For Your Approval

Teamwork through barbecue

In my other life, I am Rockin' Ronnie, the Dean of Barbecue Academy. Our Academy motto is "vivamus vitam fumosam" which is Latin for "let us live the barbecue lifestyle."

I leave tomorrow for Calgary, to prepare for an all-day Secrets of Championship Barbecue Workshop on Thursday for a group of corporate managers with a big oil company.

The idea is to split them into teams of four or five and then spend the day training them in the ways of championship barbecue. At the end of the workshop, each team will be judged by a panel of six of their peers using the rules of the Kansas City Barbecue Society. We'll give out prizes to the winning teams and end the day, capping things off with a Southern-style barbecue feast and a live bluegrass band.

The company I'm doing this with is big on safety. In addition to the teambuilding aspect of the event, they're also taking the opportunity to use the workshop as a safety risk evaluation exercise. We'll be discussing the various hazards involved in the workshop (knife handling, live fires, biohazard from raw chicken, sunburn, excessive alcohol consumpion) and how they can be mitigated before the session begins.

I'll start the day with a lecture on knife safety. I will also remind the participants of the high risks involved in not drinking. Sobriety and barbecue don't mix.

For me, barbecue is the ultimate metaphor for life. It's a greasy prism through which we can all see the world in a new, smoke-tinted light.

Metaphors and analogies are one of the most powerful tools in corporate communications, and I think we should use them more often. They make information, well, tastier.

Crescenzo Unplugged

My old friend Steve Crescenzo likes to call himself the Winston Churchill of employee communications. Like Churchill, he's a blowhard, has a rapier wit, enjoys a drink and a cigar now and then, and likes going to war once in a while. And, of course, he's also a great speaker.

I imagine many of the readers of this blog have attended Steve's conference sessions and read his blog. But if you haven't heard Steve speak, here's a chance to get a taste of the man in action (that didn't come out right, but anyway....).

Visit a link to Steve's interview with Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz at In Session, the IABC conference blog or, if you have iTunes, search the podcast section for "In Session" and you can download it from there.

Steve's commonsense approach to employee communication is refreshing and enlightening, and his energy, enthusiasm and humor are enough to give even the most burnt-out, cynical communicators some inspiration and hope.

The central issue of our time

It's been an eventful week in our little quadrant of the blogosphere.

If you haven't been following the imbroglio spawned by some comments by David Murray in the Journal of Employee Communications Management, I suggest you check out Steve Crescenzo's great blog, Corporate Hallucinations, where a recent post provides an entertaining overview of the tempest. A string of over 50 comments contains a lively and thorough discussion of the issues.

Those issues were:

1. whether social media - blogs, wikis, podcasts, etc. - have a place in corporate employee communications, and

2. whether it's rude to call someone a nobody.

The nobody issue has been resolved, with the main characters agreeing to make up over a beer.

The conversation about the social media issue will continue, but I want to draw your attention to one of the comments on Steve's blog. In the midst of the cyber-bun-toss, the curmudgeonly Mr. Murray threw in a disturbing observation:

"Very generally speaking, I see management as less interested in exchanging ideas with and broadcasting ideas to employees than it was 15 years ago; I see companies taking fewer chances and having less fruitful exchanges with employees; I see internal communicators less hopeful of making a difference with communication than they were 15 years ago; I see companies with less meaningful relationships with their workforces than they had 15 years ago.Yet, social media seems to be the subject area where all the passion lies.

"And I wish, for all of our sakes, that this weren't so."

Sadly, I agree with David. The profession/corporate function of employee communications is in a sorry state these days. We're living in a dark age, my friends.  And I believe one of the main reasons is the rise of Intranets and e-mail. A decade ago these new online tools promised to reach employees in new ways and reduce costs. Instead, corporations spent millions more on bytes than they ever spent on ink to build a cold, fractured, multi-channel mess that overloads managers, disenfranchises front-line workers and creates a digital ghetto for employee communicators.

Enter social media, with their ability to empower and connect people. Some see these new online tools as a salvation that will help to build internal communities and empower employees.

David is worried that we may be hanging too much of our hopes on social media to solve the deep, disturbing problems we face as employee communicators.

I'm worried, too.

11 ways to improve approvals

I delivered my first teleseminar yesterday, on how to improve the approval process. I think it went okay but it’s impossible to tell until the evaluation results come in.

What a strange communication medium. It’s quite daunting to speak for a full hour into a telephone with complete silence on the other end of the line. The last half hour was opened up for questions, which was much more relaxing and fun.

With the topic of the session fresh in my mind, I thought I’d share an extremely condensed version with you.

11 ways to improve approvals

1. The more work done up front to determine the content and angle of the story, the easier the approvals. The more detailed and thorough the planning, the more comfortable management is with what you do. Story lineups and editorial calendars are helpful tools, but even if you don’t have a master plan, engage in a constant dialogue with your internal contacts to determine what needs to be covered and when. No surprises = easier approvals.

2. It pays to build positive relationships with internal stakeholders. Whether approvals are simple or complex, they are easier to deal with if the editor has the trust and support of executives and content providers. Indeed, the very act of consulting with an executive about what tack a story should take, or asking someone to review a drafted story, are important bits of relationship-building. When effective editors have issues, they face them head-on, and they prefer to have a face-to-face conversation with their colleagues.

3. Written guidelines and formal processes help. Style guides, written values and principles, boilerplate e-mails outlining how a reviewer should look at an article—even a written publication “manifesto” from the CEO in the first issue of a new magazine—all these contribute to a greater feeling of control by the editor and a stronger sense of confidence among stakeholders. Written guidelines also help to resolve arguments. Write them in peacetime, refer to them when war breaks out.

4. Streamline the process. Only the sources who are quoted should see the draft of a story unless there’s a good reason for a lawyer to look at it. The fewer people who have to review a story, the better its chances are of making it through the process intact.

5. Business literacy goes a long way toward building stakeholder confidence. The better an editor knows the business—its players, issues, sensitivities, long-term strategy, goals, and so on—the easier it is to earn trust and respect in his or her role.

6. Editors need a senior advocate. It almost goes without saying that the editors who have the support and backing of a senior executive, or, ideally, the CEO, wield more power, are more effective in their jobs and are more likely to achieve positive changes.

7. Research is an important tool. Almost nothing sells an idea better than, “We have talked to our employees, and this is what they want to know.” Survey data is extremely powerful in pushing forward an agenda that advocates more frank communication. No executive wants to waste money on an employee publication that is not respected by its readers. 

8. Technology can help streamline approvals. Editors who have to deal with complex approvals can benefit from using technology to streamline the process. Several different options exist, from web-based wikis that allow multiple users to make revisions to a master document, to specialized document management software like Livelink, to a simple network solution using the revisions function of Microsoft Word.

9. The more experienced the writer, the easier the approvals. If it’s an important story, don’t send in a junior staffer, student, or new freelancer. If you use freelance writers, it’s better to develop long-term relationships with them, and to make use of specialized knowledge and skills whenever possible. I know of companies where freelance writers have been working for the publication for so long that content providers will ask for them by name.

10. Using business unit communicators as point people can help. This approach can build trust and streamline approvals—although some successful editors like to go directly to the source because involving other communicators complicates matters. For the most part, though, having someone “on the ground” who knows the issues and the players is a useful technique.

11. Executives will always be reluctant to address controversial issues in print, or in any medium for that matter. In the end, if the only way an executive is comfortable talking about sensitive issues is in face-to-face meetings, so be it. Hold as many face-to-face meetings as you can, then, and the information will get out.

Any more points you'd add to this list?

Any war stories to share?

Any questions?

Any positive feedback from my session yesterday?

Anyone? Anyone?

In cyberspace, no one can hear you scream. Unless you have RSS.

Escape from approval hell

I named this blog For Your Approval because the review/approval process is at the centre of every employee communicator's job. Getting stories approved can be a living hell, and after over 20 years in this business it still causes me plenty of grief.

Over the years I have been obsessed with the topic. I've studied it, written on it, presented on it, and next week I will be delivering the definitive teleseminar on it, hosted by my friends at Ragan Communications.

If you want to join me in a deep dive into the murky realm of managing approvals, sign up today. I promise you'll come out of it feeling clean and refreshed, and with at least one or two things you'll be able to immediately apply in your job.

The Bureaucro-meter

Lost in the corporate wasteland? Stuck in the existential hell that is life in a big organization? Check the level of your despair with this handy test!

Answer on a scale of one to five. One means the statement doesn’t apply to you, five means you’re its walking definition.

1. At my company, business meetings between more than three people are often ‘facilitated.’
    1    2    3    4    5

2. Many decisions related to directly to my work are made at least two authority levels above me.
    1    2    3    4    5

3. Most informal conversations at my workplace center on the stupidity and incompetence of senior management.
    1    2    3    4    5

4. My department has adversarial relationships with other departments.
    1    2    3    4    5

5. I don’t respect my supervisor.
    1    2    3    4    5

6. I spend more than 50 hours a week at work.
    1    2    3    4    5

7. Most of my time is spent dealing with internal politics and responding to onerous requests from executives.
    1    2    3    4    5

8. I have more colds than anyone else I know.
    1    2    3    4    5

9. When I point out a problem and recommend a solution, no one listens and nothing gets done.
    1    2    3    4    5

10. I’m so tired I don’t have the energy to look for another job.
    1    2    3    4    5

Add up your total score. If you score between 10 and 20: You’re very lucky or seriously deluded. Between 21 and 30: Welcome to the working week. Between 31 and 40: There’s still hope, but you can’t go on living this way. Between 41 and 50: Consider resigning immediately or getting counseling.

I developed the preceding questionnaire 10 years ago, when it appeared in the Ragan Report. Have things changed much since then? And are there any new questions that should be added?

To kill a butterfly

Back in the 1980s there was a craze in corporate America that saw many companies publishing "values statements" -- short summaries of what a company is, and what it stands for.

Soon after the trend took hold, there was a backlash,  a rebellion against the saccharine, reductionist corporatespeak of these little screeds, which were often printed on the back of employees' business cards or carried around their necks, printed to their security passes. The little cards became, for some, a symbol of corporate propaganda at its worst. By publishing an organization's values (usually spelled with a capital V), its leaders could tick another box on their to-do list and get on with the task of laying off half the employee population.

For employees, the values, which often cited a commitment to customer service, a promise of honesty and integrity, and some words about how people are our most important asset, quickly became not much more than an ironic reminder of their employer's failure to live up to them. And their flowery language and written-by-committee, bureaucratic tone made professional communciators cringe.

Today, it's unusual for big companies not to have a written mission/vision/values statement and, in general, it's a practice that still invites some cynicism, but it's also seen as a way to quickly and easily explain an organization's basic qualities to its employees and other stakeholders.

I talked to a colleague yesterday whose organization does not have a set of written values and she asked me if it was worth doing. Her employer has a great culture, and she's worried that going through the exercise of capturing its qualities in a values statement might somehow damage or sulley them -- taking away their subtlety and charm.

"Don't employees just discover the values of their company simply by working there?" she said. "After I was hired, I had a lot of fun learning about our culture. I feel as if writing it down would take that experience away from people."

Readers, what do you think? Is defining a culture by publishing its values akin to killing a butterfly and sticking it to a board with a pin? Do published values instill pride and commitment or cynicism and distrust?

And what's the role of internal communicators in all this?

The frustrated communicator

It's no wonder that the role of employee communicator is often a burnout job.

How many times have you had a story ready to go out to your organization's employees, only to have it pulled or drastically changed at the last minute by executives who are nervous, or have second thoughts, or just feel like getting under the hood and getting their hands dirty?

I'm not sure if any other profession has this particular problem, or at least has it to the degree we do. And that's understandable, because once something is published, it's out there, exposed for all to see, and there is no shortage of critics and nitpickers in the corporate world. Many executives are perfectionists. That's how they achieved their success. And they're politically aware. That's how they survived their journey to the top. And they're overly sensitive because all they do all day is deal with a myriad of problems and complaints. They don't need another one caused by a newsletter article.

But time and time again I've seen this kind of instinctive, meddlesome behaviour frustrate and demotivate communicators, and leave employees in an information vacuum. There is no fully effective vaccine for this illness, but there are some tactics that will help reduce outbreaks and help the wounds caused by it heal faster:

1. Do it right. A well-researched, well-written article that has been checked by subject matter experts has a far better chance of getting out than one that has factual errors and poor transitions.

2. Get buy-in ahead of time. If an issue is sensitive, discuss the approach you're going to take ahead of time and get approval in principle. No surprizes equals less meddling.

3. Stick up for yourself. Communicators, especially ones early in their careers, often end up just giving in. But if you have the courage to say, "Look, this shouldn't be happening" and back up your defence based on sound principles like the need for open, timely communication, you'd be surprised at how much respect you'll earn.

4. Empathize. Executives are humans, too, although sometimes it doesn't seem that way. Try to understand what motivates the irksome behavior instead of just being angry with it.

5. Have a drink. Straight vodka works for me.