Autumn 2017
PROVOKING THOUGHT GENERATING DISCUSSION ENGAGING EMPLOYEES DELIVERING RESULTS
Happy endings, new beginnings
Changing up change
How to handle change when it becomes the new normal
Rethinking internal v. external
The sense of an ending
The power of employee advocacy
Providing closure and signalling continuity
The secret of change is to focus all your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new. Socrates
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deas presented on Richmond Events cruises have rocked the boat on received wisdom for decades. Now it’s time for the ship to weigh anchor and sail off into the sunset as the conferences move ashore.
Ian Barrow, Client Services Director
Paul Jones, Senior Engagement Consultant
David Clark, Project Manager
The Communication Directors’ Forum, hosted by Richmond Events, was held on board the Arcadia on 4-6th October 2017.
It’s both a happy ending – bittersweet for some – and a fresh start. And these points of transition are really important. As Robert Cialdini points out in his recent book Pre-suasion, we all share a ‘craving for cognitive closure’, which helps us to emotionally move onto the next thing, and embrace – or create – the new. Change is the way we navigate these transitions in our organisations. This issue suggests ways we can all manage change better – building on many of the ideas and conversations from October’s Communication Directors’ Forum on board the Arcadia.
Comms is itself changing, and one of the fresh starts we are seeing is in the way businesses are rethinking the relationship between internal and external comms. Read on for more about how organisations are using the power of the employee voice, both inside and outside the business. We may be saying goodbye to Richmond cruise events and hello to more conferences on dry land, but some things don’t change: our world continues to evolve – and we all need new thinking to stay one step ahead. Karian and Box in association with Richmond Events
Contributors: Ian Barrow, Paul Jones, Lavinia Taylor, Heather Corbett, Ed Clews
David Clark, Project Manager Richmond Events 020 8487 2203 dclark@richmondevents.com www.richmondevents.com
Karian and Box 1st Floor, 22 Lendal, York, YO1 8AA 01904 654454 info@karianandbox.com www.karianandbox.com
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Changing up change M
ajor transformation used to happen once in a decade. Now change has become the new normal.
Some thrive on change: others feel threatened. Change rarely impacts all populations equally – and it rarely impacts all people in the same way. While the change curve has become a standard tool for plotting the emotional journey of change, it assumes that ‘one-size-fits-all’. And that’s not our experience of employees in an age of diverse identities and personalised content. Segmentation is the key.
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When segmenting your populations, think about these indicative types we’ve encountered across many organisations – and how you can equip your managers to spot and respond to their different needs and develop a personalised approach for their team.
The Slow Adopter
The Quitter
Remains open-minded but takes their time to get off the fence.
Panics and looks to the exit instead of engaging with change.
Tends to be: Moderately engaged, but have the potential to be highly engaged and high performing with the right encouragement. Give employees like this a little more time to make their own adjustments as, when ready, they will be an asset to your team.
Tends to be: Longer serving employees who weigh up the benefits of a redundancy package against the tribulations of adapting to a changing workplace. Watch out for losing experienced high performers – but embrace the opportunity to exit lower performers who can’t cope.
The Advocate
The Gossiper
Looks at the bigger picture and visualises the possibilities. Agrees whole-heartedly with the company’s decisions, has absolute trust in its leadership and wants to work with the company to achieve its goals, and their own.
Responds to uncertainty and sense of disempowerment with the emotional satisfaction of rumour – often negative or unfounded.
Tends to be: A very high performing individual who is also very highly engaged. They are often very ambitious and see their company as a way of achieving their own vision.
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Tribes of change
Tends to be: A ‘terrorist’ or ‘wrecker’ with low levels of engagement and empowerment but high levels of influence over other colleagues. Seeing the world from their point of view will help you to stress-test your messages.
The Anarchist
The Agnostic
Questions leadership and struggles to trust and commit to new leaders.
Watches and waits to see whether change works or not before committing.
Tends to be: An experienced and above-average performer who thinks they are indispensable to the team – and can therefore speak their mind with impunity.
Tends to be: A long-serving middle-of-the-road performer with high levels of understanding but lower levels of engagement. Watch out for their influence on other colleagues as a seen-it-all-before ‘old hand’.
The Eager Beaver
The Optimist
Embraces change enthusiastically and sees it as necessary to an organisation’s evolution. Their attitude can help make the implementation of change more palatable for everyone.
Views change as a challenge, but takes a ‘can-do’ attitude. They are receptive to new ideas and asks questions.
Tends to be: Well-liked within the company, a high achiever and well-engaged.
Tends to be: A middle performer but one who has the potential to excel. Nurture and develop this kind of employee.
The Hothead
Supporting managers to take their teams through change at ASDA Karian and Box created a change-management toolkit for Asda people managers whilst they were going through a period of significant organisational transformation. This toolkit enabled people managers to engage with thought-leading content on change in a way tailored to their level and needs. Managers could complete personal
reflection exercises on their practice, and were guided to analyse and plan for the different personality and communication types in their team.
Feels a loss of control and worries about job security. Introverted hotheads stress while extroverts explode. Tends to be: Highly engaged (perhaps a little too invested) in their role with lower levels of trust in leadership and confidence in the future of the business.
Managers were enabled to be the best version of themselves they could be – and to provide personalised support to the many different types of employee they managed.
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A seat at the strategy table? A
s a head of comms, are you involved when your ExCo strategises change within your business? If you aren’t then you should be.
Communications is more than just a service function or a process enabler. It is a key strategic area of focus that can make the difference between success and failure. Common mistakes are made when internal comms are not involved in the initial planning stages of any change.
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I nconsistent, untimely messages create confusion and resentment. M iddle management is not ‘activated’ in time – alienating a key population. C omms is driven too fast and needs to be repeated six months on because it failed to embed the first time.
Internal comms join the dots between strategy and context. They can deliver consistent messages across the organisation at the same time – offering a clear mission and a statement of purpose – and they help to portray the benefits of the change to employees. They also help to identify implementation risks ahead of time to ensure your change runs smoothly. Comms helps to get the first key message right and communicate it in the right way. This sets the tone for the whole change journey and can make it more palatable for everyone.
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“It’s all about convincing the top table they need to slow down to speed up when it comes to comms.” Workshop participant
Why-fronts: putting the ‘why’ upfront The rationale matters. An authentic and transparent explanation of why the business is changing always works best. There is no need for spin. We now live in a world where there are increasingly low levels of trust in authority and brands, as revealed by the 2017 Edelman Trust Barometer. In our current social and economic climate, it is natural to feel uncertain and mistrustful of authority. To rebuild this trust and restore faith in the system, organisations must work towards a more open and integrating culture that puts their employees at the centre. Transparency gives you credibility; a trusting workforce gives you results. There will most likely be times where you can’t be as transparent as you would like, due to needs for confidentiality, but what you can do is be clear with employees as to why you can’t tell them everything now, and when you can offer more information. Otherwise rumour fills the void and undermines your integrity as an organisation.
“Top-down communication isn’t trusted anymore, people trust their lateral network and word of mouth – the employee has so much power.” Workshop participant
2017: Trust gap widens Percent trust in the four institutions of government, business, media and NGOs, 2012 to 2017 70
60%
60%
60
53% 50
12pt gap
44% 2012
Informed Public
54%
A 3-point increase in the last year
9pt gap
48% 40
15pt gap
2016
45% 2017
Mass Population
Source: 2017 Edelman Trust Barometer. The Trust is an average country’s trust in the institutions of government, business, media and NGOs. Informed Public and Mass Population, 25-country global total.
Changes taking place in the business have been communicated well Karian and Box benchmark from surveys between 2014 and 2017 with over 180,000 retail sector employees.
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The yellow brick road C
reating a compelling roadmap for your change isn’t as daunting as it might seem. As long as you have a clear narrative and a convincing end goal then you can have a surprising degree of flexibility on how you reach your destination.
That’s not to say that if you wanted to get from York to London then you can go via Edinburgh, but you can take small diversions throughout your change journey – so long as you don’t lose sight of the goal.
Are we there yet? Post-change, you need to measure how effective your campaigns have been. But it can be difficult to measure perceptions at times of flux and change. Here are a few tips for measuring change effectively:
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Intranet quick polls and pulse surveys made up of just a few questions are effective in gaining direct feedback and seeing whether your key messages are landing. Just watch the maths if you are basing big conclusions on small samples!
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I f you are launching a big strategic or operational shift, tracking positivity towards the change over time will help you see whether you are winning people over. Look out for shifts in levels of ‘don’t knows’ or ‘not sures’ as people leave the fence and decide one way or the other.
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W hen embedding behavioural change, remember that people tend to answer ‘I’ questions positively – because they interpret the question as being about how good they are. Instead, ask them how their peers are behaving. You’ll get a more honest picture.
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I f quantitative research is the Google Maps of insight, giving you a bird’s eye view of sentiment in your organization, then qualitative research is StreetView, showing you what life is like on the ground. Use quant to find out where you need to dig deeper – then use qual to get under the surface of persistent problems.
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London (via Edinburgh) 399 miles Edinburgh 202 miles
Lond 197 on mile s Welco me to Yor k
Under the influence M
anagers are key facilitators in supporting change, provided they aren’t too prescriptive – nobody likes to be bossed around. But virtually every organisation uses influencers to embed change because of their grassroots power to explain and persuade the frontline. Which would work best for your business – and how could you combine both to great effect?
Managers Pros
Cons
As a manager, they combine authority and approachability
Can ‘go native’ and take their team’s side – shifting the blame up the organisation
Ideally placed to respond to questions and concerns of their teams
Can be too associated with senior levels of the business
Can position change as a vehicle that can help the employee fulfil their own objectives and not just those of the business
May not be that popular with their team and could lack their respect, making it difficult for the message of change to be well received
Influencers Pros
Already ‘one of the team’ so can be seen as more relatable On the same level as their colleagues so can be more understanding – can relate change to their own position and subsequently the position of their peers Good ‘sounding board’ for the business to test out message before sharing with all employees
Cons Approachable but doesn’t have the authority
Often won’t have the answers to questions
Need to be careful what information is made availab le to them as they aren’t management
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Case study: agents of change A major retailer had to go through a major restructure over a two-year period and wanted to involve colleagues as much as possible. They decided to appoint “agents of change” with special responsibilities for engaging other employees on change. The company invited all staff to apply for the roles in the hope of filling 100 spaces. They received an overwhelming 1,100 applicants in response. The 100 that were selected were given key roles (primarily communication roles) in their areas of work. The agents were then used to disseminate the message of change throughout the organisation. The 1,000 that weren’t chosen were still used in other ways within their work areas or as part of wider groups that the agents of change led. The employees felt they had a stake in the change process, were part of the decision making process (where appropriate), could shape and play a part in the future, and were able to translate messages to their colleagues in a way that they could understand.
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“Don’t underestimate the number of dinosaurs that are still out there, roaming Boards across the land. As comms professionals, we have to be constantly evangelising about the dangers of top-down change and the importance of true grassroots engagement and influence.” Conference participant
Are two heads better than one? A good way of testing whether a person can lead rather than just manage is to ask him or her to create positive change. Managers can maintain direction but they can’t change it on their own. To move people in a new direction you need influence.
The influence of a manager will look different to that of an influencer or a senior leader, but the true leaders in your organisation are those that can not just shift the dial but change the destination..
Employees as advocates S
ocial media has transformed the power of the employee voice. Whether it is a review of your business on GlassDoor by a happy or disgruntled employee, or a tweet comparing your external brand promise to the reality of working life in your organisation, people have the power to go public whenever they like.
“Employee advocacy is held up as this glittering jewel that everyone would like to be involved with and see happen, but many fear unleashing that power.” Conference participant
Many organisations respond to this with fear and loathing, discipline and punishment. Your social media code of conduct has probably been used to dismiss someone for compromising your brand’s image in the big bad digital world out there. But there is an alternative. Why not embrace the power of the employee voice? Imagine thousands of your employees promoting your external-facing content through their own personal networks. Sound unlikely? Read our case study on how a police force made it happen. The benefit is two-fold: engaging your employees and turning them into trusted external advocates for your brand. Everyone is a storyteller these days: why not motivate employees to help you tell your story?
Social externals have become a great way to reach your own people
Case study A police force created a platform where employees were able to post ideas and comments – if their post got over a certain amount of likes or re-posts, then it went to the Exec for discussion. Just like a petition to Parliament, the top team were obliged to discuss it. That’s not to say that the idea was committed to, but it was at least considered. Senior leaders then came back to officers and explained why they could or couldn’t do it. One idea was dropped on to the platform asking if employees were happy to share campaigns on specific
issues – like child sexual exploitation – through their personal social network. All those who responded were briefed and given content to share. The employees then uploaded this campaign materials (videos, pictures etc.) to their own social media channels like Facebook. As the broader public received these posts from friends or family, instead of from the police, they were more likely to share the content. It created amazing cut-through and engagement that traditional external channels couldn’t compete with.
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Combine and conquer Ending the turf war between internal and external communications
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our employees are the common ground between internal and external comms. They are exposed to your external comms, which they compare to their experience as an employee, and to your internal comms, which shapes how they represent the business to customers as an up-close exemplification of your brand. Connecting your internal and external comms helps make a powerful emotional
connection with employees on both sides of the fence, and then enables them to translate that into their interactions with customers. It helps to incorporate the brand vision into the everyday so that employees subconsciously live your company’s values and onbrand behaviour becomes instinctive. This is one of the ways you can begin to implement the concept of your employees as advocates.
“If you don’t make employees your ambassadors, you will get bad external coverage, because it is the disenfranchised employees who will go out there and complain and blow the whistle on culture: they are the ones who give you bad PR. Just look at Uber.” Workshop participant
Case study A company launched a diversity campaign that started internally. They profiled some of their employees from various segments such as their LGBT community and autism community. These employees told their stories about how this company was supportive in their environment. The stories have now been told externally and they’ve been able to pitch to the media about how they are exemplifying their diversity campaign internally as well as
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externally – that they aren’t just talking about it, it’s really happening. It produced a really authentic and credible message that the company accepts their employees the way they are without discrimination. “It’s been incredibly powerful, more than anybody expected it to be, especially in combining internal and external marketing elements. It has now become a talk track for executive leaders.”
Tesco’s “every little helps” was not only their Customer Value Proposition but also their Employer Value Proposition. It’s what they used to structure how they talked to employees about what it meant to work at Tesco, as well as to customers about what it meant to shop at Tesco.
A research re-think E
xternal campaigns are almost always grounded in deep audience research. But internal audiences are rarely treated with the same respect. There’s a sense that, somehow, internal communications is less difficult to get right. We beg to differ. Every internal campaign we design is grounded in insight: both the quantitative surveys that give you the bigger picture, and immersion interviews that show what everyday life is like in businesses. Even just spending a day at the coalface, working alongside frontline employees, gives you a real sense of what matters to people: what motivates them, how people interact, what language people use to talk about the day job. It’s time to end the perception of internal comms as a secondary consideration, or something you can just ‘PR’ and use external campaigning skills to do. If you treat internal comms as secondary, you are treating your employees as secondary. While customers and clients might matter most in your thinking, don’t forget who delivers a consistent brand experience in your stores, branches, call centres and digital labs.
“Don’t make the mistake of assuming you know your employees. Unless you’ve done rigorous research into what they are thinking, feeling and doing, you are working in the dark. No one would dream of launching a product or funding an ad campaign without knowing what makes their customers tick. And yet that’s the mistake some businesses make with internal comms time and time again.” Workshop participant
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The sense of an ending T
he business world loves a launch. Every freshly appointed CEO wants to get started by starting something. And many leaders have a sophisticated understanding of how to begin their reign with a crafted, credible, down-to-earth organisational narrative that draws employees into their business strategy and empowers them to be part of the living story of the organisation. But too many businesses give people a ‘living’ story without thinking about what comes next. As humans, we love closure, the sense of an ending is often the cue for the beginning of something new. Yet we always seem to find ourselves in the middle of a story, looking for milestones that help us to think about who we are, what we are doing and what the next thing is.
“Zeigarnik studied a Berlin waiter with a perfect memory for orders before he had distributed the beer and bratwurst, but who couldn’t recall a single detail the moment he had served his customers.”
Behavioural economics underlines this need for finality – it’s called the Zeigarnik effect (after the Lithuanian psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik). It means our attention is strongly channelled towards unfinished tasks we’re committed to, leading to improved recall compared to completed tasks.
How to handle change when it becomes the new normal
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tales of terror
Metamorphosis
Changing up change
What does all this mean for organisational storytelling? We find that while businesses are often strong at launching a strategy story (the beginning), and maintaining the drumbeat through progress updates and milestones (the middle), it is the ending that is neglected. This is for a variety of sensible reasons: strategies come to an end because of failure, or a change in leadership, or a change in market conditions – all of which usually necessitate a new strategy. But, when launching that new strategy, it is vital you bring the old one to a close, in order to help shift attention and emotional focus away from the old and on to the new. We’ve all experienced surprise that an employee is still clinging onto a strategy slogan months or years after it has become obsolete; however, there is a good and totally human reason for that – the story hasn’t finished for them yet. They are waiting for the next chapter, for the sense of an ending, so they can begin anew.
Change always has a positive intention for the business – but it will have negative consequences for some. And you can’t spin that. Workshop participant
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Charles Dickens
GREAT ADAPTATIONS
Harry Potter and the Changer of Secrets
Jonathan Change -&Mr Norrell
Metamorphosis Change and the Giant Peach