CommLog

The Power of Upward Feedback

I drove to the Toledo airport Friday evening amidst a flurry of NPR commentary about Scooter Libby's indictment and Harriet Mier's stepping down (gotta love All Things Considered).  At the end of the segment, Bob Siegel made an interesting point...and one that many of us make almost every day: One of the most out of touch people in any organization (if not the most) is the person at the top.

Managing the survey process

Gathering data from employees and stakeholders (both internal and external) helps us make smarter decisions. But if we want our audiences to continue responding to our surveys and to take our improvement efforts seriously, we need to make sure that all data-gathering efforts:

• Reflect the Right Methodology (the right sample, questions, data collection method, and analyses)
• Send the Right Messages--implicitly and explicitly, to the respondents whose perceptions we're trying to improve
• Have the Right Follow-through Strategy (we know how we're going to translate the data into action) Here are some questions you may want to ask before deploying a survey.

The Wisdom of Dumb Questions

Is there really such thing as a dumb question? Sure, according to Fortune magazine, when used wisely"dumb questions" have potential to get to the heart of the matter.

...a powerful insight into business success, one that applies to every industry on every continent in every era: Dumb questions lead to smart decisions.

iStockphoto

A great source of cheap, hi-resolution, royalty-free presentation graphics: iStockphoto.com. Great images for just a buck or two a piece. Replace your clipart with these kinds of images and do yourself (and your audience) a favor ...

Life Hacks

According to The Guardian, our friend David Allen and his Getting Things Done philosophy have achieved cult status. In particular...

Web and IT professionals have taken Allen's core ideas and refined them into ever more effective tips called "life hacks". Adherents swap these across a broad network of blogs, wikis and websites such as 43Folders.com - all amid a considerable amount of one-upmanship over who has the biggest and best system. "As lovers of systems and frameworks, geeks take to GTD easily," says Merlin Mann, a writer from San Francisco who runs 43Folders.com. "They hate boredom so they are often jumping around, multitasking and trying to keep a dozen balls in the air." "Life hacks are really a superset of GTD - basically any kind of trick you can devise that makes it hard to screw up," says Mann.

Among the examples of life hacks the article describes is this gem: "Want to keeping meetings short and on topic? Write an agenda and make sure everyone drinks a litre of water at the beginning." Read the whole thing.

Live this Quote

In our leadership coaching practice one of the things we tell our clients is that while it's okay (and usually even smart) to be skeptical about results, always be optimistic about people. A quote was recently passed on to me by a client that emobdies this principle and represents a philosophy to live by when growing your talent: "Always stick with the optimists...it's going to be tough enough even if they're right." --James Reston, former writer for the NY Times

Blogging @ McDonald's

Friend, colleague, and CRA client Steve Wilson of McDonald's is getting some well-deserved recognition for his efforts to bring blogging to the Golden Arches. (This ClickZNews piece is just the latest, and Steve's been hitting the conference trail pretty aggressively as well.)

Just over a year ago Steve asked that I speak to a collection of McDonald's leaders and content managers. The topic was the implications of new media (in this case blogs and wikis) hold for internal communication and leadership communication in companies of McDonald's complexity, and the progress his team has made since then is remarkable.

Steve blogs "outside the firewall" as well, and there's a nice bio of Steve here.

You're not alone.

Hot off of PR Newswire...Management Failing to Connect With Employees at Almost Half of Companies, Says Survey

According to the report, Best Practices in Employee Communication: A Study of Global Challenges and Approaches, 48 percent of 472 organizations surveyed worldwide said their management has not effectively communicated their business strategies to employees and engaged them in living it in their daily jobs. As a result, only about one-third -- 37 percent -- of organizations reported that their employees are effectively aligned to the missions and visions of their businesses.

You know what? I think 48 percent seems high.