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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.

The Lombardi Rules

On a recent stroll through Barnes and Noble, I picked up The Lombardi Rules: 26 lessons from Vince Lombardi, the Greatest Coach for what I thought would be a recreational read. I find Lombardi’s quotes and wisdom smart and inspiring. The new book by Vince Lombardi Jr. uses his father’s quotes to reinforce that leaders, in both athletics and business, are made, not born. The book is less of a glance into what Lombardi achieved, but more how he achieved it through his leadership.

I would say that the quality of each individual’s life is the full measure of that individual’s commitment to excellence and to victory—whether it be football, whether it be business, whether it be politics or government.—Vince Lombardi

At first glance, Lombardi’s 26 lessons seem ordinary, but they’re told in a succinct, relatable way and capped with one of his uniquely wise quotes (I've posted the lessons in the expanded entry). The 26 chapters are short, relatable and real. It’s a simple read (one of Lombardi’s fundamentals in itself) and can likely be finished over lunch hour—and if you read it over lunch you’ll come back feeling like you just had the best half-time locker room talk of the year.

Heh

A client forwarded this the other day ...

Dubious Achievements in Employee Communication

July's "award" goes to Irish airline Aer Lingus, which produced a "discussion document," leaked to employees, that enumerated a variety of "environmental push factors" the organization could use to encourage employees to volunteer to take a package to leave the organization. According to the BBC, these "push factors"...

...included suggestions that cabin crew swap their current uniforms for jump suits and t-shirts, while pilots should be forced to attend long, tedious training courses."

I suspect that this leaked memo in its own right has served (intentionally or unintentionally) as an effective "environmental push factor."

Hyatt On PowerPoint

Michael Hyatt, CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers, offers his five rules for better PowerPoint. All good advice. We'd also direct him (and you) to our principles of PowerPoint, and many of the .PPT-related posts that have graced this page over the past few years.

History Lessons from Fred Smith

As I skimmed through the USA Today I found sitting outside my door this morning, I came across an interview with FedEx CEO Fred Smith. The story of FedEx and Fred Smith has always intrigued me, so I checked it out. They focused most of the interview on Fred's love of history and his view that you can learn more about leadership and business from history than from many popular leadership books. One of the leaders I admire most gave me the same advice a few years ago, so I thought I'd pass along Fred's other tips:

Tips steeped in history from Fred Smith * There are only about six business books worth reading. For enduring lessons, read history. * The great conquerors of the past treated the conquered well. Remember that next time your company makes an acquisition. * The most risky course is often inaction. * When things go wrong, take responsibility.

The Value Of Values

Strategy + Business (the business magazine / PR tool of Booz Allen Hamilton) has an article up on "the value of corporate values." It's the reusult of a moderately robust research effort (300+ completed surveys but only 20 interviews) about "how companies are dealing with the challenges of managing values." (Link here; PDF file here; free registration required.) The findings are what you'd expect: lots of firms state similar values ("integrity," "commitment to customers," "commitment to employees"); the rub is in living them. Of course, we believe there's another rub as well: not confusing value messages with strategy messages. At CRA, we encourage clients to communicate values as "how we play" or "how we work" and strategy as "how we're going to succeed" or, if there's a vision for the company, "how we're going to get there." The challenge with values is that they're not terribly actionable from a planning perspective. As a mid-level manager it's hard to look at the next 12 months and plot (or articulate) how my team is going to "do" diversity or "do" integrity. A strategy message fills that gap: If you tell me our strategy is to "improve customer service, improve reliability, and manage costs" ... those are things I can take action on, whatever my level. I can then invoke values by saying: "And as you do so, act with integrity and encourage diversity." Mission, vision, values, and strategy each have a linked but distinct space in the strategic message heirarchy. Strategy is the game plan; values are how we play the game.

Maintaining Employee Trust

Working Knowledge has a nice short piece from Stever Robbins on maintaining and rebuilding employee trust. A few highlights:

* One powerful way to sustain trust is to put the interests of others ahead of your own. Putting others first means knowing their goals and concerns, and helping them. Is a colleague a passionate baseball fan? Give them your Red Sox tickets some afternoon, for no reason at all. Is that the game where the Red Sox win the World Series? Even better! You'll suffer real pain at giving up your tickets. Public sacrifice, if it's real and visible, builds huge credibility when it's in the service of others. And the sacrifice must be real. Reducing your bonus from $2 million to $1.75 million just doesn't count. * If you get a reputation for taking advantage of others, however, even people whom you have treated well can start to doubt. One CEO wrote articles trumpeting his ethical behavior. Employees knew otherwise; they'd seen him cheat distributors and shirk on his commitments to his partners. So the more the CEO crowed, the more the grapevine passed anonymous notes highlighting his lies. * In business, one bad manager rarely destroys trust in the entire company. But several bad managers, armed with policies that clearly treat people as disposable implements, can destroy trust in an entire organization. At that point, bringing in a new management team that takes clear, visible action might have a chance of rebuilding trust. These actions will be hampered because employees have learned to distrust the organization as a whole. But at least the new leaders will have a chance to gain one-on-one trust and translate that into the organizational changes needed to build trust throughout.

Read the whole thing.

Go See Fast Company Now

Several things worth noting over at Fast Company’s blog, FC Now, today. The first is the blog itself: It’s a nice example of a single blog authored by multiple folks with similar but varying content expertise. It also reflects sound blog practice (first person voice, brief and pithy entries, links, un-spun and candid information … see Jeff Jarvis’ excellent take on blog ethics here). Most interesting, however, is how the blog -- which uses Movable Type’s standard software (as does CommLog) -- incorporates so well into the rest of FC’s site and web branding. We’re often trying to convince IT and Corp. Comm. folks that they don’t have to use a $400,000 piece of content management software for blogging functionality – that the standard (and dirt cheap) software that’s out there easily allows for incorporation into nearly any existing site or page. FC’s blog is a great example.

It's Not Just About Readership

Steve Crescenzo wants to slaughter the "fun page". And in his sentiment, he's right. Of course, making the "strategic direction" page the fun page ... there's the rub.