I've moved...

And gone legit. You can find this blog and all future posts on the Hill & Knowlton Blog server. I am very pleased to be part of this and think it's an interesting tool for businesses.

See you there.

David Ferrabee's blog.

/df

Creating chaos out of order

Most of us are quite familiar with the safety rap that you get o most airlines. In fact, it doesn't change much from airline to airline or language to language.

"Your safety belt is fastened by inserting the metal clip in here. And it is undone by lifting here..."

I'm on an Air Canada flight and they are making a complete mess of it.

I think they have a old script: "Please don your life vest by placing it..." (Who dons things these days?) And they can't seem to get through it. There aren't stewards or stewardesses standing where there ought to be. The Captain asks them to "check all the doors and cross-check" part way through.

So, I am wondering what the effect is on people when the simple and mundane stop working? When common processes break down?

I am leaving London for a few weeks' holiday, and I am leaving a city that is losing it's natural rythm. Yesterday when the firecrackers when off on three tubes and a bus no one really knew what to do.

We didn't feel like watching it on TV, like we had a few weeks before. We had better office emergency measures in place than two weeks before. And the company spoke to us as employees many more times over the course of the day than they had two weeks before.

So even London's emergency situation had become the routine. What was lost was out regular daily routine. Getting to and from work. Twice in as many weeks it all had to be done again and differently.

In a city where travel to and from work is a regular source of complaint and endless story-telling, we all had to think of new ways to do old things. We had to actually think creatively about our commute again.

All this to say that neither routine -- airline safety briefings or public transit London -- are very highly thought of. We roll our eyes at the safety briefings and complain about our commutes. But when they change or become unavailable we get nervous. In communications the same can be said. You often hear leaders saying... "If they don't like the newsletter/ briefing/ management conference, let's just get rid of it. Then they'll be happy."

Not so. Even bad routines are routines. If you are going to replace them, do so respectfully, and with a lot of forethought.

Can change be invisible?

We listened in on an 'analysts call' with a CEO recently and there was a lot of talk about cutting resources and reducing headcount but not a lot about people.

I know that analysts aren't in the people business, and I am not even faulting the Chief Executive. What I am interested in is how you can say 'we have too many people' and not simply say our people should be doing some things differently.

Imagine I was responsible for an 8-man row boat - like the ones Oxford and Cambridge race here on the Thames. One day I show up at the Chairman's office and say 'we've decided we only need 6.'

And he said 'Good idea. Fewer people in the boat. Less weight. I like it.'

Wouldn't you want to say 'Yes, but you're not the same boat.'

How can you take out people, or change a structure or process and not expect the business to change? Of course it changes. What can you do about it? Quite a bit actually. But you have to start before you make the change.

'Yes sir. We're here to row against Oxford sir.'

'Yes but what about the boat? It looks like you've taken out two seats!'

'Ah, yes, we thought it was for the best...'

Sounds like a change management and communication problem to me.

The future of communication -- Part 2 (6-10)

Looking at the future of organisational communication makes you realise what broad topic it is.
Communication affect the way we manage, what we manage, how we structure the business, what we present to the outside world and much more.

Let's look at the second half of the 10 things to look for in the future of communication.

6) ASSET EMPLOYEES
It's not considered odd for non-executive directors of big organisations to be hired based on the benefits of 'association'.

'Oh, she's on their Board, they must be good!'

Look for this to start to happen more with employees. You can already see this with the US Postal Service cycling team, where company sponsors athletes to compete in their name.

7) CHIEF COMMUNICATION OFFICER
We have CIO's. Many of whom are purely technical people. Yes, technology represents a major corporate investment, but in the old days, before we had PCs and networks, the CIO might have been called the office manager, or, worse still the stationery clerk.

However, everyone from Michael Porter to Jack Welch is linking leadership to communication. Research into successful businesses is also constantly pointing to effective change and communication skills as core requirements. So, why do we not have businesses turning to Chief Communications Officers to bring it all together?

I think we will.

8) LEADERSHIP PLACEMENT

Effective leadership communication can be so important to a business that companies will have to hire it in. Not just the effective manager, but in the future his alter ego, the effective leader of people.

Much like Prime Ministers and Presidents have become the face and voice of a background administration -- businesses will find they are so busy doing the work that they need to hire a figurehead to talk it up.

9) BACK-END CHANNEL INTEGRATION

Employee communication of the future is all about choice. We talked about that above. However, that presents a compelling problem for business communicators. How do you manage the exponential variety of channels. Do you have to re-craft everything for 15 different formats?

No.

If you do now you should be doing something about it. Think of MSNBC or CNN and take a lead from them in multi-formatting. Make the content drop into multiple formats without multiple formatting.

As they used to say at the start of the Six Million Dollar Man: 'we have the technology.'

10) VIRTUAL WORK EXPERIENCE

Today I have candidates coming for job interviews who say "I could tell I want to work here before I even crossed the threshold." That says a lot about the atmosphere of a big communications agency. And it says a lot about how people choose their jobs.

Most of us focus a lot on 'the task' when we look to recruit. Reality is different. People are increasingly making career decisions based on the people, the atmosphere and the quotidian routine.

How do you get people to see, feel and really experience the workplace and the job? A virtual work experience is how. Think about the virtual tours offered on real estate websites. Add a few more elements of interaction and voila you have a virtual work experience.

CONCLUSION

Clearly my bias is showing in this series. In my mind the title could just as easily have been "The future is communication".

However, any way you look at it the ability to make a human connection is going to be increasingly important in business. What Edward Hallowell calls the 'human moment'. Communication is all about that. You ignore that at your peril.

/df

The future of communication (5 of 10)

There's a fantastic news item in yesterday's newspapers about Duke University in the USA giving all new students iPods. The idea is that they can use them to study - uploading audio files about student life and even lecture tapes.

And why not!

We regularly ask our clients to compare how they access information about the world to how their organisation communicates with employees.

At the private school I went to 20 years ago the students have walked into class with their laptops and accessed the LAN for their assignments for years.

When I went there we had a single computer room where we learned to type:

10 goto line 20
20 end

And we were seriously advanced in computer science. I'm not even 40.

Where will organisational communication be in 5 years? I have a few ideas.

1) NO PUSH
There will be no such thing as an all-employee email. Employees will have all the power to chose what they want to hear about. You will have to fight for access to their attention.

2) DIRECT ACCESS
No self-respecting manager or chief exec will accept intermediaries carrying forward their messages. We will all be broadcasters... Like this blog... Talking directly to our chosen audiences. (See also Podcasting - coming soon.)

3) NETWORKS OF INTEREST
In less than a generation almost all major organisations moved from line management to matrix management. We are now seeing a new kind of management emerging based on 'networks of interest'. Work is beind shared across functions, geographies and even between business (sometimes amongst competitors) based on the need and ability to deliver.

4) OBJECTIVE SHARING
Surveys consistently show that organisations are failing to get employees to understand business goals. Generally speaking about half tend to know what their business goals are. Fewer still know what they personally need to do to help reach them.

As a result of this serious communication issue managers have already started to find a "work around". Contracters and even full time employees will increasingly see companies hiring people whose personal objectives align with the job the company needs performed.

5) EBAY PROCUREMENT
The idea of setting up a mass production textile in the western world would seem daft in 2005. By 2010 we will probably feel the same way about graphic design work and many other professional services. Already there is little reason why large organisations couldn't clearly state their needs, certify a dozen companies and put whole swathes of discrete 'communication' projects out to tender. In the future they won't all be won in New York, Tokyo or Paris.

More soon.

/df

How do we stop talking rubbish?

What are we supposed to do when we are asked to 'socialise a document'?

Why do we insist on talking about 'learnings', and 'synergies', and saying something will be 'impactful'. About 10 years ago a friend in advertising told me he felt a new chocolate biscuits were a 'mouthfeel experience'. I told him he was mad. I was wrong. His client liked the idea, and last week I actually saw the word 'mouthfeel' in a totally unrelated, real advertisement.

What do these new words mean?

Some would say they fill a gap in our language. I am not so sure.

Like doctors and lawyers I think they are way of talking that suggest exclusivity -- and we think they make us sound clever.

They don't. We sound silly.

I have recently taken to explaining my job by saying 'I help companies talk to their employees'. How does that sound?

I am asking! There's a 'comment' capability on this blog for a reason.

Maybe someone can make the argument that differences of language is what makes ours a profession. As George Bernard Shaw said professions are "conspiracies against the laity". Some might argue that's a good thing.

Not me.

/df

Is it Spring in the M&A market?

Twice in almost as many weeks we have been called in to talk about some messy European M&As. Newspaper reports back up our experience that mergers are once again on the rise.

But it feels different this time from the rush to buy of the late 1990s, early 2000.

For one thing the companies are smaller. Companies with only a few thousand employees wouldn't have troubled consultants a few years ago.

And for another thing they are focusing on different things.

Last time it was all about value. Getting more for the shareholder. They weren't concerned enough about the transition of people or business continuity. It felt like CEOs putting their ledgers together and making snap decicions.

Corporate speed dating, if you will.

The lonely walk home, at dawn, in wrinkled party clothes, then followed.

Today it's different.

Communication is central to early planning. We are being asked how to make sure that the marriages work.

That's great.

And a major step forward.

But at the same time we are now seeing a frightening lack of attention to another key ingredient -- corporate culture.

'What is this organisation really like?'

Without studying, understanding and managing corporate cultures you are smashing two companies together without the tools they need to do their jobs effectively.

Think of it as akin to sending your top rowing team out to play hockey... with their oars!

/df