Miri McDonald

How can leader communication influence employee agility?

I participated in a Communications Executive Council webinar today entitled, "Leadership Communications for the Agile Organization." The session challenged leaders and communications professionals to think about leader communications differently. I thought I'd share some key things I took away from the session. 

Move away from the cascade: The challenge is to move from the safe, traditional communications model, where leaders communicate information in a more one-way fashion through cascades, to one that is more about engaging with employees, using a variety of methods that encourage employees to take action and ask questions. This requires leaders to be more confident and a willingness to put themselves out there, but results in a more engaged, agile workforce.

Ask employees to act: Don't just tell them the information. Share the details in a way that tells them what you want them to do now to support the new strategy or change. Encourage them to collaborate with peers and ask questions. Taking action helps them become more agile and resilient.

Assess leader communications strength and weaknesses: Invest time and resources in some sort of formal assessment of leader communications that is done regularly. This helps leaders understand what areas they need to improve because most leaders overestimate their skills in this area. Leaders that model agility, encourage that in others.

Help leaders change their behaviors: After the assessment, help leaders identify the area they'd like to improve and help them practice the new skill. Don't use it and they'll lose it. And, when employees see their leaders behaving in a new way, they are more likely to try to be more agile themselves.

Force leaders to simplify the message: Communications departments are guilty of spoon-feeding messaging to leaders, which often results in leadership not really understanding or internalizing the message. Leaders that are forced to summarize the message into either a few key points or a quick summary statement will be better communicators.

Encourage leaders to build trust through dialogue: Leaders that discuss strategy changes with employees in a way that encourages real dialogue build trust with employees and keep them engaged. Employees that have trust in leadership are more agile and engage more quickly in the new strategy.

Accountability is key: Trust is very hard to gain back once it's in question. Leaders can improve employee trust by making sure that what was said is actually being done. They can also improve trust by dealing with any difficult questions in a tactful manner. Lastly, leaders must ensure they are engaging with all people that are impacted by the change.

Challenge leaders to shift their role and style: The more traditional role of leaders as the directive, spokesperson does not encourage agility. If leaders take on a role that challenges employees to do things differently and show that they are listening and open to concerns are more likely to foster agility in the organization.

How do you think leaders could change their communication style to improve employee agility, resilience and engagement? 

 

What's your credo?

I love the latest trend to use funny, descriptive, and casual language on websites. I think it helps to build trust, credibility, and defines a true culture that doesn't apologize for itself. I also like how it continues the conversation if you arrive there from a social media site.

Some companies make the mistake of trying to sound important and smart with lofty ideas and complicated language. That just falls flat these days. There's also the "let's pretend we are google/zappos/apple" which smacks of "let's just copy them instead of coming up with our own way of doing things."

With social media bringing more transparency to what businesses are really about through customer experiences and comments, companies have a real opportunity. They can harness the power of the web to talk about themselves in a way that gives customers and employees a sense of their true values and culture. Even if I'm not a potential customer or canddate for a given company, if a friend "likes" them on Facebook or tweets about them on twitter, I might go to their website for fun (I'm nerdy like that). If I like what I see, I might recommend to friends saying, "You should work here" or "Don't you need this for your business?" I won't do that if I can't get a real sense of what they are about.

Take Zero Strategist, a company in Portland, OR that provides holistic social media services. I've never met these guys but after reading their open credo, I was inspired to write this posting. One phrase that got my attention was "Don’t Suck or Do Sucky Things." I like the combination of humor and a wink to the things we all said in high school that still apply now in our work lives. The mention of passions on their bio page is makes them more human and helps the reader to connect on a personal level.

My next example is Starr Tincup Marketing out of Fort Worth, TX. Again, I have never met anyone in this company but after checking out their site, I have a very clear picture that it is a zany kind of place where people say what they think, no holds barred. I love the use of photos. One of my favorite quotes from their site has to be this gem on the About page: "Give your audience some credit, not spin and obfuscation. They see through all that jazz-hands bullshit." Starr Tincup clearly has their own brand of everything and they are comfortable in their own skin. The careers page is particularly honest (and hilarious).

The last one is my friends' company Corner Alliance in Washington, DC. Full disclosure, I wrote much of the copy but had lots of team input. Of the three examples, this one is probably the most formal but appropriate given their clients are government agencies. In that context, I think its a welcome and even gutsy departure from the jargony and boring consulting firm sites. The page Our Story really gives you a true sense of the kind of company they have tried to create and why they embarked on this journey. 

As you can see, there are so many ways to do this but I think the key to doing it successfully is to create a true portrayal of what your company is really about and who works there with words, images, and ideas that inspire you.

"Stop, Listen, Connect" and other words of wisdom by Chris Brogan

Chris Brogan, author of Social Media 101 and co-author of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling book Trust Agents, spoke in Madison, WI on Monday evening 6/21.

Trust Agents has been on my "to-read" list because I feel that trust has become an even more important success factor for businesses with the globalization of the economy and the advent of social media. We are in an era where people are more often doing business without ever meeting in person. To me, trust is key for this leap of faith. Or in Chris's words, "Trust is the new currency in social media."

Chris said some things that resonated with me. For example, he asked us to "bring humanity back into what we are doing." To illustrate how we've gotten away from this, he brought up an example of someone being grateful to get an @reply* directly from Chris on Twitter. "Really?" Chris lamented. Expressing disappointment that an @reply is a surprise rather than commonplace. He suggested @replying more often to connect with people and comment on what they are saying. I used to shy away from @replies for fear I was muddying things up for my followers but now realize its importance as a way to connect my followers to other great people.

Here's my top 10 list of more great tidbits I learned from @chrisbrogan for businesses trying to build trust and use social media more effectively:

• 30/60/30 rule: Spend 30 minutes of listening, 60 minutes of connecting, 30 minutes of publishing per day.
• Ask provocative questions: Ask your customers questions that will provoke honest and useful feedback such as, "How much do you think we suck?"
• Grow bigger ears: Meaning, really LISTEN and use tools that can help you do so (examples, Radian6, SAS, Crimson Hexagon).
• Use LinkedIn: Spiff up that LinkedIn profile because, surprisingly, more people are using it than you think! Update your status but filter your twitter feed with #in so you don't muddy up the LinkedIn status with your foursquare check-ins to Walgreens!
• Connect globally: Make connections with those you are making repeat contact with outside of your industry and geography.
• Really serve your customer: Instead of shamelessly promoting your product or service, talk about the things that enhance your product for your customer.
• Do things other people are afraid to do: For example, talk about the competitor's product when its better than yours. What a way to build trust and perhaps partnerships down the road!
• Email still rules: Use email marketing tools (Blue Sky Factory, Constant Contact, My Emma) but don't just use it to sell your products. Provide useful content and stun readers with a personal style letter now and again.
• Go where your customer hangs out: Find your customers favorite social media "hangouts" to maximize your use of SM using tools like Rapleaf or create a special space and build the community.
• Let people "Like" you: Add the Facebook "Like" button to your blog and website to increase traffic.

What are you doing to build trust with your customers and followers?

* For non-twitter users, an @reply is when you tweet directly to someone's Twitter username. It's like a sending a short, public email message. However, your followers will only see it if they also follow that other person's tweets and vice versa. However, if you go to any given person's twitter page, you can see all the @reply messages they've sent.