Retreating to the Future

CommScrumming from Bromley,Kent

Mike Klein

Greetings from the first-ever CommScrum founders’ retreat.  Amid a bacchanalia of mulled wine, Thai curry and private-label bourbon,  we Scrummers took a look at the current state of organisational communication, life in the corporate world, and in particular the fate of blogging as a viable means of getting opinions across.

As one could expect, the discussions were robust, particularly in terms of whom we believe our target audience should be, with my fellows seeking to engage (hate that word but can’t think of better) CEOs and senior folks from other disciplines, and me tenaciously clinging to the ground that CommScrum should be about empowering communicators to challenge conventional wisdom whether it comes from above or below.

We did come to some shared conclusions, the first of which is that blogging is toast.  We’ve largely run aground on our own blogging, hence the paucity of recent posts. We’ve also come to appreciate that our LinkedIn group is a success, with 417 members worldwide, including some of the best thought leaders from Europe, North America and Australasia.

So, we’re going to concentrate on evolving CommScrum to the next level – developing the quality and membership of the LinkedIn group.  And, when we have a collective opinion, we’ll either post to a collective platform like CIPR’s Conversation, write a white paper, and even, submit a post to a real print publication.

Thus, aside from links to these external postings, we are burying the blog.  The Blog is dead, long live CommScrum!

Lindsay Uittenbogaard

Right.  Commscrum isn’t about the founders, it is about provocative challenge to the current communication profession. It means to save its practitioners from wading around in the ‘dark side’ of reactive, subservient mud to talk to about what really counts.

It’s about people who have an affinity with fun, edgy, smart communication talking about business, from a viewpoint where that communication is integrated with its overlapping disciplines: PR, Public Affairs, HR, Brand, Marketing… all for pre- and post- business-decision purposes.

Taking that – as a very specific frame – to the members of the Commscrum group on LinkedIn as a single virtual platform, passes the ball to the next phase of possession.  An exciting game.

Dan Gray

When we started this blog, there were two defining features: first was the commitment to challenging orthodoxy, to strap up our cauliflower ears, sharpen our studs and be prepared to indulge in the odd ‘Mauri sidestep’; second was the unique four-handed nature of our scrums, priming the debate and letting it be known that anyone and everyone was welcome to pile in and say their piece.

On the second, the migration from the blog to the LinkedIn group was an obvious evolutionary step, taking our four-handed approach and (at the time of writing this) turning into a 417-handed one. Killing off the blog just makes this official, and it’s the right thing to do.

As for the future, I’d point to my single favourite scrum, which was started by Adam Hibbert on the LI group, which essentially boiled down to: if everything the CommScrum stands for is so obvious to us, why does it continue to be anathema to so many organisations?

Firstly, it’s a great question – the kind of big ‘Why?’/‘What if?’ question that the CommScrum is there for. (‘How to…’ is fine as the ultimate destination of a conversation, but it’s not an appropriate starting point for us; there are plenty of other forums to address these kinds of tactical questions.)

Secondly, its intent was a kind of root cause analysis – something that might actually lead to a way past the conceptual/institutional roadblocks that stand in our way. We never really got that far, though, and I’d like to see us resurrect and develop this line of investigation further.

Kevin Keohane

Having been party to the construction of the above, I have little to add.  One, it had been within the realm of possibility that CommScrum had run its course. Two, I want to see the CommScrum dialogue extend beyond “communication” in its more traditional sense and into the realm of “communication” as a creative strategic business management and design discipline that doesn’t just reflect but actually shapes and defines organisational direction.  Looking forward to the next stage in the revolution.

Are we just Talking Heads on a road to nowhere?

Kevin Keohane – CommScrum Queensway

PWC’s 2011 Global CEO Survey puts the talent agenda – that is, branding, acquiring, inspiring, developing, mobilising people – as the number one issue that will result in driving change & growth in 2011-2012.  Clearly, employee engagement and communication are at the heart of all of this.  The Economist Intelligent Unit Companies at a Crossroad report says the same thing. McKinsey Quarterly focuses on Organisational Health as a source of competitive advantage. Again, processes aside, it’s all about communication.

The IABC Research Foundation publishes a study telling us that the economic downturn has had an effect on budgets, manager communication is important, email (83%) and intranets (75%) are key channels, social media is catching on, and people use surveys to measure employee opinion.

OK, I know, I seem to bash IABC a lot, but honestly it’s in the way that you get frustrated when someone you love acts like a complete idiot and embarrasses themselves time after time, when you know their heart is in the right place.  Really – take that report off the site and hide it, and refund its cost pro rata to members.  For environmental reasons if nothing else.

But really, we might as well take the word BUSINESS out of the organisation’s title.  Because we just don’t talk business, it seems, in IABC content anymore.  Measuring business isn’t business.  Surely the IABC study should be about how communication and engagement can deliver all these growth imperatives for leading businesses; strategies and tactics for how business communicators can be the drivers of these critical success factors.  Instead … well, read the report if you can stomach it.

IC needs to start thinking in C-suite terms.  I’m not saying we should all aspire to be CEOs or CFOs, but at least think in terms of how what we do delivers the stuff that CEOs need (and it isn’t about the tactics, though we seem relentlessly committed to staying in that comfort zone).  The irony is that, in my experience, these conversations are easier at C-level anyway since you save all the insecure, jargon-littered territorial pissing across functional silos.

Sigh. Thoughts?

Dan Gray – CommScrum West Brompton

Plus ca change (as your Publicis masters in Paris would say), n’est-ce pas?

I find myself looking back to our very first CommScrum ruck and, in particular to Mark Schumann’s comment on it – how the communication world he entered bore little resemblance to the one we’re in now, and about how IABC was in the process of kicking off a major piece of research to get to grips with the consequences.

Judging from your links above, the results of that exercise don’t appear to have born much fruit, do they?! (“We’ve learned from our mistakes, as a result of which we can now repeat them exactly!”)

Looking back over those words, I think I can see part of the reason why. Just look at the wording of the purpose of the research…

…so we learn, firsthand, what it takes for a professional association to be relevant, and to deliver value that professionals consider essential. [emphasis added]

i.e. not the essential function of communication in a changing business context, but specifically the function of communication associations; not guided by what business leaders / employees / customers / investors / communities consider to be communication’s essential contribution to their lives and livelihoods, but by what its own existing member base thinks about what they need. Go figure if all that’s farted out is more of the same. (Not meant as an ad hominem attack on Mark, btw – far from it – rather the inertia seemingly brought about by a counterproductive, narrow-minded interest in self-preservation on the part of the wider institution.)

Look, we all know what needs attention and why – perhaps best articulated by Mary Boone in her great comment on our ‘glass ceilings’ debate a while back.

My one overriding thought on all of this is that it’s a bit like the debacle at Copenhagen last year. If that taught us anything it’s that, if you believe that something has to be done urgently to tackle the ‘perfect storm’ of climate change, population growth and diminishing resources, there ain’t much point in waiting on politicians to take the lead. You have to just get out there and do what you already know needs to be done.

In the same vein, it’s time for us to forget about what professional associations are or aren’t doing (they’re always going to be behind the curve) and just get on with doing it ourselves.

Commscrummer Lindsay Uittenbogaard in The Netherlands

I guess there’s only so much theorizing you can do about internal comms without it needing to be backed up by good practice before we can justify moving to the next level. And this discipline doesn’t seem to be getting to that next level, judging by the level at which the content in those reports is pitched. In fact, if we’re going to be darned depressing about it, sometimes it just feels like we are going backwards, in a catch 22.

Our work can only as good as the leaders we support (through their enablement, sponsorship and leadership) – and leadership appreciation of communication – has that stepped up? And just like other support functions – IT, Finance – people only notice when it’s not working: let’s face it IC will never reach 100% effectiveness. And then there’s the reciprocation angle – communication is a two way street – does IC have participation or is it met with auto-delete? Well I guess all that comes down to how good your work is – which takes some time to cultivate in your own unique working context.

So you need time, skill, management patience, management comms appreciation and talent, management sponsorship, a forgiving yet open culture, and a budget. So the odds are on that most of us are going to fail… perpetuating the lack of management patience, comms appreciation and talent, sponsorship: hence the catch 22. On the other hand, those who can stomach this as a backdrop and succeed can take it all. So I don’t want to bash IABC, I think they’re just pitching at a level where most IC professionals are still working.

By the way – although I agree with you, Kevin – measurement is business – a part of it at least.

Mike Klein: Commscrumming away in the land of the almost-midnight sun

We’re not on a road to nowhere.  Neither is IABC, though the road they are taking to satisfy their middle-market constituencies leaves them vulnerable to some criticism.  But I do believe that old-school, broadcast, channel-focused internal communication is in the process of a downgrade.

Increasingly, business success is dependent on smaller groups of people with bigger impact.  As this is shifting external communication away from a pure focus on press relations, it is shifting internal communication away from an emphasis on broadcast media and dutiful measurement.

Both kinds of work will still be necessary, but seen as more implementational and junior than it has been in recent years. In contrast, the drive for “social business” continues apace, and may well be where practitioners are seen as having the highest value-add, particularly if they show a penchant for identifying and mobilising high-value audiences and constituencies as opposed to just being able to maintain a suite of online accounts.

Sure that’s a long way from IABC’s current research, but it’s also a way from where the newly enlightened communication converts of McK and PwC sit as well.    It’s nice at a certain level that the management consultancies recognise what we recognised about organisational communication years ago, but it will be interesting to see if they have any intention to staff up or skill up professionally, or simply to blag their way into the business with amateur skills and a dated approach.  Indeed, it would be very interesting to see if anyone at McK or PwC might find the IABC research useful?

Clear boundaries or borderless and unlimited? What’s your view?

We’ve circled the wagons back at CommScrum’s increasingly virtual Global Headquarters and agreed that many previous CommScrum discussions have danced around the issue of self-imposed limitations, definitions and perceptions of what “employee” or “internal” comms is and isn’t.

Dan Gray – CommScrum Riyadh

Two broad camps appear to have emerged in the “glass ceilings” debate, shaped by people’s personal stylings of themselves – on the one hand, the dyed-in-the-wool siloed pragmatist as internal communicator; on the other, those of us of a more generalist disposition (among others Geoff, KK, Indy…) who might be accused of not colouring inside the lines.

Unsurprisingly, the former seems to take a rather more limited view of what communication is, what it’s for, and what the limit of our ambitions for the profession ought to be versus those of us of a more interdisciplinary orientation.

I find a recent comment by Alan Richardson very revealing – i.e. what makes the case for communicators as management consultant-types any more compelling than, say HR, L&D or OD? This perception of neatly drawn conceptual boundaries between disciplines is the crux of the problem, and (no disrespect to Alan) rather misses the point.

The point is that communications, viewed as a “meta-discipline” (in similar fashion to Design Thinking), is something that transcends and defragments all of these individual fiefdoms; and that this leap in mindset is a precondition of understanding the future leadership vision we have outlined in recent posts on the CommScrum.

Perhaps the two biggest “light-bulb” moments that have shaped my thinking in recent times have been:

1) The realisation that Marty Neumeier’s definition of a brand (people’s collective “gut feeling” about a company, what it does and how it does it) is virtually identical to Edgar Schein’s definition of where true organisational culture lies (i.e. at the level of tacit assumptions/preconscious beliefs about an organisation and how it functions). Brand and culture are essentially two sides of the same coin.

2) The realisation, similarly shaped by Schein, that what he describes as the “surface manifestations” of the culture (any number of touchpoints including stories, physical environment, structures/systems/processes) will always be infinitely more powerful in shaping people’s beliefs and attitudes than any explicit communications. (As we all know, it doesn’t matter a jot how beautifully articulated your values are, if bosses then go ahead and act in direct contravention of these supposedly treasured traits).

Both points come back to the fundamental question of authenticity, which, in our era of social communication and ever-diminishing trust in formal communication channels, is increasingly critical to business success.

The first point says you can’t view external and internal communications in isolation. Communications as meta-discipline embraces both as part of the same system.

The second point goes further, saying that you can’t view that system of communication as being independent of issues of strategy, structure etc. Communications consultancy (whether the source is internal or external) that doesn’t offer leadership on these questions can never be truly strategic. When was a strategy house like McKinsey or BCG ever engaged simply to “facilitate conversation”? Answer: never!

(Now throw in Geoff’s refrain that there isn’t a single field of human endeavour that doesn’t involve communications as a critical component.)

Join these things up, and you have created a powerful role for this new interdisciplinary animal as the most important leaders/guardians/curators of organisational authenticity – authenticity that connects tribes both inside and outside your organisation around an honest expression of what you stand for; that from an employee perspective, means that you attract the right people in the first place (for whom the right behaviours are second nature – no shoehorns required!); that those people stay (because the articulation of values and culture is demonstrably enshrined in strategy, structures and systems); that they become the most passionate advocates of the brand (waxing lyrical to their mates down the pub), so that when customers are asked to describe their impressions of the company, they add unsolicited to their reply: “…and I hear it’s a fabulous place to work.”

Bottom-line, we are entering (or have already entered, dependent on your view) an era where inside-out trumps outside-in; open and collaborative trumps closed and competitive; stakeholder value trumps shareholder value; wisdom of crowds trumps wisdom of experts; long-term sustainability trumps short-term profit maximisation; whole systems approaches trump functional silos; fast and fluid trumps slow and structured; multi-coloured trumps black and white; disruptive innovation trumps sustaining innovation; profound simplicity trumps complexity; Design Thinking trumps linear thinking… yada yada yada.

Now tell me what planet you’d have to be on in order for it to make sense to promote an accountant to shepherd their organisation through this era over someone with a background in interdisciplinary communication! Is there any reason why any of us so-inclined shouldn’t have ambitions on the C-suite?

Kevin Keohane – CommScrum Paris  (Ah, the view from the Publicis Groupe building at 133 Champs Elysees.  C’est magnifique)

I agree of course in principle but I have to say “it depends.”  I’m not sure we’re in a world yet where many Boards and Shareholders would necessarily feel comfortable handing over the keys to someone with a “non-traditional” background.  I mean, would I  really want someone who is a walking encyclopaedia of internal communication academic studies, or a celebrated expert in using social media to engage stakeholders, anywhere near my board room table? No no no no.

On the other hand , it does work for some – say WPP, Omnicom, Publicis? WPP is run by an accountant, Publicis by a technologist/engineer and Omnicom by an ad man. Yet their market share and margins are all broadly comparable by and large so you can’t argue that commercial performance is affected – though having been at both WPP and Publicis I would certainly say corporate culture sure as hell is!  Would it work at say a big insurance company? Probably not.  But a professional services firm or IT organisation? Hmmn.. maybe.  We do see examples of larger corporates run by those with “less traditional” functional backgrounds – though many might have spend time in for example HR and Corporate Comms at some stage in their development (as general managers though and not often in a deeply technical role).  The issue is what value communication creates / can create / should create for the enterprise and the capability, track record and commitment of the individual in question.

I do believe, however, that we will see an increased emergence of non-traditional executives – not a sea change, but an emergence.  It’s already happening with numerous examples of HRDs in interim CEO roles; and CMOs sometimes taking up the reins as well.  One of the great things about being professional communicators is that you tend to *have to* hang around and learn different disciplines from IT to HR to Brand etc. to do your job well.  That cross-functional perspective will be increasingly valuable as a leadership skill in a complicated world – the days of 50% of CEOs being chartered accountants are numbered.

In terms of self-definition, for communicators, I also think a lot of it comes down to personal motivation and personal ambition.  I know plenty of intelligent, highly competent internal communicators who have no interest whatsoever in being a “leader” per se since being communicators is what they love.  Start talking balance sheets and margin and EBITDA and they run screaming into the hills.  Or they just aren’t that interested in the business of their business and would rather obsess about crisp copy, writing for the web and how to use social media to do more of what they do already (more of a problem, in my view).  So I guess my point is – for those communicators with the capability, the desire and commitment (thanks HBR) there is no reason why they couldn’t ascend to C-level roles and board responsibilities in FTSE100 firms.

Perhaps most importantly, at least to me, communicators with the capability and desire have almost an obligation to take opportunities to influence the strategic agenda of their organisation.  First, it’s what you they’re paid to do whether they want to admit it or not.  Second, it makes life more interesting and builds their value and skillset.  Third, it means they deliver more value and ROI if they do it half properly which is why we have companies in the first place.

In other words, there is no excuse for boring, more-of-the-same, poorly executed, strategically thin, firmly siloed communication in any business.  You might get away with it, but eventually it will catch up to you and someone else will take your job from you.  And you will deserve it.

Mike Klein–Commscrumming from Sarajevo, Bosnia (which may be the coolest city in all of Europe)

I think this argument misses the point–which is the extent to which communication (as opposed to finance or operations) has the ability to serve as an organization’s crucial source of competitive advantage.

Senior corporate leaders have long tended to come from control disciplines (accounting, engineering), and in recent years, finance (which has proven to be anything but a “control” discipline in the wake of the recent debacles in exotic securities.

But if you look at which disciplines are capable of achieving breakthrough results–of making 1+1=3, one is hard pressed to look outside of the communication disciplines.  If value is going to be constantly under attack from commoditization and digitization, having leadership focused on creating it rather than defending it may well make sense for all but the producers of the most physical and basic of the world’s commodities.  And even those players–who need to prove sustainability bona-fides to the branded businesses they supply, need to look to the communication disciplines as a core approach to defending their value.

Now, are all of today’s corporate leaders, business schools and institutional shareholders going to like this?  No.  But if Ford, for instance, is able to recognize that the value generated by its approach to social media is greater than that from its six-sigma lean manufacturing approaches, than watch out.

From Lindsay Uittenbogaard Commscrumming from Munich

Point 1 – it’s more about the perception of the role of communication:

Dan – I love your “light bulb” moments – and of course fully agree that with the breadth of communication possibilities being so vast, it would be small-minded to set out a pre-defined role for the communicator.   I too am an ‘out of the boundaries’ kinda person.    But to be the pragmatist the perception of the role of the communicator is created when people see outputs and resultant change (referring to Dan’s point number 2 – the message is solidified by evidence, not words).

“What does communication actually ‘do’?”

“Oh, they do this, this and this. ..”

The more advanced will say, “and they were a part of x change because of their approach doing y and z.”

Top strategic level communicators can paint themselves all sorts of ‘outside the line’ concepts – but the implementation will always come down to something a little more sober, familiar – and as such, pigeon-holed.   Towards whatever clever desired outcome, communication work will probably always be involved in media / material / event production, messages, and the representation of concepts and information in one way or another.  That’s where people put us in their minds – regardless of their seniority.

However, as the inspired strategy turns into proven practice, the outputs – as observed – evolve…  as do the perceptions of the usefulness of those activities.    Our actions do define the perception of our role but few would say it has no limits…

Point 2 – Comms in the C-Suite?  It doesn’t fit – not just because of comfort but also because of relevance:

Kevin, I agree with the notion that communicators may not end up at the very top but will increasingly take on Executive roles because, I think Mike, this is the level at which the pursuit of finding more value falls.    The C-suite’s top priority isn’t about improving value via communication or six sigma – it’s about the fundamental mission of the organization, which is usually about money or market share and how to change something there.  Communication is a means, not a mission.

Take a dinosaur organization whose mission is to increase profit from a lousy low.  Sure, the communicator who wants to build their value and skill set, remain current, and do something truly majestic will want to escape from “boring, more-of-the-same, poorly executed, strategically thin, firmly siloed communication” (KK) and “influence the strategic agenda of their organisation” (KK).  But the heavy politics, inescapably pre-set agenda and laborious cost / programme / people cuts will take the heads in the Board Room away from creative communication – even though it can help a great deal.   It’s like thinking about fine, sugar-coated chocolate when you’re trying to eat dry peanut butter on thick brown bread.   Most people / sponsors just can’t do both at the same time and need to follow a hard, simple programme of a few key activities to stay focused.   Additionally, they will probably never have been exposed to the results of GREAT communication work before and so will never have seen the evidence of its the potential (back to Dan’s point 2) – so the C-suite will say they get it but won’t put their money and energy where their mouths are unless they are in a position to take a risk.

The CEO for this profit improving mission will definitely have risen from the traditional ranks – and rightly so.   In terms of making a direct and positive contribution to the realization of the business’ key strategic profit influencing activities  – dare I say it, the communicator would probably be a bit quiet at the table.  Instead, as an Executive, the communicator will likely get sponsorship to design and implement a digestible array of traditional communication activities to support the mission, which will probably suffice.  Given half the chance, the communicator might implement a kick-ass out of the box communication set of solutions that work a treat.  In terms of snakes and ladders – that would be our biggest ladder.

Take on the other hand, the forward thinking international organization who need to make a merger a big success in order to realize dramatic growth plans.   Let’s just hope the C-suite likes and trusts their Head of Communication, who just threw a six…

CommScrummers – a blog entitled “Context is King” was planned a few months ago but for some reason it didn’t surface.   The meaning in that was, that a good look at the business and its needs is required before any conclusions are drawn about where communication fits best.   Let’s not look at our theoretical potential, but at our real business challenges – and how we can work, one person at a time, to build the faith that will lead to evidencing what we think we are capable of achieving.

Where HR, Communication and Marketing (and others) meet

Kevin Keohane - CommScrum Canary Wharf (‘from the belly of the beast’)

It’s been interesting to be both participant in, and observer of, the changes that have taken place across the functional disciplines in the “people” space over 20 years spent with organisations around the world.  Through business cycles, management fads, technology and generational change the rough and tumble among human resources, brand, marketing, corporate and internal communication has seen the territorial boundaries shift relentlessly.

And never so much as in recent years.  With cost-cutting driven to the limit in most industries, attention has shifted to the “people agenda” as a source of value creation and efficiency gain.  Harvard Business Review and The Economist (among others) have recently put it in the Top 3 drivers of strategic growth.  Suddenly “people practitioners” have found themselves in the spotlight, rubbing elbows with leaders and other functions.  The antiquated notion of individual functions having sole ownership for “captive” audiences internally or externally has become risible in all but the most Neolithic of companies.

While some organisations probably believe they have tackled the “multi-disciplinary” approach, few have gone far enough in truly sharing accountability and ownership – often, it would seem, because of the lack of political will to elevate certain functions above others in the real or perceived organisational hierarchy. People might be our most valuable asset in the annual report – but for heaven’s sake hold fire on actually doing anything about it in the organisational structure.

When else has the profession had more of a mandate, or had more evidence, to make important, meaningful and value-adding contributions to corporate brand strategy?  Employer reputation management (erm, that’s PR isn’t it)?  Driving organisational process and behaviour change (management consultant, anyone?); Brand engagement (marketing) and internal communication?  Aligning, motivating and recognising individual and team performance to the business strategy?  Ensuring we are attracting and help retain and inspire the right people – nowadays using tools that virtually ignore print and are driven by SEO, face to face and social media (IT expert?).

The biggest barrier facing us is our own behaviours.  We often don’t challenge structures, systems, beliefs and practices about the role of communication or indeed what it “is”.  This isn’t going to result in anything other than doing more of what we already do – a little bit better.  Competence might look professional, but we must go further.

As Geoff Barbaro says – try to find any area of business endeavour (or life) that doesn’t require communication.

It’s understandable: the core principal of 20^th century business management is division of labour amongst specialists.  This is part and parcel of dividing work into manageable chunks, but as professionals we shouldn’t accept this status quo anymore.  We can, and should, act as the glue that holds the whole thing together and gives it its shape.

Of course we still need communication competence.  “It’s all about communication.”  But it’s also about rising to the occasion and taking employee communication into the “new world” of being a vibrant and effective strategic management discipline.  We’ve spoken about it for years, an ambition whispered sotto voce from the wings. But today more than ever it’s about confidence, raising our game and rising to the occasion.  I see no reason why we shouldn’t aspire to have 5 Communication Directors promoted to Chief Executive roles in the FT100 in the next 10 years.

Because there has never been a better moment to jump, unapologetically, into the driver’s seat – or at least ride shotgun.

Mike Klein–Commscrum en transition

Well said, Kevin.  But I’d go farther.  I don’t just think that we’ve reached a point where the contributions of “communicators” and “people specialists” is at its most needed and welcome.  I think we may indeed be at a real tipping point, where the very value of the organizations we work for is to be determined by how well we create context  as well as content.

For many years, the “real work” of business was all about the content–the products, the processes used to make the products, and the skill with which the resources (financial, mineral, vegetable and animal) were deployed to make the products.  Leadership, such as it was, was all about a combination of resource management skills combined with force of will.

We’re on the verge of something different.  Does that mean communicators are about to waltz into the C-Suite?  Not waltz.  But as business realizes the fundamental, intrinsic importance of context, we’re going to play in a couple of pivotal ways.

First,  we’re going to need to make our bosses as good as we are about this stuff–as vigilant about using language, as passionate about telling stories, as resonant with a room full of shift workers as with a room full of stock analysts.  That’s going to be difficult–we will have to make ourselves their peers, and that will require hard learning and hard work.

The second bit will be easier and more fun.  It will require defining, shaping and unfolding organizational narratives that leaders, staff, customers and other stakeholders will need to see themselves in.  These narratives will be as vital in industrial business-to-business organizations as they will be in fast food, fashion, or footwear.  If context is critical, we will be in the position to initiate in a way that our friends and rivals at the table cannot conceive.

Will that turn the tables? Who knows–but it’s a more interesting place than anywhere we’ve been in the last couple of decades.

Lindsay Uittenbogaard - Commscrumming from The Netherlands

For where I sit, the challenge here may not be about agreement or willingness to bridge the potentially linking disciplines – it is about the ‘AND’ issue.   What I mean here is that people find it difficult to concentrate on mastering their own disciplines AND simultaneously master the ‘common ground’ piece too.

This is a notorious challenge – particularly in leadership, I understand, where leaders find it tough for example, to deliver now AND think of the long term; to manage costs AND invest in people.  These seemingly opposing forces need to find a tension that works.  Similarly, being passionate about carrying something forward AND sharing it with others is a contrast:  it’s about ownership.

Only people who seem to have developed positive working relationships seem to be able to find this happy tension – doesn’t it say more about the need for team building?

Dan Gray – donning his scrum-cap in Riyadh

For me, the killer point in this post is the point about the biggest barriers to progression being our own behaviours. IMNSHO, this can’t be emphasised enough.

I’ve already posted a link to this on a previous comments thread – a really great piece by Warren Levy on CSR Wire.

It’s his observations on the interconnectedness of today’s world that really resonate – i.e. the reason we should be so concerned about companies’ unethical behaviour is because that behaviour is no longer only a risk to them; it now has the capacity to endanger everyone (as per the domino effect of the recent financial crisis).

It’s precisely this interconnectedness that should be driving our thinking as communicators. Business success depends like never before on collaboration, which puts communication at the heart of success.

But grasping that opportunity requires us to demonstrate a great deal more than just communication competence, and goes way beyond the merely “multi-disciplinary” (rather than truly integrative thinking, that’s just a larger group of people, each still with their particular biases and turf to protect!).

It all comes back the very first post I wrote here on the CommScrum about the need to be more “T-shaped”. Like the evolution from design to Design Thinking, we should be joining our creative confreres in directing our finely-honed empathic skills and audience understanding to helping organisations see round corners.

That’s what’ll see comms folk in the comfy chair in the CEO’s office – realising that our true value and potential lies less in the artefacts we create than it does in the thought processes that we follow, and their application to a damn sight more than just communication (back to Geoff’s point again!).

The best and worst developments in employee communication

Kevin Keohane – CommScrum Notting Hill

Looking back at the past 5, 10, 20 years, it’s interesting to dissect the forward and backward progression of the employee communication discipline in light of changes in business climate, management strategies and fads, technological advances and the emergence of societal trends at local and global levels.

Each ‘Scrummer will put up their own Top 3 Best and Worst in terms of trends and/or practices and then the games can begin.  So here’s mine:

The Top 3 GREATEST developments in employee communications in the past 10 (or so) years:

1.  The emergence of social media technology and user-generated content.  We all know top-down is not always the best internal communications approach, but it was always challenging to come up with other ways of peer to peer and bottom up that weren’t either too small to be really impactful or too expensive to sustain.  We all know that involving people in change that effects them is the best route to success, that people take ownership of the things that they help shape.  But again, often easier said than done. The rise of  the profile of “social media” has made it a lot easier to create effective alternatives to top-down.  Of course, social communication isn’t reliant on technology – but by Jove it has become a hell of a lot easier to do.

2. Storytelling. I debated about 5 different Top 3s and the recognition of the power of Storytelling won out.  Surprised me, too.  But in my experience, the primal human desire to tell and hear stories — whether in a 3 year old or a 90 year old – was long ignored and remains just as powerful as a mechanism now as it did when certain people were pioneering this 10 or more years ago and being ridiculed for being “Pink and fluffy quasi-psychological theorists.”  Storytelling – truly a best practice, regardless of how it’s implemented?

3.  The emergent revelation that, having cut costs and Six Sigma’d everything to death, communication matters, that internal and external communications are inextricably linked, and that internal is as commercially important as external.  After banging on about “joined up thinking” for years in pitches, work with clients, my book and posts dating back 3+ years, green shoots of evidence that alignment is beginning to happen are coming through everywhere – and not just in traditional “live the brand” and “internal launches” but actual strategic, cross-functional, inside-out alignment.  We still have a long way to go of course… but there is evidence of progress and I believe this is where the next “paradigm shift” (vomit, I hate that term) will happen in our profession.

The Top (bottom?)  3 WORST developments in employee communications in the past 10 (or so) years:

1.  The overshadowing influence of measurement-led approaches to employee engagement. We’ve beaten this to death in previous posts, but measurement seems to be edging back towards a more reasonable sense of priority and scale.  Of course measuring effectiveness and impact – both from an ROI and a risk mitigation perspective – is critical.  But spending equal amounts on measurement as on critical employee communications delivery is absolute madness.

2.  Internal communicators abandoning the strategic high ground and focussing on channel management and allowing the employee engagement space to be “divided and conquered” by HR, Change Management and Marketing. Somewhere along the line internal communications managed to surrender employee engagement to HR and employer brand to marketing or HR in many organisations, with the rationale that their job was packaging, air traffic control and channel management.  Big mistake that has had lasting repercussions and resulted in more messages and more noise, and less impact, in many organisations.

3.  The belief that technology (especially Intranets, most specifically those based on Sharepoint) can solve all their employee communication problems. An interesting foil to point 1 in my Top 3 list, but we have all seen companies where “We’ve communicated – it’s on the intranet” is a very real phenomenon.  Combine this with the marketing might of Microsoft and madness of crowds sheep like behaviour, we now often see “award winning” intranets that are unfit for purpose and failing to remotely deliver on their potential and promise. Echoes of our “best practice” debate apply here just as much as to employee engagement.

Follow up from Lindsay Uittenbogaard in The Hague

GREATEST DEVELOPMENTS:

1. The recognition of (most) leaders that actually, communication is important – even if that notion is still a bit woolly in the minds of many.   Internal communication generally isn’t seen as PR on the inside anymore. I would say that this has been our biggest step forward – caused by…

2. The credibility that communicators have established for their profession, so far - we could have perpetuated the idea that communication is a fluffy addition to real business by doing a crap job.  We should be proud of ourselves, folks.  We have earned our profession a credible place in the overall discussion.

3. The link between communication and knowledge sharing (with social communication and tools like SharePoint) helps connect information transparency with communication and business performance. I don’t think this crosses Kevin’s point that a major flaw of communicating via technology is a tick box mentality.  This is about creating clarity, which for me does not stop at traditional ‘managed media’ communication.  The sources and flows of communication are multiple and we’re on it.

THE TOP 3 WORST DEVELOPMENTS – quickly coming to mind are:

1. The failure of leaders to significantly invest in the development of communication competences in their managers and staff - we are all communicators but we’re not necessarily born that way.  Good communication practices of line managers and staff can arguably add the most value to business of all communication activities.

2. The failure of communicators to properly define the professional internal communication space to all relevant parties, so leaving still hoards of people who don’t really know how to interact with communicators or participate to their own benefit (links with point 1).  This is not exactly the converse of point 2 GREATEST DEVELOPMENTS, above – it is more that we tend only to focus on convincing our sponsors – not our broader stakeholders – what communication can be all about and the relevance of that to all.

3. The failure of leaders to recognize the benefits of a board-level-represented communication function – I echo Kevin’s point 2 WORST DEVELOPMENTS above.  Communication taken from the perspective of another discipline skews its application – in my mind away from the most value.

Mike Klein–Commscrum Place Stephanie/Stephanieplein

THE BEST

1.  Free Association for Internal Communicators

One of the weirdest moments of my career in internal communication took place in 2003, when I had the temerity to attempt to organize a “Lateral Communications Interest Group” under the IABC umbrella, using IABC’s own nascent social media tools.  Rather than support, encouragement, or assistance, I received a six month suspension for spamming and for unenumerated violations of the IABC ethics code, along with some tart sneers about how the chapter level was the “appropriate” place for such activities.

Today, LinkedIn alone has dozens of separate social media (today’s term for lateral communication) networks and dozens of internal communications networks (including our own fast-growing CommScrum group).  It’s no longer a requirement to ask permission from San Francisco to approach IABCers–or other communicators–around the world about shaping a new direction for our industry.

2. The Unthinkable is now Discussable

Even five years ago, even with abundant research saying that cascades and other control-centric communication tools were ineffective or harmful, the idea that communication flowed in anything other than a top-down direction was unthinkable in some quarters, and in others, still undiscussable.

While I think there is too much emphasis on the “media” side of the social communication revolution, that the social and lateral side of communication is  now open for business–and for open discussion with clients–is something worth sustained cheers.

3.  Leadership by Blogging (and Tweeting)

Internal communication is not neurosurgery, to paraphrase a phrase.  The major ideas, the major energies and major veins of activity can be shared well through a combination of leadership, persistence and good old fashioned writing.

That’s why the emergence of a solid internal comms blogosphere in the last couple of years, and the emergence of a tweetosphere willing to receive countless links to new articles and initiatives, has created a strong worldwide community floating and shooting ideas far more quickly than they could in a series of lunches, lectures, pricey conferences and chapter meetings.

WORST

In the aggregate, there is really one “worst”–the last stand of the Status Quo–fighting as hard as it can to deflect or parry the changes being wrought within the industry, and doing its utmost to deny oxygen to emerging leaders and experts.  In three acts:

1. “Employee Engagement” as a Measurement

It is not simply (as stated above) that there is too much measurement focus around “employee engagement”–it’s that measurement has allowed a two-way process (the way employees engage with employers) become a top-down, one-way measure (the extent to which employees are willing to contribute in excess of their compensation and any explicit commitment on the organization’s part).  Aside from creating an unsustainable gap in the cultures of these organizations, the persistence of such an approach to “employee engagement” is further reinforcing the last stand of top-down, one-way internal communication.

2.  ”It’s all about MEDIA!!!”

The response of the incumbent IC industry–publishers, associations, agencies in particular–has been to focus on how cool, cheap and indispensible social media can be, particularly as an adjunct to existing top-down communication strategies.  In so doing, they attempt to sweep under the rug how the underlying shift towards social communication renders those strategies (and their supporting structures) obsolete.  They buy some time and fill lots of seats, but throw large numbers of people off track.

3.  Competence over Confidence

Not long ago, there was a huge furore in the industry about whether internal communicators were sufficiently “competent”, or in particular, whether they could complete a common suite of tasks and activities with wagging tails and bones held firmly in jaw.

That talk has seemed to be in abayance, but it’s had an underlying corrosive impact–in that the idea that an internal communicator’s value is derived from a basic level of tactical competence undermines that communicator’s willingness, and perhaps even standing and ability, to challenge  and influence strategic decisions.  Indeed, once the smoke clears from the current upheaval, the best thing the industry can do collectively is focus powerfully on raising and reinforcing the confidence of communication practitioners.

Dan Gray – Doin’ his thang in Riyadh

BEST

1. Erm… what Mike said. I nearly wrote ‘The emergence of the CommScrum’, which sounds way too self-congratulatory by half (in all seriousness, though, I think the community we’re developing here is a really special one and I, for one, have found pearls of wisdom in the comments threads here that I’m not seeing anywhere else). Let’s just say it’s what the CommScrum represents, and Mike’s first point covers that nicely.

2. “It’s all about communication.” One of said pearls of wisdom came from Geoff Barbaro in a comment on a previous post – that there isn’t a single field of human endeavour that doesn’t have communication as a critical component. When I studied at Ashridge (where “It’s all about communication” ranks alongside “It depends” as the ultimate stock answer for MBAs), I genuinely felt for the first time that the empathic skills and audience understanding people like us bring to the table was widely appreciated as a valuable strategic discipline.

3. Recognition of the importance of internal comms to external branding efforts – i.e. that (especially for corporate brands) it’s the proper branding of internal culture that begets a brand its authenticity. As KK mentioned in one of his recent posts on DTIM, we’ve had several clients who’ve had this light bulb go off, and it’s made for some really interesting and challenging work. They’re still in the minority, but it’s a start…

WORST

1. Erm… what Mike said again (Kevin too)! Of course we must demonstrate the value we add, but that does not necessary mean ROI, and it certainly doesn’t mean quantitative measurement of a universal “thing” called engagement. The persistence of the notion that this the only/best way to show ourselves as serious business people is corrosive and the single most significant barrier to the advancement of the profession, because it encourages…

2. Competence over confidence. I can’t argue with Mike’s second point either, and it’s a corollary to Kevin’s point on technology above. The idea that developing functional competence is the key to solving all your communication problems is equally flawed. In an increasingly complex, diverse and unstable world, it’s the ability to understand strategic context – to “join the dots” – that is infinitely more valuable. I still don’t see any of the professional associations grasping the interdisciplinary nettle.

3. The endless debate over definition of terms. I know Mike like’s to say that “with words we define our world”, and he’s right, but sometimes they are inadequate – even for people who communicate for a living. “Engagement” is such a subjective term – different for different individuals, groups and organisations; different even for those same people on different days – that trying to come up with catch-all definitions is to put a straightjacket around a concept that is much richer and more dynamic than words can properly express (a bit like “The Force”). So maybe we should stop trying – or at least concentrate on a more situational approach that defines engagement relevant to a particular set of circumstances.

Commscrum and “Free Associations”—A Conversation

In this posting, the men and the woman of CommScrum discuss their short history, their commitment to free discussion, and the reactions they have received from unexpected places…with real-time conversation from the ethers of Skypechat:

Mike: Here’s how I’d like to start:  So, we’re into our fourth month of CommScrum–where we promised to break some taboos and challenge conventional wisdom–how do we think we’re doing?

Lindsay:  I think we’ve produced some good stuff and had some fun doing it.  The format’s been easy and the interaction we get is great so I can see this going for a while.

Kevin:  I like that we have brought out some sacred cows and if not slaughtered them then at least grilled and seasoned them a bit.  But we could still be more challenging.  I don’t want to become too polite or we’ll turn into what we are trying to distance ourselves from.

Dan: We have established a core of engaged folk (Sean Trainor, Sean Williams, Debbie Hinton et al) on both sides of the pond who like what we have to say, and are happy to chime in on a regular basis. Now its a question of how we widen the net further, in my book.

Mike: To be fair, we’ve clearly drawn blood a bit though, which I think we should acknowledge ourselves for.  We have one core principle guiding us, which a belief that there is nothing or no one in the communication world whom we can’t challenge, so long as we challenge on substantive grounds.

Kevin: And I don’t think drawing blood is an objective in itself.  It’s just an outcome of focusing on things that need to change in our profession if we are to remain relevant and innovative.

Mike:  One thing we’ve identified that’s crucial—is that there seems to be all-pervasive element of our profession’s culture that’s holding us back–a belief not only in hierarchy for its own sake, but that those in hierarchies hold their positions by right, making it wrong, impolite and even treacherous to challenge them publicly.

Kevin: Indeed.  We are at a sort of crossroads in terms of professionalism and how we associate – with an unprecedented range of options available to us. In the UK alone we have CIPD, CIPR, CiB, as well as EACD and IABC internationally.  As our profession has specialised, so has it fragmented.  It’s actually becoming hard to decide where to commit your time and energy in terms of best practices, next practices, networking and so on.

Mike:  Even though Commscrum is in its infancy, I think we have carved out a place in this fragmented world where comms pros who think the industry needs an ideological shakeup can connect with like-minded pros.

Kevin: Agree.  I’m getting lots of positive feedback that CommScrum is a place to have open conversations, rather than polite inwardly-focused chats behind closed doors.  I have had the opposite experience from IABC however and sort of drifted away – partly because of work pressures but because I felt it had become insular.

Lindsay:  Lets not forget that the IABC is a resource that offers a lot more where there is a critical mass of local and regional members that can float beneficial events and offer great networking opportunities. – i.e. North America.  Over there, it’s basically a big club for communicators complete with staff, accreditation and annual conferences – take it or leave it.

Dan:  Where I see myself getting value from any one of these sources is in uncovering alternative perspectives that encourage me to think differently, though. I certainly don’t get that from IABC these days.  In fact, I’ve encountered the opposite, because of the views we have expressed about IABC on Commscrum before.

Mike:  Are you talking about the email you received from a regional IABC officer expressing dissatisfaction with previous mentions of IABC in Commscrum postings?

Dan:  Yep – I’m headed out to Saudi next week for a 9-month contract, and I’d asked him if he knew anyone out there – a pretty simple and innocent request. Not only did he make it very clear he was unimpressed with my “recently expressed views”, he said he’d only help me network with IABC members in the Middle East if I renewed my membership. He even said – and I quote – “hey, nothing’s free these days.” Unbelievable!

Kevin: Wow. Yeah … I think sometimes people forget they are volunteers on these “boards.”  I was one of them!  I mean, it’s not like the elections are ever opposed and people are clamouring for roles.  Quite the opposite in my experience.

Mike:  But ironically, IABC’s own “Code of Ethics” calls for professional communicators to understand and support the principles of free speech, freedom of assembly, and access to an open marketplace of ideas, and to act accordingly.

Lindsay:   No denying that.  We Commscrummers – and anyone else who wants to share their professional views should be able to do that without reprimand.  I like being part of Commscrum because it stands for freedom of speech and freedom of expression, and we don’t pretend to always be right.  We float ideas so our readers can shoot ‘em down.

Dan: It’s a difference between an “instructional/right answer” focus (IABC) and a “thought leadership/chew on this” focus (Commscrum)

Mike:  IABC doesn’t have a monopoly on ‘right answers’, and I’m afraid it is missing the boat on the biggest issues facing us all right now.  IABC has some massive choices to make as we move into the social communication era–where democracy will confront hierarchy like never before, internally, in the industry, and in the business and organizational worlds as a whole.  To be sure, IABC fills a great social role in North America where communicators are dispersed, but it’s not needed for that in Europe. Germany in particular is getting along fine without any IABC involvement whatsoever.

Kevin: To be fair, I think IABC Chair Mark Schumann is spiritually “one of us” – he gets all this.  His challenge, and his successor’s, will be overcoming IABC’s propensities toward introspection and inertia.  And you can’t generally overcome inertia without some disruption.  There’s the rub. The thinking that got us here is not the thinking that will get us out of here.

Mike: What I see–IABC has great members–everywhere, Europe, NA, Asia.  It has some smart leaders, some real lions (like my buddy Ned Lundquist in particular), and does some good stuff.  It needs to keep doing the good stuff that informs and strengthens us as practitioners.

Lindsay: Absolutely.  Let’s keep things in perspective.  Some people get a lot out of it – but looking at it another way, the more introspective IABC becomes, the more people will seek information and truth from other sources – like Commscrum.  We’re all players in this evolution.

Kevin:  Let’s go to another example though.  IABC flew Mark Schumann over to Europe talk about employer brands.  That’s great, but, um, we happen to have some employer brand experts in Europe, thank you very much.  And as good as Mark is, there’s no blue water between him and say Simon Barrow.  Why didn’t they invite Simon? Certainly his perspective and experience is more relevant to a European audience.  Even I did employer branding for Coca-Cola and BP.  We aren’t exactly lightweights over here.  But I “left the IABC flock”, so it seems am persona non grata.  And my employer doesn’t sponsor IABC either. Yet my practice is officially launching in India next month, three offices of employee communications pros, then China.  And I don’t see IABC there at all.  It’s a real problem.

Lindsay:  What do you mean?  It’s a problem that they haven’t grown to cover the entire planet?  They have 14,000 members…

Kevin: But that’s mathematical – 50 states plus say an equivalent 5 in Canada, event with 100 people per region you hit 5,500 pretty quickly. The you get some large densities et voila.  It’s a problem that they claim “international” yet 90% of the members are on one continent.  Many of them presenting on cross-cultural, international communication issues when in truth their experience is working within a North American MNC.  As a long-term expat I have real problems with that.  It’s like being named the “World Champions” in American Football…

Dan: And emerging markets can, and do, leapfrog a lot of the incremental-competence-improving stuff that holds back the profession.

Kevin: I think we can’t over-emphasise this issue.  The equivalent is people in India and China who have gone from no phone to iPhone – never had a land line or a cruddy old brick.  That is the shift we are looking at.  Social media isn’t a channel; not something you learn about at a conference; you just do it.

Mike: Or, in Germany’s case, going from “newsletters and posters” to white-hot social media without getting mired in “employee engagement.”

Kevin: Precisely.

Mike: Nevertheless, IABC (and certainly its loyal members) don’t want to find themselves on the losing side.  Competent, confident ideological neutrality—that’s where IABC needs to position itself if it’s to thrive in the new environment.

Kevin: Is there a role for the “professional communicator” in 5 years time?  Assuming so, how should we organize ourselves?

Mike: That raises a further question–is IABC worth reshaping, or does it need replacing?  For example, in terms of industry infrastructure,  the IC group in Germany, IK_Community has 1000 members, no dues, and is totally organized through social media.  Melcrum and Ragan have followings in the tens of thousands for online and offline offerings alike.

Dan: As for ideological content, where we fit into the business picture is grounds for lots of discussions—for example, the words ‘brand’, ‘communication’, and ‘business’ put in front of the word ‘strategy’ are actually the same thing.

Kevin:  Agree, and I won’t bang on about multispecialism again here.  Another question – does IABC become a market shaper or a market maker?  I suspect the latter or fade into irrelevance.  I mean CIPR and CIPD are already making pretty strong inroads in the UK as well.  But IABC isn’t going to fade, it has such a strong North American footprint.  And again it has so much that is positive about it.  It just frustrates me, I guess… in my heart I feel it could be dominant if it could only shift its gaze from its own navel…

Mike: Maybe there’s a need for a “matrix” approach—we keep the “associations” as support infrastructure (skills training, accreditation, access to other members etc.), but the thought and commercial leadership moves to “movements” and “tribes” of like minds,  and small networks–perhaps even acting and competing as virtual firms.

Not fragmentation, tribalisation!

Getting the Measurement Mad out of the Institution

Kevin Keohane - CommScrum London

There’s a probably apocryphal anecdote that in 1977, an internal audit of the Royal Artillery showed that 4 crew were required for certain cannons.  A gun captain, someone to aim it, someone to load it, and someone … to hold the horses so they didn’t run off when the thing fired.  Needless to say, gun crews were reduced to 3 (100 years after the fact).

Somehow I think the same principal applies to the state of employee research.

Twenty years ago, when internal communications/employee communications was just emerging with people like Roger D’Aprix and John Smythe as champions, one of the big questions was: How do we prove our value?  How do we show what we do has merit and adds business value? Can i justify my existence as a professional communicator?

The IABC played an instrumental role in the development of the quantification of the value of employee communications (don’t even bother applying for a Gold Quill if you haven’t measured your project).  A whole industry grew out of this with companies like ISR (later bought by Towers Watson) delivering monolithic “annual employee surveys”.  Harvard Business Review reset the state of play in 1997 with the seminal Sears Service-Profit Chain case study, and The Gallup Organisation later found great success with “The Gallup 12″ .

In short, we were saying “We need numbers to be taken seriously by people who are serious about numbers.”  So we went out and found ways of generating data.  And we sold the thing in to management. They liked the numbers bit.

And now … employee research is serious, big business. But I think the tail is now wagging the dog.  Clients are creaking under the cumbersome, slow process and masses of marginally useful data generated.  Actions are planned around moving “drivers of employee engagement” in the right direction, successes are celebrated … and yet other business KPIs don’t often respond accordingly.  In some cases the employee survey has blacked out all other forms of useful tactical measurement.

We’ve lost sight of why we were measuring these things in the first place.  The last employee survey I looked at — and its data outputs — were pretty useless when removed from the context of deploying an employee survey to compare to last year’s … some of the questions made no sense at all.

It’s not that measurement isn’t important; I’m just wondering whether we need to really reassess how we go about the whole thing.  Are we measuring the right things?  Are we measuring them in the right ways?  Are we connecting all the HR-ish internal employee stuff well enough to the external brand equity, customer experience and financial performance stuff (beyond The Gallup 12 + Human Sigma connection)?  For some reason there always seems to be a yawning chasm between HR-led measurement and Customer-experience-led measurement.

The good news is it seems like the big annual surveys are seen to be long in the tooth and other, more focussed and timely approaches are emerging like employee panels, pulse checks, etc.  And it’s refreshing to see people like Mark Schumann acknowledging that there is an issue to be addressed here.

Is it a myth that ”What gets measured gets managed?”

Mike Klein–Commscrum European Railpass

It’s not just a case of measurement overkill for overkill’s sake, Kevin…  There is a real downside to overmeasurement–that it kills off an organization’s willingness to research itself in meaningful and targeted ways, and often yields measurements for which there is a stretch between the input and its measure.

I remember a few years ago when I met with a potential client and wanted to do a short, qualitative study to find out what the pressing issues and relevant language used to describe them was.  The response “Nope!  We just did the Q12 survey.  That’s all we’re going to do.”  Never mind that the Q12 survey had “sweet FA” to do with my proposed project.  I was being asked to fly blind for fear of awakening the business’ terminal case of the dreaded “survey fatigue.”

If I were to advise communicators on their most important research needs, I’d make three recommendations,, in this order:

1)  Measure a direct relationship between what you and your team do and specific actions and savings that more than make up the cost of your team.  This should give you enough headroom to do the other things you think need to be done.

2) Measure the stuff you think is important–even if it means using qualitative and small sample stuff to avoid awakening the “survey fatigue” monster

3) Carefully–and judiciously measure the stuff your core sponsors think is important, but always remind them that you and your team have already “covered their costs”.  This may get you some slack, and reduce your business’ fetish for overmeasurement.

4) Make sure you have a seat at the table where the measurement decisions are made. The last things you want are to either get cut out of measurement activities that are going to happen anyways, or worse, to find your activities measured in a way that doesn’t respect the context in which they are being acted upon.

Dan Gray – Commscrum London

You’ve surprised me, Kevin – this is a lot more polite than I was expecting!

In response to your specific question at the end, I don’t think it is a myth that what gets measured gets managed, nor should it be. But, as you say, you’ve got to be measuring the right things in the first place.

I seem to remember reading something from Melcrum recently – a piece with Mars’ global engagement director – who described how their use of the Gallup 12 survey had led to some appalling behaviours by managers, essentially blackmailing their subordinates to give high scores. ‘Nuff said really.

That’s what can happen when you elevate engagement to an end in itself, to be measured in its own right, rather than what it is – a delivery mechanism; a means to delivering improved business performance.

That’s the biggest problem with the mindset of the measurement-mad, ‘Human Capitalist’ crowd, as you so brilliantly characterised them in your IC taxonomy. It’s as if they took one look at the Service Proven Chain and thought, “That’s it. Case proven. As long as we can show that people are ‘engaged’, everything else can be taken as read.”

So an employee has a best friend at work. So what? It might give you a broad brush indicator of an employee’s happiness and propensity for greater discretionary effort, but it tells you nothing about where that effort is directed and whether that’s contributing directly to the achievement of the organisation’s strategy and goals.

That’s what the C-suite wants and needs to know about – whether or not it’s creating value for the business – so, ultimately, if it isn’t linked to specific strategic objectives, then why are you measuring it?

Lindsay Uittenbogaard – Commscrumming from Canada this time :)

Agree with all of these measurements traps and opportunities.  I’d just like to add that I feel it is the communicator’s job to keep folk anchored to the fact that not everything can be measured and so measurement has it’s place.   I once heard a senior business leader saying “If you can’t measure it, don’t do it.”   SO irritating.

If communication is fundamentally about 2 things: avoiding disconnects and misunderstandings, then how do you really know when that happened well – or the cost of the loss when it didn’t (compared with the cost of the communication effort involved in trying to bridge those gaps)? More importantly, when communication works well, how do you measure the costs that were saved as a result of disconnects or misunderstandings that were avoided…

Of course, because we are individual people with different perspectives, interests, cultures, priorities and working hours / locations, there will always be varying degrees of communication success, much of which can be attributed to levels of attentiveness and opportunity on the part of the receivers / decoders / responders rather than the deliver of the communication itself.

I think we’ve got to accept the vague nature of our work, use data as a guide and encourage people to ‘believe’ in common sense-based lines of communication logic more than hinge their support on hard data.

A world turned inside-out

Kevin Keohane-Commscrum Ireland (via London)

An earlier CommScrum post started the debate about “internal” vs “employee” communications.  I’d like to progress debate about the decreasing space between what we often consider to be “internal” vs. “external” communications.

Organisations require structure, and traditionally it’s easiest to structure around functions and tasks.  For example, Finance – IT – Marketing – HR – Operations – R&D – Manufacturing …  at the same time, when it comes to communication, the same rules no longer apply.  There has also been ample debate about “the way to organise your communication department” in past years, but this has mostly been about “Should it report to HR or Marketing or the CEO?”

I’d like to take this to another level, which is to say that the days of managing what I call “captive audiences” are well and truly over.  What I mean is, both internally and externally, it’s a fallacy to believe that any single function “owns” an audience.  For example, Corporate / Media Affairs owning “the media”; HR owning “employees”; Marketing owning “brand”; Investor Relations owning “investors” – and so on.  My 2007 blog “The end of internal communications” references this thought.

In essence, “audiences” in the grander sense don’t actually exist.  They are a purely rhetorical construct insofar as they only exist in the mind of the communicator.  As technology and transparency have forever and profoundly changed the way we communicate, share and seek information, audience overlap renders most functionally-driven models ineffective, possibly counter-productive and at worst irrelevant.  Your “employee” could be an investor; your “consumer” could well be a media content creator.

To summarise, once again I’ll bang the drum about “joining things up” and systems thinking.  OK, it will take a while.  OK, we’ll always need specialists. But a multiskill, generalist capability will eventually trump all when it comes to communicating with people.

Mike Klein–Commscrum Wales (via Brussels)

I completely agree about the lunacy of defending divisions between internal and external audiences–and instead, of better understanding and engaging with the interrelations between the range of stakeholder groups upon which organizational survival depends.

But I don’t think the “multi-skilled  generalism” you advocate is the answer.  Different stakeholder groups have different communication paradigms–namely that the flow and strategy required to succeed in politics/public affairs remains different between what works in media relations and what still works internally.  Rather than valuing generalism, we need what the rugby world calls “cross-code” professionals–people who understand how the rules differ between each discipline, as well as understanding what they will increasingly have in common.

Lindsay Uittenbogaard – still Commscrumming from The Netherlands

Wow – I really like this one.  There was always something that irked me about those ‘where does communication belong?’ discussions – particularly when it came to ‘who owns it’.  Now I can see a way through.

As you say, Kevin – audiences are merged and communication defies any rules that compartmentalization might try to apply.   As you say Mike, you still need to apply different styles to different audiences and I suspect this is because readers like it that way.

It is widely known that when people read in a certain context, they put a different hat on.  They recognize specific words to have particular meanings in different situations, so understanding the language in a slightly different way.   Each context caters for a different perspective too – so we ‘re not tailoring to suit the audience, we’re tailoring to suit the context each communication is being received in.     I don’t see this stopping because it is more effective than writing for people without their ‘hats’.

Reflecting on Kevin’s point: in the language of communicators, the word ‘audience’ is not real – it’s just a construct in our minds.     However semantic this may seem, it’s a valid distinction because the way people think about something frames where it sits and who owns it.   Because communication content / audiences are joined up, in my dream world there is an umbrella part of organizations called The Whole Systems Team, which houses leadership development, communication, business improvement etc.  – and it reports to the CEO.   This would make NO sense to my grandmother  – whose world since her days, has truly been turned upside down….

Dan Gray – Commscrum London

You know I love this thinking too, KK. It’s why I ‘borrowed’ the core thought and used it for a definition in the glossary of my book (“Audience – a fictitious construct created by communicators for the purposes of segmentation”). It’s incredibly profound as a first principle, precisely for the way it makes you think, as Lindsay describes so well in her last paragraph above.

As for Mike’s issue with ‘multi-skilled generalism’, perhaps I can suggest ‘multi-specialism’ as an alternative term that might bridge the gap?

If by ‘generalism’ we mean being a jack of all trades and master of none (as is commonly inferred), then of course Mike’s right. But I don’t think that’s what Kevin’s suggesting here.