sailed. In fact, it's not a debate. Students at this institution are suspended for having a MySpace page, even if they only use it at home and have parental or guardian permission.

(Linking the two thoughts) On the one had, we have corporations like Disney encouraging tweens and kids to jump on the social networking bandwagon and, on the other hand, we have educators preventing kids from doing so.

I'm interested to hear thoughts on this because, to me (and assuming social networking will become more mainstream and common in the workplace as these kids grow up) it seems as though the corporation is fostering the development of skills these kids will need in the future and the school is hindering it.

If you're interested in Disney XD, check out this Globe and Mail article or go straight to the source: Disney Extreme Digital

Fair Trade Towns

Kathleen Frith — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 22:06:00 GMT

I came across an interesting article on the CBC website this morning. The town of Wolfville, Nova Scotia, is set to become the first 'fair trade town' in Canada. Mayor Bob Stead says residents of the town have indicated a willingness to pay more for fair trade products and, as a fair trade town, both the University and the town's restaurants will switch to fair trade coffee, tea, sugar, etc.

The first fair trade town is Garstang, England, which started the phenomenon in 2000 by self-proclaiming the title, but the trend has grown and there are currently just shy of 250 fair trade towns in the UK alone. The campaign involves 20 countries worldwide.

(Mis)perceptions and equality

Kathleen Frith — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 13:17:00 GMT

I went to Edmonton on Tuesday to observe a one day session of The Manager is the Medium, a managerial training program H&K Canada recommends and sells to clients. As part of the program, participating mangers undertake a "communications covenant" activity in which both managers and employees outline and agree to their obligations to one another and expectations of one another. Gail Roberts, co-creator of the program, delivered most of the session and when it came to the communications covenant activity, she told a story to illustrate a point about how equality is perceived.

A few years back, her and her partner, Bart Mindszenthy, needed some professional photographs done for an article they'd written for one of Canada's major dailies. When they arrived at the photographer's studio, they spent some time chatting about what they did, their business and the purpose of the photographs. After a few minutes, the photographer asked them if they were equal partners in the business, to which they replied they were.

When they went to pose for the photo, the photographer had Gail stand on a box so that she would stand taller than Bart. According to the photographer, when people see a picture of a man and a woman of equal height standing together, they assume the man is in the position of authority. The only way to regain the perception of equality is by having the woman stand taller than the man.

I thought this was quite intriguing, so I googled "equality and perceptions" and came across this article from the online version of the University of Michigan's student paper, The University Record. According to the article, a study was done in the early 1990's that had college students estimate the height of other college students pictured in individual photographs. For every photo shown of a male of a certain height, the students were also (unknowingly) shown a photo of a female of the same height. Those participating consistently judged the females as shorter than they actually were and the men as taller than they actually were.

Gail and Bart translate this theory into their work in managerial communications, by teaching that at work (and in the communications covenant exercise), the manager needs to have more obligations to a direct report than expectations of the direct report.

Does this idea fit beyond the scope of the manager-direct report relationship? Can any person or institution of perceived authority 'level the playing field' by communicating a genuinely unbalanced laundry list of responsibilities (I will do this, that, this and that if you do this one thing for me)? Could this principle be used in transforming an organization to be more participatory or could it be perceived by the Gen-"y"-ers (a.k.a. me) as a throwback to the days of lifetime loyalty and obligation?

Smart companies work inside-out

Kathleen Frith — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 22:33:00 GMT

In January, Edelman released their largest ever study on credibility and trust - the Edelman Trust Barometer 2007. To see a webcast of a panel discussion centered on the study, click here.

Over 3000 respondents from 18 countries took part in the survey, all college-educated, 25 to 64 years of age, reporting a household income in the top-quartile of their country and reporting having significant interest in and engagement with the media and economic and policy affairs.

In other words, this study doesn't paint a picture of what society in general thinks about the trustworthiness of business and government, but rather what the economic/intellectual elite think. That said, the folks at Edelman made some interesting interpretations based on their findings:

According to Richard Edelman, smart companies do things inside-out. "The smart company will use the CEO to inform investors, elite media, and other traditional stakeholders, while at the same time it will arm its employees and customers with information to discuss issues with their peers."
Although articles in industry magazines and analyst reports remain credible as sources of information in the eyes of most respondents, conversations with friends and peers ranks just as high in many countries. In fact, in Europe, North and Latin America, a 'person like me' is considered to be the most credible source of information about a company.
Respondents in the United States and Europe told surveyors that rank-and-file employees are more trusted than CEOs.
According to Michael Deaver, "Technology continues to be the most - and only - globally trusted industry." This one really fascinates me, because it seems every time I research best practices in internal communications, tech companies inevitably pop-up as doing it best.

So what's the lesson here? Effective internal communications isn't about 'thinking outside the box,' it's about turning the box inside-out.

Managers are not organizational salespeople

Kathleen Frith — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 15:19:00 GMT

Last week I had the opportunity to spend time with Gail Roberts, co-creator of The Manager Is The Medium, a training program that teaches managers to think about communications within a strategic paradigm, and co-founder of Mindszenthy & Roberts Communications Counsel. As a senior communications practitioner with years of experience counseling clients through crisis, conflict and major change, Gail brings experience, depth and insight to any conversation about strategic communications. One of these insights struck me in particular - the concept of achieving 'buy-in' when communicating new initiatives or information to employees.

Gail and her partner, Bart Mindszenthy, counsel that one of the major stumbling blocks managers face in communicating new organizational programs, information or initiatives to staff is the manager's perception that they need to achieve 'buy-in' from employees. Oftentimes, managers don't believe themselves in what the company is doing, and therefore feel uncomfortable communicating or 'selling' this news to their direct reports. In other words, if they don't like it, they don't communicate. If we remove 'buy-in' as the manager's objective, we remove this blockage to communication.

When we stop asking managers to attribute values to an organizational announcement - this is good, great, fantastic - and simply ask them to communicate the facts, managers no longer have to sell programs or initiatives they themselves don't believe in. This allows employees to interpret the facts through their own experience and values filters, rather than shoving it down their throats.

This comes as a big 'ah-ha' moment for many managers - employees don't have to like an organizational initiative or program, they simply have to understand it. Acceptance and support is bred from understanding and is a gift, not a given.

Simple stories

Kathleen Frith — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 15:21:00 GMT

I recently attended an IABC Calgary half-day workshop on corporate storytelling. The presenter, Corrine Tessier, had the 20 or so participants start the day by partnering up, with one person telling the other a two minute story about an object in their bag - cell phones, notebooks, pens, etc. Following the exercise, the room came alive as the group explained the impact of this simple activity. Some of the paraphrased comments include:

The listener almost immediately engaged with the speaker;
Within just two minutes, the listener had a much better understanding of the speaker's personality;
In many of the stories, the speaker communicated vulnerability, which many of the listeners interpreted as authenticity;
The story and its implications served as common ground from which to move forward;
The listener was better able to remember the speaker after this short period;
The story served as a jumping-off point for further discussion, often about seemingly unconnected ideas.

Fast forward to an organizational context and the role deliberate, well-crafted stories can, should or do play. No doubt, there is a Change and Internal Communications application. However, stories are natural to us all - an inherent capability - meaning we should be able to take stories beyond the walls of an organization to all facets of corporate communication, or at the very least many of them. Media relations, Advanced Key Messaging (think proof points) and community relations are a few thoughts.

Stories are a little like blogs, in that they are viral. If you hear a fantastic story, you're likely to repeat it, modify it slightly to suit your needs, assume ownership over the tale and re-tell it. For something inherent and natural, it seems to me we don't use stories nearly enough, myself included.