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David Murray: The Samuel Beckett of Employee Communications?

My friend David Murray is speaking at next week's RonCon 2010 conference in Vancouver and Calgary next week on the theme Buried Treasure: Unlocking Long-lost Wisdom to Renew our Profession.  A couple of years ago he found the first -- and it turns out, the best -- handbook on employee communication, which happens to have been published 70 years ago.

Ragan.com asked me to write a review of Employee Communication is Different, a white paper David wrote about the handbook. Please give it a read, and then download the white paper. 

And here's a fun little video featuring David talking about his upcoming RonCon 2010 speech.

Prophecy

I wrote this about 15 years ago. It's from the conclusion of a chapter I wrote for  a handbook on employee communications:

The way large companies operate is changing. The decline of the hierarchical, militaristic corporation and the rise of the open, flat, customer-driven service organization have serious and profound implications for internal communicators. If we cannot find ways to link our jobs with the newly emerging business paradigms, we could wake up and find ourselves locked out of the system -- a dying race of corporate functionaries, serving only the arcane needs of the executive instead of looking for ways to help the entire company move forward.

As a corporate journalist, you are in a unique position. You live in the eye of the hurricane of change. From where you stand you can see things others can't see. The words you put on paper can help lead your readers out of the chaos and push your organization in positive new directions.

Expand "the words you put on paper"  to include a few more channels and some promising new technologies and you have a vision that is more relevant today than it was when it was conceived.

My friends, it's almost 2010. It's time to sift through the ashes of corporate journalism, find whatever didn't burn, and rebuild our profession for the new, wired world.

There are lots of good things being done towards this end. Indeed, there's a little revolution going on out there. I'm on a mission to help communicators join that revolution -- and then lead it in the organizations they serve.

The Murder of the Corporate Magazine: A Morality Play

Ten years ago I wrote the one-act play that you'll see below, which originally appeared in the Journal of Employee Communication Management.

I am drawing your attention to it today because, despite the big Web 2.0 revolution that's going on, print as a medium has not lost its relevance when it comes to employee communications. I continue to see examples of great employee magazines and hear about companies dusting off the old format and launching new ones.

I'm not blind. I know reading habits are changing, and more and more people are turning to the net as their primary source of news.  But the biggest reason commercial print publications are in such trouble these days is that they're losing advertising revenue to the web, not because they've suddenly become irrelevant. The reason corporate employee publications died an untimely death many years ago is that communicators thoughtlessly sacrificed them in a Faustian pact so they could justify the cost of installing intranets.

Even as social media are revolutionizing the way we communicate, nothing on a computer screen can yet match the huge natural strengths of a corporate magazine in reaching a broad audience, allowing for in-depth analysis and capturing the essence of a brand.

I think this play is as relevant today as it was in 1998. Let me know what you think.

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The Murder of the Corporate Magazine: A Morality Play

“Let’s face it. The corporate magazine is dead. And, for the most part, good riddance.”
- Ron Shewchuk, The Ragan Report, 1995

SETTING: Just outside the Gates of Hell.

THE PLAYERS: Saint Peter, Satan, Ron Shewchuk, and a generic corporate communication manager.

THE SITUATION: Left for dead by most of the North American business community and stinging from countless rebukes in the 'Report Card,' the Corporate Magazine is in Purgatory. On its way to almost certain damnation, it is given one last chance to justify its existence at a special hearing before Saint Peter at the Gates of Hell. It's going to be a tough sell. Satan seems to have all the cards. (The stage is shrouded in darkness. The lighting effects gives a kind of swirling, going-back-in-time kind of effect, showing the Corporate Magazine spinning towards a distant yellowish light, with the sound of agonizing screaming in the background and the smell of brimstone. Suddenly, the stage is bathed in bright light. Smoke trails across the floor. We are in a macabre courtroom. St. Peter is the presiding judge. The Corporate Magazine is standing at the bar, looking worn and wrinkled. Satan is the prosecuting attorney, and Ron Shewchuk is the defense counsel.)

St. Peter: (to the Magazine) Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

Corporate Magazine: Your holiness, do you know who you're talking to? I was the last bastion of truth in the corporate world. Companies spoke directly to their people through me. I didn't just tell the truth, I defined one in every page. I am the truth. (shakes its head, muttering) Not that anyone cares any more, I'm doomed. Doomed . . .

St. Peter: (reading from a long list) You stand accused of wasting billions of dollars and millions of hours of time; destroying thousands of acres of prime forest; selling out to management; turning communication into a meaningless fashion show; refusing to target your audience; poisoning the atmosphere with the smell of ink and varnish; creating an artificial barrier between management and workers; and the list goes one. How do you plead?

CM: (looking very weary) I've been beaten up so long, I'm starting to believe this stuff. I might as well put an end to it all and plead guil. . .

Ron Shewchuk: (Jumping out of his chair) NOT guilty, your holiness! My client pleads not guilty . . . by reason of insanity.

St. Peter: Your evilness, you may call your first witness.

Satan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's cut the crap. The accused is guilty, and deserves to spend the rest of its days with me. But for your sake, I'll go through the motions. I have only one witness to call: the accused! (gives the Magazine a sneering look). Look at you! Do you think anyone should take you seriously dressed like that? How many colors are you?

CM: (looking haughty and slightly indignant) Nine, with one metallic and a coat of varnish. Just like any other respectable, high-class magazine.

Satan: Mmm. And your paper?

CM: Forty-pound semigloss, with a 60-pound cover.

Satan: And what's that on your back?

CM: I'm perfect-bound, of course. Saddle stitching is for the great unvarnished.

Satan: Open up and show us your photographs. Oooh! How much do you budget for those?

Ron Shewchuk: I object, your holiness! This line of questioning is irrelevant and insulting. My client should be judged by its content, not by its appearance!

St. Peter: Objection overruled. One of the charges is wastefulness, and what we've heard sounds pretty wasteful to me. You may continue.

Satan: Thank you, but there's no need. I've made my point. (rubs his hands together) Hey, hey, hey. Now let's turn to your precious content. What did you usually contain?

CM: Almost anything, but mostly fascinating stories about management's vision of the future. You know, the latest program to increase production, improve quality, motivate the workforce. And we had lots of profiles of senior executives, even some of employees. All of it was very readable, with pithy headlines, funky illustrations, wide-angle photos, lots of pull-quotes. We only focused on what worked, so it was also very positive. Every once in a while we'd talk about where the industry was going. Oh, yes . . . we usually started out with a self-aggrandizing, puffy introduction by the editor.

Satan: And was the so-called content useful to the organization you served? Did it make a difference?

CM: (Looking shifty-eyed, laughing nervously) What can I say? CEOs loved me. They showed me to their executive friends, and they loved me too. And you should see the awards I won for my editors and designers.

Satan: (rolling his eyes) Let me repeat the question. Were you useful to the organization you served?

CM: Well, now that you mention it, no one ever asked that question. I always thought it was a given. I scored high in the readership surveys.

Satan: So, if you're so useful, what are you doing here today, standing at the Gates of Hell?

CM: (angry) They all took me for granted. I started to look shoddy. My editors got sloppy. To save money they fired their designers and did the layout themselves. Pretty soon everyone wanted to put out their own magazines, but of course they couldn't, so they settled for these ugly little newsletters. Before long everybody had a newsletter. And they shunned me! (sobbing, as Satan looks on, smirking) They started publishing me less often. And now I'm here in Purgatory. Nobody even thinks of me anymore. All they talk about is their stupid intranet, and their face-to-face meetings, and how they want to tie communication to the bottom line. Well, I've had it. They can take their corporate world and shove it . . .

Ron Shewchuk: You see, your holiness? It's insane! This magazine did not commit any crime. It is a victim. A victim of changing times. A victim of . . . . (turns toward the audience, pointing an accusing finger at the Generic Corporate Communication Manager, who is seated behind the bar) . . . you! You are responsible for all of this!

Generic Corporate Communication Manager: (leaps up, frantically waves arms) It's true! It was me! I tried to kill the Corporate Magazine. I couldn't stand the smell of varnish anymore! And I needed money! Money to buy all the technology everyone told me I needed to do my job in the next millennium! Money to pay for all the communicating that has to get done if we want to survive! Everyone gets over a hundred messages a day, by e-mail, voice mail, snail mail, cell phone, pager, courier, their teammates, their bosses, the bulletin boards, the newsletters. Who can make sense of it anymore? And who's going to go look for more information on the bloody intranet when they're already so swamped they want to go jump off a bridge or start a used bookstore? (looking pleadingly at the Corporate Magazine) I was wrong! I want you back! Our employees need you! Everyone's screaming for someone to make sense of their world, and you're the only one who can do it! (The others look on as the Corporate Magazine and the Communication Manager approach each other slowly, their eyes locked on each other.)

CM: So you want me back, huh? What a joke! It's better to be in Hell than to go back to my meaningless existence in your little beauty contest!

Generic Corporate Communication Manager: (grabbing the Magazine by its cover and shaking it) Listen to me. I can change. I'll fill you full of useful information, stuff people actually need to know. Let's forget about the varnish and the nine colors. You'll look good, but you don't have to be a glamour-puss. You'll have fun again, but this time you won't be alone. Think about it: You can help tie everything together. You can report on things that everyone needs to know. You can tell people how they're doing, and how the company's doing. And you can help them navigate through all the baloney that surrounds them. You can dig us out of this mess! When I tried to kill you, I was hungry for new solutions. But I forgot to think about the most important thing of all: human nature. People like to read things that they can hold. They like to flip pages. They like to take things home. They like to sit back and soak in the big picture once in a while. And the more the world goes insane with information, the more they need a guidebook, a road map to the world of the future. If we can't have you back, we'll surely be crushed by the weight of all the information we spew at each other. Please! Come back! We need you! We loved you once. We can love you again! (The stage goes dark.)

EPILOGUE (A lone spotlight appears. Robert Stack, dressed in a trench coat, walks into the light.)

Robert Stack: So, there you have it. The story of a love gone wrong, of communicators who get so far ahead of themselves they forget what really matters. The Communication Manager was sentenced to two years of flailing around wondering why the Intranet wasn't living up to its promise. The Corporate Magazine was found guilty and sentenced to time already served, plus community service. It would reenter the workforce a changed publication, and, after some initial skepticism, the reformed Corporate Magazine would begin to earn the trust of employees and managers all over the world. The near-death experience would, in the end, help it lead a more meaningful life.

(Curtain)

Things might be different this time

I was chatting with a former work colleague last week about the old days, when communicators pitched management on installing intranets during a period of corporate cutbacks.

"Back then, the only way we could make a business case for intranets was to stop doing print publications," she said. The long-term savings on printing and paper costs justified the big initial expense of establishing intranet portals. After the one-time technology investment, which could be booked as a capital cost, all you'd ever have to do was post new information at no additional expense. What a great solution! And so modern!

It was, of course, a Faustian pact, which ended up leading to the miserable state of affairs we have today, with a disenfranchised workforce, decaying employee engagement, and intranets that might as well have tumbleweeds blowing through them.

Fast forward to today. With recessionary forces at play, it looks like we're in for a major down cycle, which means cost-cutting will once again be in fashion. But with no print publications to chop, how will employee communications be affected? At times like this, big organizations throttle back. Which means that daring advances in employee communication will be put on hold, right?

I'm thinking, this time, maybe not. Towers Perrin survey results released today reveal that employers may pay a little more attention to the care and feeding of employees during the current downturn than they did in the past.

"The commitment to the retention of key talent is a significant shift from past national recessionary periods, when a slash-and-burn mentality reigned," said Ravin Jesuthasan, Managing Principal in Towers Perrin's Chicago office and a leader of the firm's Rewards and Performance Management practice globally. "Companies are entering this period with leaner workforces and the knowledge that across-the-board mass layoffs can create significant long-term problems."

This time, the more enlightened employers are going to see the current situation as an opportunity to hold on to their best people and strengthen their internal cultures -- to apply some extra glue to keep themselves together during this difficult period so they will be stronger when the come through the other side.

Employee communications can be that glue, that connective tissue. Smart leaders will understand that, and smart communicators will be able to sell what needs to be done in those terms instead of finding new ways to apply the hatchet.

Five Questions for Ann Wylie

If you don't know who Ann Wylie is, it's time you did. She's a veteran communicator who consults, teaches corporate writing and editing, and publishes a great e-zine, Wylie's Writing Tips. In past lives Ann has served as a PR pro in an agency, as a corporate communicator for Hallmark Cards Inc., as editor of a nationally acclaimed executive magazine. She's currently in charge of her own consulting firm, Wylie Communications Inc. These days, Ann handles special writing and editing projects for Saint Luke's, Reader's Digest, The Mayo Clinic and dozens of other major clients. She helps such organizations as FedEx, Sprint and Northern Trust launch or improve their publications.

I'm delighted to showcase Ann's five answers to another edition of Five Questions for . . .

Question #1: You've been an editor and writing coach for many years. Do you think the quality of writing in employee communications has changed for the worse with the emergence of online communications?

Ann: Actually, I think the reverse is true: The better you write for the Web, the better you write for everything else, too. That's because with really good online writing, you're more focused on making copy scannable, getting to the point more quickly, writing in a conversational voice and all the other things that make online writing more effective.

If the quality of writing in employee communications has changed for the worse, it probably has more to do with the fact that communicators now are charged to get more done than ever before. I think business communications would improve if business communicators said "no" more often.

Also, I think the industry's focus on strategy OVER tactics has squished a lot of writing creativity and energy right out of the business.

That said, I do see some amazing business writing. The folks over at Walgreen's still manage to cover yawners like casual dress with creative approaches that rival Men's Health or New York magazine. The PR pro's at Tellabs somehow make articles about ethernets and telecomm services both interesting and accessible. Writers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory turn out stories about photosynthesizing bacteria and fluorescent electron transfer that are so gorgeous, they make you want to weep.

Question #2: What's the biggest single obstacle to great writing in employee communications, and how can it be overcome?

Ann: Probably not valuing writing enough. If strategy is the only way up in your organization, you won't wind up with many senior writers.

Instead, recruit better writers, give them a solid career track, pay them well, train them, coach them and show off their best work. The more we value great writing, the more great writing we get.

I covered this topic in more depth in a rant called "Five ways to improve your team's writing skills."

Question #3: Are today's corporate journalists equipped with the skills and knowledge they need to serve their organizations and audiences? If not, what's the biggest gap and the best way to fill it?

Ann: Some of them are. Some of them aren't.

Probably the single biggest gap is not putting themselves in the reader's head. When you don't do that, you don't position your message in the readers' best interest; you don't ask yourself whether this is the language of the reader or the language of the organization; you don't think of ways to illustrate your points so the readers can literally see them.

So that single lack of perspective causes a lot of other bad-writing symptoms.

There are lots of little tricks you can use to put yourself in your readers' head. Warren Buffett famously writes his letter to shareholders to his sisters, who are smart and interested, but not necessarily educated about insurance floats and loss reserves. He begins each letter, "Dear Doris and Bertie ..."

Business communicators can find out how they rate as writers -- and get some tools for improving their skills here. You can also get monthly writing tips via my e-zine.

Question #4: What is your pet peeve when it comes to corporate writing? What's the worst thing you've seen?

Ann: My biggest beef is people who use the same techniques they learned when they were 19 and in Journalism 101 and don't feel any curiosity about how to get better, what's changed, how to keep improving. I really get energized by people who like to learn and grow, and, conversely, I find myself getting bored and irritated by those who don't. There's so much information about how to write better out there, you almost have to go out of your way not to slam into it.

Question #5: From your point of view, what's the future of employee communications, and where do writers fit in to that future?

Ann: Alas, predicting the future of employee communications is not one of my superpowers. (Ask me who'll win Dancing With the Stars this season, and we can talk.)

However it looks, though, strong writers will play an important role. Good writing reveals good thinking, after all, and there will always be a place for people who are stellar at both.

Five Questions For Petro-Canada "In Depth" Editor Kevin Heinrichs

Last year, Canadian oil and gas giant Petro-Canada launched a new employee print magazine, In Depth. Regular readers of this blog will know I'm a big supporter of print as an integral part of any big organization's internal communications mix. So I was delighted to see my old employer revisiting the form. I think the new magazine is great. Here's a sample: Download indepthfall2007.pdf.

And here's Five Questions for editor Kevin Heinrichs:

Question #1: Why did you decide to launch a new print magazine?
Kevin: The new magazine was launched for two primary reasons. An employee survey indicated that a majority of workers were interested in and would read a magazine if we published one (74% said they "definitely" or "probably" would read it). And we realized that a magazine format would allow us to write more complex stories that lend themselves to creative layout with strong photos. A bonus is that employees can take the magazine with them on their transit commute or home to their families if they want. 

Question #2: What is the content and tone, and why did you choose this approach?
Kevin: We wanted a tone with the text and layout that would appeal to younger readers, but not so edgy that it's inaccessible to older readers. We treat our magazine as though it is a newsstand magazine that just happens to cover one company. The same editing discipline and attention to layout detail apply.

Question #3: What is the format and frequency, and how did you arrive at the final design?
Kevin: In Depth is an 8.5"x11" format on matte stock, and varies from 16-24 pages, depending on the theme. We hired a local design company which brought us three different mock-ups in terms of "feel." One was too formal, but we asked for a hybrid of the other two designs, one which was definitely geared to the twenty-something crowd, and the other which had some great use of white space and typography. Then our designer, Joelle Opelik, took that basic template and created a unique look and feel for each issue's theme, but still under our signature masthead.

Question #4: How does the publication integrate with your online internal communications?
Kevin: For decades, Petro-Canada had a very effective news source in the form of a bi-weekly newsletter called In Brief. [Editor's note: In the early 1990s I worked a two-year stint as editor of In Brief - RS]  It was respected, had name recognition among employees and was relatively well read.  But when we looked at our ability to tell news that is current, the newsletter wasn't able to deliver that kind of timeliness.  We tracked about a four-week lag from the time is story is assigned to when it arrived on employees' desks, given the approvals, layout, proofing, printing and distribution involved. That’s a long time in the hourly news cycle that people are accustomed to in regular life. Shifting the In Brief newsletter content to an HTML format and putting on our company's Intranet allowed us to implement an publish-on-demand system where we can publish news to our homepage as soon as the copy is edited and approved. The writing style of the former newsletter actually lent itself quite well to this new medium as it already valued tight, concise writing. Wherever it makes sense in the print magazine, we also encourage readers to visit our Intranet for more company background on a particular article, or to any video related to the story content.

Question #5: What has the response been, from management and from employees?
Kevin: The anecdotal response after the first year has been great.  People love to be able to bring this home to their families. The recruiters have even been asking for extra copies of some of the issues to give potential hires a sense of the company culture. Mostly what we've heard is that they love the design, and that the stories tell them something new about their company. By way of improvement, readers have also told us they want more "people" stories. We'll be getting the results of a more detailed readership survey later this fall to get some more crunchy results.

No and yes

I was reminded the other day of the importance of the words "no" and "yes" in internal communications, and the even greater importance of knowing how, and when, to say them.

Here are some nos I'd like the hear more often:

No, we can't include that 200-word sentence in the story because it doesn't make sense.
No, we shouldn't keep that critical fact from employees because they already know it.
No, we'd better not paint too positive a picture because employees can smell bullshit a mile away.
No, the company shouldn't impose that new policy without consulting with employees.
No, I won't put a picture of your damned cat in the employee newsletter.

And so on. You gotta draw the line. The problem is, the more we say no, the more managers think employee communicators are not much more than bureaucratic obstacles to communicating. We're often seen to have these weird highfalutin standards that show we don't understand the business or the true culture of the organization.   

And so, to avoid being viewed as stonewalling bureaucrats, we get in the habit of saying yes to things we shouldn't, like,

Yes, I'll publish that insanely cold, jargony, meaningless message to employees.
Yes, it's just fine that you didn't consult me before you made that stupid, morale-destroying decision.
Yes, I'll do exactly what you tell me, and I really don't mind being told what to do.
Yes, we don't have to do any meaningful follow-up on those lousy employee survey results.
Yes, it's just fine to eliminate our flagship print publication.

You get the idea.

Of course, there are effective ways to say no that don't include the word no and don't necessarily make a bad impression. In the end, the key to being an effective communicator isn't whether you say yes or no, but rather whether you approach your job with integrity -- and whether you help solve an organization's problems in a way that earns you trust, confidence and respect.

Faith, doubt and aesthetics

I just read an article in the New Yorker -- a remembrance by a writer of an experience in a church that would change his friend's life. It's a great read, but it also has insights that are relevant to our role as communicators. Tell me what it means to you.

Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Every month a couple of editor friends and I get together at a favorite diner in downtown Vancouver and trade stories of our family and working lives.

This morning one of my friends reported on what she's doing lately for a longtime client. She helps out with employee communications, and I was heartened to hear that she's working with the company to revamp its communication vehicles, including starting up a new quarterly employee publication.

"Wow. That's great!" I said. "It's so good to hear someone's paying attention to improving employee communications. So is it a magazine? A maga-paper?"

"No, it's being put out as a .pdf so they can tell managers to print and distribute it at the different work sites," she said, cringing.

"AAAARGH! WHAT A LOAD OF HORSE SHIT! I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS! YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THEY'RE GOING THROUGH ALL THE TROUBLE OF DEVELOPING A NEW PUBLICATION AND THEY'RE NOT GOING TO BOTHER TO HAVE IT PROPERLY PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED?" My rant went on for at least a couple of minutes along these lines. I have no objection to online tools. But they are part of a balanced mix -- a mix that still should include print -- at least in companies who have front line workers who don't have computers or who are over 25 years old.

"I know, I know. It's crazy," she replied, with more than a touch of resignation in her voice. "I'm just the contractor and I can't do anything about it. That's what they want to do."

This company has several different industrial work sites, and most employees don't have access to computers. Senior leaders think using online tools is modern and progressive. Plus they don't want to deal with the cost of printing and the trouble of distributing. So they leave it up to the line managers who, of course, care deeply about distributing information that comes from head office. Not!

My goodness, when will this madness end? I honestly can't believe how stupid big companies can be -- how they can consciously disenfranchise their own employees by not doing the simple, time-honoured task of printing an attractive, readable publication and putting it in everyone's hands.

I wish a pox on these companies. I hope they have the low morale, high attrition rates, nasty labour relations and poor productivity they deserve.

The power of print

Had to share this great observation about print as a technology, by Walter Isaacson, President and CEO of the Aspen Institute and former CEO of CNN and managing editor of Time. It's from an interesting book called "What Are You Optimistic About? Today's Leading Thinkers on Why Things Are Good and Getting Better," edited by John Brockman:

"I am very optimistic about print as a technology. Words on paper are a wonderful information-storage, retrieval, distribution, and consumer product . . . Imagine if we had been getting our information delivered digitally to our screens for the past 550 years. Then some modern Gutenberg had come up with a technology that was able to transfer these words and pictures onto pages that could be delivered to our doorstep, and we could take them to the backyard, the bath, the bus. We would be thrilled with this technological leap forward, and we would predict that someday it might replace the Internet."

Ha! I love it.