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June 11, 2010 by Scott
I love the opening line of Darryl Scott’s song My Father’s House: “I was born and raised in my father’s house, can catching rain in the kitchen.” One line – about two-thirds of a Tweet in length – suggests a large, textured story of a mother-less home that’s not just broken, but permanently unfixed.
I love it because it’s a great example of two things. First, the most powerful way of understanding is to let our minds do what they most want to do with information – assemble it into stories. You can’t hear Scott’s line without building a story around it. And second, a short, simple story can contain a lot of information.
Researchers say the power of story comes from four factors: they mirror the way we think (which is in narrative structures), they define who we are, they build and preserve a group’s sense of community and they have universal meaning. That’s why they are so potent as translators of any organization’s culture.
Think about little stories that say big things about your workplace. I remember early on in my tenure at D&E hearing about a meeting with a new client in which the client CEO wadded up a draft of a document one of my colleagues had written and threw it at him in front of our CEO, who politely resigned on the spot. It happened over 25 years ago and I wasn’t there, but it still says something about our culture to me. The magic formula our founders created was to have sought-after professionals drawn to the chance to do great, sought-after client work and vice versa, in an environment of mutual respect. Letting the wrong kind of clients abuse us would eventually have chased away the professionals that were necessary to keep the kind of clients we were built for.
I also remember a client CEO who, after hearing his general counsel’s strategy for litigating some workplace cancer suits, told him that the company was responsible for the illnesses of these former employees and if they didn’t take ownership of that responsibility they’d be letting down every employee. It’s a client I was drawn to keep working with as I moved from account management to the CEO’s seat and that’s the story I’ve used to describe the company ever since.
I have another client whose CEO had a marble bathroom installed in his office the year the company barely missed the earnings goal needed to pay employee bonuses. It’s a story that’s still told there 10 years later. Fortunately, the CEOs who came before and after him are the kind that generate positive stories, so Mr. Marble Bathroom is seen as a leader the culture spat out.
I started my career as a writer of short fiction and magazine features, and have always been attracted to stories. One of the things that energizes me as a communication consultant is helping companies and leaders find and tell their stories. And I love to hear the little, powerful stories that people tell to describe their work cultures. Do you have one?
May 25, 2010 by Scott
It doesn’t feel entirely right to pick on BP. Beside the fact that the Deepwater disaster is a human and environmental tragedy, BP has just made itself too easy to target. But there’s an important lesson about the tug of war between risk- and reputation-management that’s worth some thought.
First, back to BP as easy target: The company has failed to slow the leak since the April 20 explosion. Most scientists seem to believe BP’s estimates of oil leakage are far too low, yet it has resisted requests to install the sophisticated equipment needed for more accurate assessments. At various times CEO Tony Hayward has told reporters: “Almost nothing has escaped,” “The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean; the amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume,” and “I think the environmental impact of this disaster is likely to have been very, very modest.”
Now, on to the tug of war: if you’ve helped manage a crisis, you know it involves the need to balance multiple competing interests. Part of the ongoing debate among the BP team has to be how to walk the line between showing the public it accepts full responsibility without suggesting to the courts that it owns all liability. At stake are the huge remedial and legal costs the company faces on one hand (Exxon’s Valdez-related costs were over $4 billion) and the harder-to-measure reputational costs on the other. (InterBrand measured the value of BP’s brand at about $4 billion last year – it will be interesting to see how far it falls.) On the daily measure of market cap, BP has lost $56 billion in value since the explosion.
What started me thinking about the battle between BP’s risk- and reputation-management efforts was its blame-shifting Senate testimony; let’s just assume that strategy was crafted while its PR team was out of the room. As you think back over BP’s various actions and statements, imagine a political cartoon that shows an arm-wrestling match between BP’s general counsel and head of public affairs. Its very first press release after the explosion emphasized that Transocean owned the oil rig – the GC’s cartoon wrist has a slight advantage, as the public is still assessing responsibility. On May 4, the company pledges to pay all legitimate claims regardless of government-imposed limits – public affairs now has the upper hand. Until CEO Hayward added, “This is America — come on. We’re going to have lots of illegitimate claims.” The GC’s hand is now on top. By the time BP blamed Transocean in its May 11 Senate testimony, the spill was already branded in the public (and political) consciousness as BP’s— the general counsel’s wrist is pressing his opponent’s toward the table.
You get the picture – and you can play the game yourself up through today’s events and beyond. I’m not saying it’s an easy balancing act, but I don’t think this one is going to look like the model. The only thing wrong with the arm-wrestling analogy is that it seems pretty clear BP will lose in both the courts of law and public opinion. With both hands slammed to the table, we’ll wonder to what degree BP beat itself. Any guesses?
May 18, 2010 by Scott
At first blush, you wouldn’t consider Mark Twain a model for business leaders. He squandered his considerable wealth on bad investments and ultimately declared bankruptcy more than 20 years after publishing his first book. Afterward he said, “To succeed in business, avoid my example.”
It’s a shame, though, because he actually knew a lot about leadership – particularly about the leader as communicator. Not surprisingly, he saw the value of clear communication (“The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug”) and compelling language (“Anybody can have ideas—the difficulty is to express them without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that ought to be reduced to one glittering paragraph”). He also understood the power of praise (“I can live for two months on a good compliment”) and of having a clear vision (“You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus”). Finally, he knew the importance of setting an example (“Always do right. This will gratify some and astonish the rest”) and of creating a positive work environment (“Work and play are words used to describe the same thing under differing conditions”).
In addition to being a great writer – or maybe part of the reason he was a great writer—Twain had three qualities in rare amounts: a deep understanding of human nature, extraordinary common sense and powerful communication skills. All three are critical components of successful leadership. Though the ability to make good investment decisions helps, too. (Thanks to LeadershipNow for some of the quotes.)
May 10, 2010 by Scott
Nature is full of ideas for the attuned innovator – and for the attuned leader.
The growing field of biomimicry has some great examples of nature-driven innovation: non-toxic adhesives inspired by geckos, energy efficient buildings inspired by termite mounds and resistance-free antibiotics inspired by red seaweed.
The Biomimicry Institute defines biomimicry as: “the science and art of emulating Nature’s best biological ideas to solve human problems.” I came across something written by the Institute’s president that made me realize nature also offers some good insights into solving organizational issues. Here’s what she (Janine Benyus) calls the “Nine Laws of Nature”:
Nature runs on sunlight.
Nature uses only energy it needs.
Nature fits form to function.
Nature recycles everything.
Nature rewards cooperation.
Nature banks on diversity.
Nature demands local expertise.
Nature curbs excess from within.
Nature taps the power of limits.
Think about some of the evolving traits of great organizations. They’re efficient and well-designed, close to and insightful about their markets, and increasingly are energizing and transparent, attentive to ethical and social values, diverse points of view and teamwork.
I’m not sure geckos and termite mounds offer the best organizational lessons, but it’s promising that I learned about this where I did: at a presentation at Case’s Weatherhead School of Management.
Do you see corollaries from nature in your organization?
April 14, 2010 by Scott
A lot of leaders are talking about updating their brands, repositioning themselves or re-engaging as marketers as they come out of the recession. Some of these conversations sound a lot like those we had frequently in the early and mid-90s: companies talking about moving further up the value scale by positioning themselves as what used to be called “solutions providers.” In other words, they want to be differentiated by expertise rather than just products.
A lot of CEOs trying to make that transformation during the earlier period became frustrated that their people wouldn’t “stop selling boxes.” The change can be a great strategy for the right companies but there are a couple of things that many learned the hard way. First, consultative selling requires different skills, tools and incentives – either your box-sellers need different training or you need different people. The act of buying consulting involves different calculus than buying products – the selling has to adjust. Secondly, so does the marketing. It’s not that the four P’s don’t apply, but it’s helpful to consider a fifth one: perspective. Marketing intellectual capability is about demonstrating what you know and how you think.
IBM was a computer manufacturer that underwent a massive transformation and is now all about Building a Smarter Planet. Check out its website, which is heavy on thinking and learning, or its barely branded asmarterplanet.com blog (look for IBM hidden at the bottom). Dell is still selling hardware; its website is focused on products and shopping. To see the an extreme example of thought leadership, try the consulting pioneers McKinsey, whose site is a monster of knowledge management. (Interesting that ex-McKinseyite Louis Gerstner led IBM’s shift.)
Being able to solve customer problems can be a great differentiator, and every company wants to spotlight differences as they look to reposition themselves. They just have to remember that, to really make that shift, they have to act differently, too.
March 26, 2010 by Scott
I’ve recently been working with a client CEO on announcing a major change in senior leadership and with two others on the potential merger of their organizations. In both cases I found myself explaining a dynamic that most experienced communication pros intuitively understand is fundamental to announcing a major change: it matters a lot how and when people are told.
The announcement of any big change has a particular sequence to it, dictated by the formal rules of disclosure (especially for public companies and highly regulated entities) and the informal rules of the culture. The former are relatively clear and the latter are unique to the organization. What’s true in every case, though, is that the people affected – no matter how slightly—will reach conclusions regarding their importance to the organization and its leadership according to three factors:
• Immediacy – Employees and others will notice how close to the initial announcement they were told, and by whom.
• Order – They will take into account who was told before and after them.
• Frequency – Different constituencies will have different expectations regarding how often they are updated or asked for their input.
You can tell when an announcement has been sequenced wrong. The classic example is when senior managers learn something big in the newspaper – for example, that they have a new boss or are being combined with another business. Instead of focusing on the change, they’re distracted by concerns about how they were told and what the implications of that might be.
It’s a simple concept, but it gets very complicated when it’s ignored.
March 24, 2010 by Scott
Communications pros recognize that leaving an information void is essentially inviting people to fill it themselves. Here’s a classic example: a new study shows that companies that are actively engaged in social media are most likely to see declines in the use of their entries on Wikipedia. If you aren’t telling your own story, someone else is and people will go elsewhere to find it.
The Penn/VCU study also found that Wikipedia continues to grow more prominent in driving search engine results. Its impact ramps up when companies are in the news, which is when usage and edits increase. Entries have become more focused on current events rather than history, and are becoming more negative, too. Wikipedia is a powerful story-teller and an important one to keep in mind.
March 11, 2010 by Scott
Gordon Bethune, the phenomenally successful retired CEO of Continental Airlines, recently told a New York Times interviewer that he was a disciplined and consistent communicator to employees: “I did a weekly voice mail — every week for 10 years, a three- to five-minute message. Every week I’d tell them what was going on. And we had a daily update with our stock price, our on-time performance, who did what to whom in our industry. So the employees always kind of knew what was going on. They had direct access to me, and direct access to the information … And we never lied.”
I love his formula and it’s had to argue with his success. He took over as president as Continental seemed headed for bankruptcy number three and engaged his colleagues in an effort to win over customers. Together they moved the airline from being ranked last in every measurable performance category to winning more JD Power customer satisfaction awards than any other airline. Continental’s stock price rose from $2 to over $50 per share and it began a string of five straight years as Fortune’s most admired airline and six years as one of its top 100 workplaces.
Obviously, they had to do a lot of things right to make that climb. From a communication perspective, information and insight provided via routine outreach helped create a sense of importance, trust and common purpose. It’s a simple approach that clearly helped fuel a powerful culture.
February 15, 2010 by Scott
The other night, I had the opportunity to watch conductor Franz Welser-Most as he watched his Cleveland Orchestra being led by guest conductor Pierre Boulez. Cleveland is generally regarded as one of the world’s greatest orchestras, particularly in its ability to created a blended, unified sound. I’m not discerning enough to hear the difference in its playing under a different conductor but I’m sure Welser-Most is – I’m sure he could tell if the musicians were playing their best and how well they were blending with each other. Since only the conductor was different, that means he could discern Boulez’s vision for the music and his ability to communicate it to the players and attract them to it.
In other words, he could judge how well Boulez did the job that every leader has.
Wouldn’t it be great if it was that easy to tell if your organization was pursuing a clear, accepted vision and working together in a way that allowed them to perform at a level that exceeded what they could do independently? Because that’s the goal of a leader and the purpose of communication within any organization.
Surveys, feedback and observation are the mainstays of determining whether your organization is in tune with your leadership and each other. It would be convenient if another CEO could tell whether it was so just as easily as Welser-Most could by listening, but it doesn’t work that way outside the concert hall. The trick is to combine enough understanding and insight into your organization with sufficient outside perspective to be able to discern that organization as clearly as a maestro.
December 21, 2009 by Scott
A kind and funny client sent me the following. I’ve scrubbed the names to protect the guilty—feel free to plug in the names of your executives.
The Night Before Earnings
(with apologies to Clement Moore)
‘Twas the night before earnings, and all through accounting,
The figures weren’t footing, and pressure was mounting.
The results were all due by the morning trade open,
Or at least by the close, we all were sure hoping.
The release was re-drafted, with changes checked in,
But key figures lacked support, and that’s surely a sin.
And (IRO) in his office, and I up in mine,
Had just settled in for the rest of the grind.
When down on eleven there arose such a clatter,
I phoned (CEO’s assistant) to see what was the matter.
Away to (CFO’s) office we looked in to check,
Peeked in at the door, then yelled, “What the heck?”
The CFO’s office was crowded with guests,
Some sitting, some standing, some up on the desk,
Not investors, not lawyers, not bankers (what luck!),
But Santa and his elves, come to see (CFO) and (CEO).
“We’re here to help finish,” said Santa, “You bet!”
“From Comp NOI to early extinguishment of debt.”
And with HPs and 10-keys, his elves they did hustle,
Down to floor seven, to offer their muscle.
“Now revenue! Now earnings!
Now E-B-D-T!
Now progress on all the debt maturity!
To the balance sheet, pipeline and S-74s!
The 8-K, the call script, Supplemental and more!”
As they went to their work, we all looked on in awe.
Their tables were perfect, their exhibits – no flaw!
They even gave opinions on Reg G compliance,
Reg FD, safe harbor and convertible debt finance.
And then, in a twinkling, as they footed each column,
I heard a low murmur, and the mood it turned solemn.
As I looked down the hall to see what was coming,
It was St. Nick, (CFO) and (CEO), all seventh-floor slumming!
(CEO) dressed in a sweater, and likewise for (CFO),
Not St. Nick, though, he liked to dress up for his job!
Red suit, pants and cap, black boots and a belt,
(The fabric looked regal, but was probably felt!)
A stump of a pencil he held tight in his teeth,
And a green eyeshade encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a sack of work papers and a round little belly,
From too many late-night meals from the deli.
As he strode to the elevator with his CPA elves,
We looked on, still wondering if we should be pinching ourselves,
But I heard him call out before he disappeared from sight,
“Happy earnings to all, and to all a good night!”
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