You can't swim in sea salt

Do you ask your staff to boil down a message to a single page? Do you find that you are being asked to boil down and shorten down documents? "Just give me the one page version" they say.

I was chatting to a client who was getting frustrated by this. He was being asked to set out how his team help the management to address strategic planning and performance management. Yet the requests were for shorter and shorter documents, despite the complexity of the organisation and the way the planning process was being run.

He was lamenting the fact that they were becoming so short it was impossible to put any content of value in them. He was being asked to boil down the message to something so short and simple it was becoming meaningless.

As he spoke I had this image of a flask of sea water in chemistry lessons at school. As the flask was heated by the Bunsen burner it boiled away until all that was left in the bottom of the flask was a thin residue of the few solids that were originally dissolved in the water. The sea salt.

Whilst this was useful in Chemistry, it is useful in management terms. Whilst you can swim in the sea, when all the water is boiled away, you can no longer swim in it. Hence the phrase that shot into my head, "You can't swim in sea salt"

Ok its an odd thought. You can take this further. As the salt is concentrated (before it is fully boiled away) you end up with a concentrate that is like the dead sea. The salt is so concentrated that you float in the water and never get immersed.

I know - its stretching the point, but its a big issue. Of course managers want a simple message - but not simplistic. Staff need to take time to think through their message and get it across well. You can't use the excuse, "I didn't have time to write you a short letter so I wrote you a long one"

But management have a responsibility also. They need to spend time on issues and look at the detail and the depth. Otherwise they float across the top never immersing themselves in the detail, never getting wet.

This was the concern of my colleague. He was concerned that in boiling it down too far, there was nothing left of substance. The subtleties were not there, the risks could not be spelled out and the implications for others were lost.

Of course this is true when the strategy is being communicated and for many other aspects of management. I suggest you apply the "All plans should be burnt test?" If you lost the memo, would the implications still be in people's heads?

So if you are a manager be sure you do not boil the ocean down to nothing. If you are helping your managers there will be times when you need to say, "This is more subtle than that - and I need you to help".

Boil away, but in the end - you can't swim in sea salt.

Phil

Socialising Strategy (or Socializing strategy)

We talk about communicating strategy and strategy communication, but with all the emphasise on social networking, Facebook, Linkedin, Bebo, Plaxo, etc etc the phase on every one's lips is "Social networking".

So how does this apply to strategy?

Well lets start with the phrase "Socialising strategy" (Or "socializing strategy" for our US cousins). Its interesting how this immediately puts a different emphasise on what is happening. It is no longer about getting the message out (Communicating). It is about the social impact and the conversation within groups, and amongst people, about the strategy.

Socialising strategy suggests that the strategy becomes part of a conversation amongst people that has a life of its own. Individuals are owning a part of it, talking to each other about it and adopting and adapting what it means for them.

Socialising strategy also suggests that it becomes part of the social fabric. It is part of the way people work, what they do, what they say, how they behave, and what they believe.

Socialising strategy suggests it has a life of its own amongst those people.

It is interesting how this phrase seems to convey so much more that communicating strategy. It also gets beyond the glib phrase "Culture" to a far more specific meaning than, "We want our strategy to reflect our culture" or "We want our culture to drive our strategy" With "socialising strategy" we are describing how it becomes a part of the way people work and think and behave.

It is also a more explicit instruction to management. Rather than suggesting managers need to "Communicate the strategy" (which is an action for them), they are responsible for "socialising the strategy" which is a response from other people. In other words, instructing a management team to "Socialise their strategy" means that the emphasise is not just on communication, but on how people respond to the communication and behave as a result.

So here are some questions.

1) Have you been socialising your strategy?

2) Is your strategy socialised?

3) What will you see and experience if your strategy is socialised?

4) What do you have to do to socialise your strategy?

Phil Jones
Author
Communicating Strategy

When organisations drift into hypnotic states

Have you ever noticed that something you may have said in a conversation, may have sent that person's mind thinking, to the extent that they are no longer listening to you, but are processing their own ideas and thoughts. Moreover you have no idea what they are now thinking about.

In effect they have drifted into a state where their mind is processing ideas and working through something. This is an altered state of mind and, if deliberately induced can be considered a mild form of hypnosis.

Last night I attended a session on conversational hypnosis, where Jamie Smart, (an NLP coach and trainer) demonstrated how you can easily do this deliberately, as well as unintentionally. For instance he used the example where he would drop into a conversation a question such as, "so what do you want from reading this blog" and how quickly people started to think about this, even though it was not asked directly.

Now returning to this blog.

I do think its interesting to compare what happens in an individual human, with what happens in organisation. I find that you can start to see parallels and it it also is useful explain things that are going on. Especially when communicating strategy. By now, you will see where I am going.

For instance, I was also thinking this morning about organisations go into altered states and sometimes drift off to process things. The most striking example was an organisation I was working with last year. The management team were to announce the “New strategy presentation” which was coming up in a few weeks. The email that was sent out included the line, “And in a couple of months we’ll also be presenting the location strategy”.

Yes, you have guessed it. The effect of this was staggering. For at least two days no work was done. Rumours abounded. People started considering their futures once their site was closed (even though there was no announcement whatsoever so far). As it happens they were right and the site was to close over the next two years, but that was not the point. Between the "suggestion" and the actual announcement, there was a noticeable different air in the place as people sized up opportunities and considered the implications of moves, changes and whether they would get a place in the new, smaller structure.

A simpler example is when a change is announced (or not even announced but simply rumours take hold) and the organisation takes time to think about it and process it. It even occurs when new measures are made, new practices are introduced or with anything where people's activities and work is influenced.

So, when thinking about strategy communication and what effect you want to have on your staff, you need to consider two things:

• Am I sure that I am not causing the mind of the organisation to drift off into some altered state and lose sight of what they should be doing?

• Can I make the communication more effective by inviting people to think about the implications and help implementation?

Phil Jones
Author Communicating Strategy
You can buy Communicating Strategy here
For training in how to communicate your strategy more effectively,
click here for my contact details

Mission statements: A failure to communicate

Mission statements can be fraught with problems but one I came across the other day wins an award for the worst I have ever seen.

What sort of organisation do you think this mission statement comes from?

• Welcome to (Our company) and a team that’s passionate about creativity, your ideas and generating innovative solutions with flair, impact and individuality that provides real benefits for your business.
• With a philosophy driven by meeting every challenge, our dedication to realising your vision will exceed expectations in every way. We’ll make the experience of working with us a pleasure, building strong relationships by consistently delivering the exceptional standards upon which our reputation is based.
• Backed by the skills and extensive resources of our team, a personal co-ordinator will work with you throughout your relationship with us. You’ll get just the right balance of help, guidance and support, adding value at every opportunity and ensuring the outstanding service you receive matches your requirements in every way.

Frankly, an easier question would be, what sort of organisation would it not apply to.

It is actually from a Spa and conference centre. Can you believe that? I deny anyone to work that out. Even as a consultant I have to be astonished by the jargon, buzz words and management speak that this contains. Its astonishing.

I have a suspicion that this one came about by from cobbling together all the mission statements left on flip charts by every company that has ever visited the place for a startegy away day.

In Communicating Strategy I explain where many mission statements go wrong and how to state them in a way that is far more useful. Here are some simple tips:

1) Make it clear what industry you are in, who you serve and why you want to help them.

2) What is your purpose. In this case I suspect it is either for people to feel special and pampered (the spa) or provide an conference experience where they can relax and achieve their conference's objectives.

3) Be specific about where you actually add value. I don't want innovation (no jugglers please) when people serve coffee. I just want nice coffee and biscuits served by someone I don't notice. Serving coffee should be seen as a core capability not a "Challenge".

4) Be honest. Do the staff believe this? Do they even remember it? Can they think to themselves, am I carrying this out the organisation's mission? I doubt it with this one.

5) Your customers should relate to it. It should mean something to them and their business so they feel that you will relate to them (unlike this one)

Most importantly the mission should really reflect the purpose of the organisation. Why is it there? Mission and purpose are synonymous.

Phil Jones
Author Communicating Strategy

Performance leadership and management

It is a cliché that “People do not like change”. It is also wrong. It is not that people do not like change, they do. What they dislike is change where they have no control over their destiny or influence over the direction.

The problems of measure mania and tyranny of targets come as much from the effects of diktat and imposed targets as the effects of too many unrelated measures and targets.

In contrast, my objective, and I hope your objective, is to have a team of people who understand what they need to achieve and also why they need to achieve it; a team who have helped develop and refine the strategy, who understand its purpose, the timing, its importance and the level of ambition required, and who that are engaged in the process so they are thinking about how they can help, contribute and make a difference.

These are aspects of a culture of performance. It is management’s responsibility to lead and create this environment. I call this performance leadership.

Making sure it happens is performance management.

Learning from this as you implement and monitor your strategy, so you can refine, develop and re-communicate the refinements to your strategy, is called strategic learning.

I use these expressions a lot when talking with clients as theyare distinctions that help clarify how strategy is communicated.

You can read more on the excitant website about creating a culture of performance.

Phil Jones
Excitant Ltd

Communicating tough decisions

Communicating Tough decisions
Phil Jones, Author of Communicating Strategy, published by Gower

As Directors and Managers, you sometimes have to make a tough decision: to make people redundant, close down plants, move services off shore, move manufacturing facilities or shed unprofitable customers.

Of course, you will need to plan these changes carefully. You will need to comply with statutory requirements and contractual conditions. There are statutory redundancy periods and notice periods to comply with. There may also be consultation arrangements with unions and worker representative groups. In some countries this will include a workers’ executive, in others the union, or a workers’ representative panel or group. Some employers will stick with statutory minimum terms for redundancies. Others may decide to offer preferential terms to all or particular groups of staff.

You may decide to put in place counselling, job assistance or support for any people made redundant. You may even be eligible for funding from government depending upon where you are located. Some organizations help their ex-employees start new businesses, so they become or move to suppliers, customers and competitors. Remember, these people will continue to talk with people in your industry and with customers and suppliers. They will continue to be ambassadors for your company, whether you employ them or not. How you treat them will be reflected back on you as an organization.

Questions

• What statutory or compulsory arrangements do you have to make?
• What contractual obligations do you have?
• What are you doing to help and how are you communicating this help to these people?
• How are you ensuring that those people who leave remain ambassadors for your company?

Communicating after redundancies

While attention is paid to those being made redundant, you also need to talk with the ‘survivors’. They might be relieved they are still in a job. They might wish they were offered a redundancy cheque. They might simply fear that they will be included in the next round of redundancies.

On occasion, when people leave an organization quickly, with no notice, sometimes those who remain are asked not to contact those who have left. I do find this strange, but it is not unusual. I have personally witnessed it twice. In one case people were explicitly asked not to contact those that had left. It is almost as if the management were saying, ‘Those people are bad and you are the survivors. Do not mix with them’. In reality, these people were probably your friends and will remain so long after they have left.

Some of the ‘survivors’, perhaps when the cuts seem somewhat arbitrary, may feel embarrassed that they still have a job when other were selected. You get a double whammy: rejected by your company and rejected by your ex-workers.

You will probably have selected key people you are keen to retain. If you handle the redundancies poorly, you may disenfranchise them as well. Handle this badly, and they will simply leave when they are ready, on their terms.

The message is simple: pay attention to what messages and signals you send out, both to those who are leaving and to those who remain.

Questions

• How will you deal with the survivors?
• How will you manage the message to them?
• How will you make sure they do not leave at the soonest opportunity as well?
  

Explain and engage people in the economics of the business

Any strategy is likely to involve a cost of change. This might be associated with projects or programmes of work aimed at delivering a better process, the cost of redundancy or investment in a new factory.

Engage people in the economics of the business. The level of detail need not (and should not) include all the detailed financial calculations but should explain the broad economics. Amongst the heresies in chapter 2 there is Heresy 1: People are not stupid. Explain the economics and don’t dumb it down. For example:

1) ‘At the moment we make this much per car and we want to be making this much. Steel prices have risen by 40 per cent which has cut our margins from eight per cent to four per cent. This means we shall make a loss of £500 million this year, unless we find ways to cut costs elsewhere.’

2) ‘If we can avoid an increase in costs above inflation, whilst managing the eroding prices, we will remain profitable. But only just and bonuses will need to be cut back.’

When people understand how what they do affects the costs, they are better positioned to make informed judgements about helping to improve it. If they are kept away from the economics, how can they understand and assist?

Questions

• What is your economic model for the business?
• What are the economic levers or drivers of your strategy?
• Can you explain these in a simple expression?

Conclusion

The clearer your communications, the easier it is for them to understand them and trust them. Even if there is bad news, explaining the bad news well, will engender trust and understanding.

About the author

Phil Jones is Managing Director of Excitant Ltd, and a consultant and author. This article is based on material from his book, Communicating Strategy.

Phil has helped a wide variety of commercial and public sector organisations communicate their strategy, improve how they manage performance and deliver results. He can be contacted via email at phil.jones@excitant.co.uk or via his website http://www.excitant.co.uk/. There is also his Strategy communication blog at http://www.communicating-strategy.com/

Communicating redundancy and bad news

Directors and managers, sometimes have to tell people, what is for them, bad news.

At times you will have to make tough decisions: to make people redundant, close down plants, move services off shore, move manufacturing facilities and shed unprofitable customers.

Of course, you will need to plan these changes carefully. You will need to comply with statutory requirements and contractual conditions. There are statutory redundancy periods and notice periods to comply with. There may also be consultation arrangements with unions and worker representative groups. In some countries this will include a workers’ executive, in others the union, or a workers representative panel or group.

Some employers will stick with statutory minimum terms for redundancies. Others may decide to offer preferential terms to all or particular groups of staff.

You may decide to establish a programme of counselling, job assistance, or support for any people made redundant. Some organisations help their ex-employees start new businesses, enabling them to become or move to suppliers, customers, and competitors. Such employees will continue to be ambassadors for your company, whether you employ them or not. How you treat them, will be reflected back on you as an organisation.

Questions:

• What statutory or compulsory arrangements do you need to make?
• What contractual obligations do you have?
• What are you doing to help and communicate the help to these people?
• How are you ensuring that those people who leave remain ambassadors for your company?

While attention is paid to those being made redundant, you also need to talk with the survivors. These survivors may be relieved they are still in a job. They may simply fear that they will be included in the next round of redundancies.

On occasion, when people leave an organisation quickly, with no notice, those who remain are asked not to contact those who have left. I do find this strange, but it is not totally unusual. In one case, employees were explicitly asked not to contact those that had left. It is almost as if the management were saying, “Those people are bad and you are the survivors. Do not mix with them”. In reality, these people were probably your friends and they will remain so after they have left.

You will have selected a number of key people you are keen to retain. If you handle the redundancies poorly, you may disenfranchise them as well. Handle this badly, and they will simply leave when they are ready, on their terms. Some of the survivors may feel embarrassed that they still have a job.

The message is simple. Pay attention to the messages and signals you send out to both those who are leaving and those who remain.

Questions

What about the survivors?

• How will you manage the message to them?
• How will you make sure they do not leave at the soonest opportunity?

Phil Jones

Author

Communicating Strategy

Mis-use of Mehrabian statistics

Do not mis-represent the Mehrabian statistics on non-verbal communication

I would be very surprised if some presenter has not trotted out Mehrabian's statistics about not verbal communication is only 7% of the communication.

99 times out of a 100, when I hear this, the person talking is using the research out of context and mis-representing it.

Typically they draw a circle and say that only 7% of communication is verbal, 38% is how it is said and 55 % is visual.

Then they say that this applies to all communication!

They are talking rubbish.

If you want to de-bunk it quickly, ask them to tell you the time without saying anything?

You can't (unless they show you their watch).

The actual experiment was about about communicating feelings and emotions. Not facts. It fact the experiment only used SINGLE words that carried an emotional context and looked for congruence between the word, voice and face.

Note FACE only. NOT the whole body as many claim.

The actual work concluded:
· Words
· Voice/Tone
· Face and expression
Total liking = 7% verbal liking + 38% vocal liking + 55% facial liking

The work was actually about feelings and attitudes. Not Facts.

What the peddlers of the urban myth version of Mehrabian’s statistical story don’t make clear – or perhaps don’t know themselves – is that Mehrabian’s research was concerned with a very specific, and limited, aspect of nonverbal communication – it’s not about communication in general.

His work relates only to inconsistent messages about feelings and attitudes, that is, face-to-face exchanges in which the meaning of what we say is contradicted by our body language and tone of voice.

Mahravian himself says in a later paper, “Unless a communicator is talking about their feelings or attitudes, these equations are not applicable."

You can find a useful reference to his papers on wiki-paedia. I strongly recommend that if you are going to refer to these statistics then
a) read the original work
b) ensure you refer to single emotional words when explaining it.

Please please please, only ever use these statistics in context, or don't quote them at all.

Don't get me wrong. Non-verbals do matter. Congruence does matter. Belief in the information does matter. Confidence in your story, does matter. A good presented will put emotion and expression into what they say. But please don't miss use these statistics to make the point. It will undermine your credibility with those in the know.

Phil Jones
Author
Communicating Strategy

"All plans should be burnt"

"All plans should be burnt"

Recently the managing Director of a client organisation was presenting their strategy to the senior managers. He started by openly admitted that he got the phrase "All plans should be burnt" from me and said he would do the same.

However, as there were smoke detectors in the room, he had to rip the strategy up rather than burn it. So he did.

The reason I say, "All plans should be burnt" is very simple.

People are making decisions on a day to day basis that influence the strategy. Thy do not refer to plans every 5 minutes. They rely on what is in their heads.

If the organisation's strategy and plans are in people's heads, then people act on them and they get executed. In this case it is safe to burn them as the plans have served their purpose of communicating the strategy.

If the plans are not in peoples' heads, then they are being ignored, are a waste of time, and might as well be burnt.

So all plans should be burnt.

Of course auditors don't like this, but what does that matter. If they want to find out whether the strategy is understood and working, they can do the same as anyone else. If a strategy is sitting on a shelf it is not being implemented. Go and ask those who should be implementing it.

Phil Jones
Author "Communicating Strategy"

When communicating strategy, sometimes you just have to be yourselk

If you are not a natural presenter, just be yourself...

Recently I was working in an insurance company and one of the top directors was an Actuary. I don't know if you know many actuary jokes, but most centre on them not being great communicators. Typically,

"How do you tell an extrovert actuary? He is looking at YOUR shoes!"

This gentleman was presenting the company strategy and direction to a group of 180 staff. He had his powerpoint presentation, but was honest enough to say at the start that the last time he presented he got some feedback. It was simply to be yourself and just talk to us.

So he did. He simply sat in a chair at the front of the group, put down his papers and started talking about the company, the environment, the financial situation, solvency, pressures, take-overs and the future. It was as if he was chatting across the dinner table.

What was delightful about this was that he was being himself. he was talking to friends and telling things as he saw it. It wasn't a "Professional" presentation in the sense of well prepared, slick, big messages, but it was far better than that. After 20 minute "conversation" he decided to wrap up by running through the slides he had prepared (or had had prepared). He did these in 10 minutes, skipping over the "say nothing" slides and only picking up the salient points that he may have missed from the slides that had graphs, figures and real content.

It was an object lesson in conversational presentation. He treated the audience as peers and colleagues and allowed then to ask him questions in the same way.

Most importantly you knew he was telling the whole story as he saw it in an honest and open way. I think he communicated the strategy as well as any I have seen. A lesson in congruence, integrity and openness when communicating the strategy.

Phil Jones
Author, Communicating Strategy
http://www.communicating-strategy.com/

About the book, Communicating Strategy

Welcome to Communicating Strategy

"Communicating Strategy", by Phil Jones, helps you communicate your strategy more effectively. It explains how to communicate strategy better, planning the communication of your strategy and techniques to communicate strategy so people get it, engage with it and contribute to the strategy..

It has a very simple premise: The more people understand and engage with your strategy, the more they can contribute. But that requires a clearly presented strategy, communicated effectively, so people understand how they can engage with it, make it relevant to them and make a difference.

Communicating Strategy - The Book

Communicating Strategy was written to address a gap in the market: To offer communication strategies to help you communicate strategy better. How to communicate strategy through your organisation. It has come out of our extensive consultancy experience over 20 years, with many diverse organisations, across the world.

The book is published by Gower . You can read the book, learn more from our newsletter, and contact us directly for training, talks and consultancy advice.

Just go to the website www.communicating-strategy.com

Welcome to the communicating strategy blog

Communicating strategy