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THOROGOOD PROFESSIONAL INSIGHTS

A SPECIALLY COMMISSIONED REPORT

INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS James Farrant

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A SPECIALLY COMMISSIONED REPORT

INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS James Farrant

First published 2000

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Updated and reprinted 2003 Thorogood 10-12 Rivington Street London EC2A 3DU. t: 020 7749 4748

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The author James Farrant worked for many years as a producer and director in broadcast television before setting up his own communications and video production consultancy which specializes in training and internal communications. Visit the website at: www.farrant-partnership.com. James began his career as a TV journalist. He worked first as a news scriptwriter (ITN’s News at Ten amongst other news and current affairs programs), then elsewhere in ITV as a producer in news, current affairs and documentary programs, covering a wide range of subjects including politics, business and science. In 1981 James launched the International Broadcasting Trust founded by a consortium of British charities, and he was its first Editor-in-Chief. He worked briefly as a freelance producer and director before establishing The Farrant Partnership. As a consultant, he is experienced in reviewing and reporting on communications processes and activity in client organizations, making undogmatic recommendations, and then helping in the practical steps towards change (training, workshops etc.). In change programs, James has worked closely with senior people to communicate a vision of the new way of doing things, and to take that communication through their organizations. James is the author of Winning Teams, a training package on leadership and teamwork and his recent video work includes writing and directing programs on liberating leadership, coaching and business excellence. He also co-authored TV and Video in Internal Communications. As an experienced facilitator, he works with teams to help them review themselves, resolve problems, raise awareness and strengthen team-working, and is frequently asked to design and run seminars and workshops. He chairs and speaks in an on-going series of public seminars, Successful Internal Communications.


Contents Introduction..................................................................................................1

1

INTEGRATED INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS

4

Mitchells & Butlers, a company with more than a decade’s worth of change ..............................................................5 The internal communications structure and approach ..........................6 Internal communications: an essential to employee motivation and satisfaction ........................................................................7 Employee surveys .......................................................................................7 Communications channels .........................................................................9 Innovation is a constant .............................................................................9 Intranets have radically changed internal communications ................10 Internal communication is the ‘eyes and ears’, and the conscience of the organization ..................................................11

2

THINKING ABOUT INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS

12

The policy and the principles .................................................................13 Why we communicate within organizations and why we should do it better ...............................................................14 How we communicate within organizations and the best ways of doing it ...................................................................16 Other characteristics of good internal communications ......................17 What to communicate ..............................................................................19 Measuring success ....................................................................................20


3

MAKING A START – POLICIES AND AUDIT

21

Internal communications policies ...........................................................22 The internal communications challenge at the Natural History Museum ...............................................................23 Selling to the corporate sector ................................................................24 Bringing in external consultants to help with the communications audit ...............................................................25 Promoting the communications audit ....................................................26 Publicizing the results ..............................................................................26 ‘Quick wins’ before a published policy ...................................................27 Measuring success ....................................................................................28 Writing down the internal communications policy ..............................29 Involving everybody in the organization ...............................................29 Tips ............................................................................................................31

4

CHANNELS OF COMMUNICATION

32

Face-to-face communication ...................................................................33 Conferences ...............................................................................................34 Notice-boards ............................................................................................34 E-mail .........................................................................................................35 Intranets .....................................................................................................36 Publications ...............................................................................................36 Annual reports ..........................................................................................37 Web-sites ...................................................................................................38 Video and audio ........................................................................................38 Employee surveys .....................................................................................38 Tips ............................................................................................................39


5

LEADERSHIP: COMMUNICATING THE VISION

40

dmg world media, a company in a hurry ...............................................42 An entrepreneurial strategy ....................................................................43 Strategy first, vision second ....................................................................44 Communicating company culture ...........................................................45 The top team travel and communicate constantly ................................47 The value of conferences .........................................................................47 Tips .............................................................................................................48

6

FACE-TO-FACE COMMUNICATION

49

Everybody’s preferred form of communication ....................................50 Skills in everyday face-to-face communication .....................................51 Team briefing .............................................................................................52 The virtues of team briefing ....................................................................53 How team briefing developed .................................................................55 Team briefing is not necessarily plain sailing ........................................56 Team briefing feedback channels ............................................................57 Team briefing and virtual teams ..............................................................58 Establishing team briefing .......................................................................59 Team briefing means listening ................................................................60 Tips ............................................................................................................61

7

‘AND THEN…’ STORY-TELLING IN INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS

62

The power of the story .............................................................................63 Communicating a merger as an unfolding story ..................................63 The internal communicator as witness and story teller .......................65 Telling the story through several media .................................................66 ‘Rich, coherent and engaging’ stories ....................................................67 Measuring success ....................................................................................67 Story-telling in ‘steady state’ organisations ..........................................68 Tips .............................................................................................................69


8

INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS PARTNERSHIPS

70

Letting people have a say in organizational culture .............................71 Involving the management team ............................................................72 The first ‘temperature check’ ...................................................................73 Further measurement ...............................................................................74 Identifing different feelings in different employee groups ..................75 New communications initiatives in response to employee attitudes .....76 Responding to what employees say .......................................................77 Tips .............................................................................................................77

9

INTRANETS IN INTERNAL COMMUNICATION

78

Bringing multiple intranets together ......................................................79 Driven from the center .............................................................................80 Issues about opting for an Extranet .......................................................80 Editorial independence ............................................................................82 Knowledge management .........................................................................82 Tips .............................................................................................................83

10

CONCLUSION

84


Introduction ‘Internal communications’ is a dull phrase. It has helped keep it as the Cinderella of the communications disciplines. Even in the pale vocabulary of management, ‘public relations’ or ‘advertising’ do more to stir the spirit. ‘Internal communications’ suggests a cure from some ailment we would rather not think about – medicine to be taken because we know it is good for us, but with no great enthusiasm. But internal communications are vital to all organizations. They are its life blood. We are sociable creatures and we communicate at a level and to a degree unknown in other species. Imagine an organization which you might describe as dysfunctional; perhaps one of Tolstoy’s unhappy families. The members may be hostile to each other, resentful and critical, but at least there is communication. Take that away and the organization itself disintegrates. Internal communications are also vital to organizations in the sense that there is growing evidence that the organizations which ‘get it right’ reap dividends in corporate energy and enhanced performance. In such organizations, internal communications have equal status with all external communications functions. In the best organizations, internal communications are part of the culture; they have disappeared as a subject to be thought about separately, into the way the organizations work, into the way the leaders lead and others may respond. I use the words ‘culture’ and ‘leader’ advisedly. What else is culture but the accretion of all the things that are said and done within a society? Call it the history of the society, if you like. I heard a management consultant on the radio recently suggesting that 70 per cent of ‘discretionary effort’ is down to the culture of the organization. In other words, if people like the culture, then they will ‘go the extra mile’, ‘give what it takes’, whatever phrase best suits the idea of going beyond the call of duty. If the ‘culture’ is not to their liking, there is little going beyond the call of duty, or doing more than the bare minimum required by the contract between employer and employee. Which serves to underline the fact that formal internal communications, the domain of the communications professional, co-exist with the informal, the domain of every individual and most importantly, every leader or manager, particularly leaders at the head of each organization.


1

INTRODUCTION

Increasingly links have been established between staff and customer satisfaction and the bottom-line. There is a correlation between progressive policies in the management of employees, including good internal communications, and increased organizational performance. You might think that in these circumstances, it was more a question of asking how to make internal communications better than whether they are necessary at all. Nonetheless, in a recent Industrial Society questionnaire, fewer than half the organizations polled could answer ‘Yes’ when asked, ‘Does your organization have a written internal communications policy?’ and ‘Does your internal communications policy link to the organization’s strategic plan?’ Which perhaps explains why organizations with poor internal communications do survive, nonetheless. I know of organizations in which people working in the same office as each other prefer e-mail correspondence to the thought of talking to each other. They put in necessary effort which allows the organization to carry on but none of the discretionary effort which will raise its performance, and the gratification they might take from that and a more rewarding working environment. This report is for leaders, managers, communications professionals and consultants – for anybody involved in improving the performance of organizations. We aim to show how internal communications, taken in their widest sense, can help. We look at a number of key issues in current internal communications practice. We have tried to make the content accessible without ignoring the most recent academic and other research. The content has grown out of a series of seminars, Successful Internal Communications, run by Hawksmere. The seminars are not only for communications professionals at all levels, but also those working in a range of functions – general management, marketing, human resources and so on. The content of the seminars is a mix of the contextual and theoretical, and case histories, presented by the people involved and flavoured with telling anecdotes. As companies and organizations do not necessarily go out of their way to advertise the challenges they face within themselves, we have been fortunate to have speakers who have described candidly the management of their internal communications. This has always seemed to me a realistic and honest way of approaching the subject which acknowledges that there is a range of best practice. So, in what may appear to be inconsistency, look for variety. Also, it is often the chance supplementary remark or a particular phrase which sets new ideas running in the listener or reader.


2

INTRODUCTION

We look at the reasons why organizations should take the subject seriously. We lay out a way of thinking about the subject in order to allow readers to develop policies appropriate to their own organizations. We have tried to be realistic. We do not pretend that successful internal communications do not require commitment and that there are not pitfalls on the way. With this report, we hope readers will be better prepared.


3


Chapter 1 Integrated internal communications Mitchells & Butlers, a company with more than a decade’s worth of change The internal communications structure and approach Internal communications: an essential to employee motivation and satisfaction Employee surveys Communications channels Innovation is a constant Intranets have radically changed internal communications Internal communication is the ‘eyes and ears’, and the conscience of the organization

Chapter 1 Integrated internal communications

Mitchells & Butlers, a company with more than a decade’s worth of change What might an organization look like which has followed a commitment to integrated internal communications of a high standard over a number of years? Back in 1990, the company now called Mitchells & Butlers plc was Bass Taverns, part of Bass plc. Bass Taverns had been formed when Bass separated its brewing and managed pub operations after the DTI Beer Orders in 1989. In 2001, the Bass name was dropped and the company became Six Continents plc. In April 2003 Six Continents separated its hotels and retail divisions. The retail division has been re-born as Mitchells & Butlers plc. The new company is UK’s leading operator of managed pubs, bars and restaurants. Mitchells & Butlers has over 2,100 outlets, many of them operating under brand names such as All Bar One, Vintage Inns, Toby Carvery, Ember Inns, O’Neill’s, Edward’s, Scream, Harvester Restaurants and Browns. Mitchells & Butlers’ communications director, Bob Cartwright, says, “In 1990, nearly three-quarters of our sales were draught beer. It is now 35 per cent. Food is 30 per cent. We are now a massive food retailer, a massive seller of wine and soft drinks as well as beer. Change is a theme which runs through all our employee communications – inevitably after the massive structural change this company has undergone. Integral to any change is the internal communication aspect of it. It is not a bolt-on extra.”


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1 I N T E G R AT E D I N T E R N A L C O M M U N I C AT I O N S

The internal communications structure and approach The company has 40,000 employees. As Bass, it was accredited as an ‘Investors In People’ company in 1993, at that time the second largest company to do so. The company was re-accredited in 1996, 1999 and 2002. Bob Cartwright says, “In terms of employee communications you could look at our staffing on a number of levels – corporate staff, the managers who run outlets, full-time assistant managers who will move up through the business, and then the bar and restaurant staff – the customer-facing people, many of them part-timers.” “The loyalty of the people in our outlets is very much to the brand in which they work, or the particular bar or restaurant. So a huge amount of the communication effort there is down to the individual manager who is running that outlet. From the center and via line management we are supplying the tools to allow the manager to communicate effectively, focusing on the things that really matter, like the results of the ‘Mystery Customer’ visits, ensuring that the quality is absolutely right. We focus enormously on the quality of service provided in what is an increasingly competitive market.” Every outlet is visited at least four times a year by ‘Mystery Customers’, who are from an external agency. They score their experience against over 70 criteria (quality of welcome, service, food and drink etc.). “We have kept the management of our communications channels very tight. For instance we have only one intranet. Some organizations I believe have dozens of intranets. We encourage our brands to put out their own magazines, newsletters. But by and large, we control the media and we make sure the message meshes in with what the organization is doing.” Bob joined Bass as PR director of the retail company in 1990 just after the DTI Beer Orders. The new legislation had limited the number of pubs major brewers were allowed to own. The company had to sell 2,740 pubs in one go. “I came in on the PR side, but it was clear a huge job needed to be done with communications with employees. We wrote the employee communications policy in 1990 and the acceptance of the importance of employee communications has stayed with us since. We worked on the principle that we were going to be very open with information, within the limits of Stock Exchange rules. We held information back only where we had a real commercial advantage which we did not want to hand over to competitors, and that has been the case since then.”


6


Internal communications: an essential to employee motivation and satisfaction According to Bob Cartwright, Mitchells & Butlers believes that employee communication is a very important part of staff motivation and satisfaction. There is a virtuous circle in which improving employee satisfaction leads to greater customer satisfaction, which in turn leads to sales growth and greater profits which, in turn, should produce greater employee satisfaction. Bob Cartwright said: “Actually proving those relationships is never easy. It is a common sense view that if you have poor staff morale, you are likely to get lower customer satisfaction, and the business will definitely suffer.” He believes that a robust system of employee communications has helped the company. “We have to compete with some new operators who have created their businesses from scratch in recent years. In terms of efficiency we are compared with those companies, so we have reduced our corporate staff by about half in the last few years, at the same time increasing productivity. If you keep your management with you, if you keep your staff with you, the chances are you will be far more successful. Employee communications range from the formal employee communications right across the spectrum to the line management elements which are a desperately important part of our business. So the areas the communications team gets involved in are the classic ones of internal communications: print – the company newspaper; running the intranet; employee surveys; the creation of an environment in which team meetings take place; trying to make sure that managers are briefing people about the company’s objectives; encouraging people to walk the job.”

Employee surveys Auditing employee views of communications has become a way of measuring progress and a communications tool in itself. The first audit was done amongst the management community in 1990. This highlighted various weaknesses in employee communications which were then addressed. In 1993, an employee questionnaire was introduced seeking views on a range of issues including communication. By 1996, company wide quantitative surveys had been established: a yearly employee survey, including a specific section on communication issues, was carried out by external research consultants. It was a standard survey used in thousands of other organizations.


7


“This survey was excellent because it gave us benchmarking”, says Bob Cartwright. “We got comparisons with international norms, with UK norms and with UK best performing companies (the companies with the best financial and survey results), and with other retail companies.” The results of the survey were published in full for employees, with comparisons with the previous year’s feedback and benchmarks of UK best performing companies. “We used the employee survey as a way of driving the activity. Take team briefing. We will find out what proportion of employees are attending team briefing meetings on a regular basis, and what proportion of employees believe they are useful. There may be people who are extraordinarily busy; there may be some people in the organisation who do not believe in team briefing. But it does act as a spur to keep your briefing meetings going if you know that your people are going to be receiving questionnaires.” “The employee satisfaction score that we used was derived by the very simple method of averaging the answers to all the 70 odd questions and then comparing the total figure year on year.” The employee survey questionnaire was sent to all corporate staff and a sample of about 10 per cent of other employees, but “it does not give you all the information you need. If you want to know how effective your company newspaper is, for example, it does not give us enough detail, so we do some other work on top. For example, each year I have a university student working in the department, and part of that person’s work will be ringing round for people’s attitudes to a particular medium – the company newspaper, or the intranet and so on.” By 2003, now as an independent plc, and with an efficient intranet, Mitchells & Butlers is trying out electronic surveys to see if they can obtain higher response rates at significantly lower costs. So far the results have been impressive.


8


Communications channels In addition to a monthly magazine, Bob Cartwright’s department publishes other items of print of an ad hoc nature, manages the company intranet and website, produces magazine-style audio programs, and organizes internal briefings and conferences, which he believes can be very effective in generating enthusiasm and energy. Bob thinks that it is as important as ever to present employees with a range of media. “There is a curious conflict we have to reconcile all the time. Giving people information but people saying they are swamped with information. You just have to assume that people will choose how they will take it rather than us dictating what they will have.” At Mitchells & Butlers, visits to outlets by members of the Board are, in effect, part of the employee communications mix. “The time pressures on the top people are horrendous. But senior management is constantly going out and communicating. We have one Board member who makes something like 750 visits a year to retail outlets around the country. And as a result he is very well known and respected both in the company and within the industry.” “Happily such visits are built into the psyche of this business. It’s ‘being out in the trade’. The tradition is that you are looking both at the investment we have in bricks and mortar, and making sure that we have really motivated people out there who want to provide really top class service. It’s fundamental to the business, and is recognized at the very top of the company.”

Innovation is a constant Innovation is essential. “Our industry has had to evolve very rapidly. If we had not kept ahead of the game as retailers, we would have rapidly got into trouble. We have seen competitors, some major companies, literally disappear. That is the market we operate in.” “You have to be exactly the same with employee communications. If you do not keep up with new technologies, the new demands of employees, then you can run into trouble. We have to continue to refresh your communications, just as we refresh our brands.”


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“In 2002, for example, now that many of our outlets were bars and restaurants, we began to think that a monthly newspaper called InnTouch was no longer appropriate. We decided to re-launch it as a magazine, called simply The Magazine. It is far more modern in style, it looks at our competitors and it has a little lifestyle content, but the fundamentals are the same, communicating what the business is about, presenting a wider picture of the working environment. First reaction has been very good.” The change was in response to consumer demand. The idea of a printed publication was still very popular, as many employees did not have access to the company intranet. “Readers had told us that they wanted a magazine, something a bit different. We had updated it every two or three years but this was an even more thorough-going change, in the look of it and the content.” Bob regards the company’s website as part of its internal communications, as employees are heavy users. The Six Continents website was judged the best amongst the FTSE 100 companies in 2001, but “you have to keep looking at websites and moving them on.” And, aware that the company could do more in getting feedback from employees, Bob introduced ‘skip meetings’ in 2000, at which board directors get together with small groups of staff, “just to discuss issues. The directors find them very useful.”

Intranets have radically changed internal communications Bob says the intranet has radically changed the company’s internal communications. “We can get information out really quickly, so that people can draw out what they want.” “I remember six or seven years ago being asked, ‘Couldn’t we have some cuttings from the previous two months in the newsletter’. Now everybody gets a summary of relevant stories from the national and local press on the intranet at nine o’clock each morning. We also have a weekly political summary on the intranet.”


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Internal communication is the ‘eyes and ears’, and the conscience of the organization “We have a management who have recognized the broader issues, whether it be internal communications, social responsibility (we are after all purveyors of alcohol), all the changes companies are faced with, political and regulatory issues. I have been working with people who understand the importance of those.” “Top managers can be very driven by process in parts of businesses – that is the way it is. And they are under a lot of pressure, but decision-making which is over-focused on just one aspect of the business can lead you into trouble.” “If you are in communications, you have all the time to be aware of the wider issues. You have to be the eyes and ears of the organization and to a certain extent its conscience. All the time, you have to lift your head above the parapet, seeing what is going on in the wider world.”


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Chapter 2 Thinking about internal communications The policy and the principles Why we communicate within organizations and why we should do it better How we communicate within organizations and the best ways of doing it Other characteristics of good internal communications What to communicate Measuring success

Chapter 2 Thinking about internal communications This chapter will provide a framework for thinking about internal communications. If we go back to first principles and rediscover what they are, then we will make better decisions and put in place better channels for communicating with everyone throughout the workplace. So what are the basics?

The policy and the principles No internal communications ever succeeded without the support and commitment of strong leadership. That is where the organization’s aims and many of its most important communications originate. Developing policy in consultation with them will draw them into the communications process, and win their commitment. A policy will incorporate: •

key principles

•

standards and measurement processes to monitor progress and build best practice

•

channels and methods of communications

•

roles, responsibilities and resources.

An internal communications plan, providing the detailed specifics and providing a framework for all involved in organizing internal communications can be built on the foundations of a tested policy. Publishing the core principles of the policy is an important further step. The principles may be broad and few in number: for example, to advise people in a timely and appropriate manner of all change which affects them personally, to update employees continuously of key achievements and progress to key milestones, to motivate people through public recognition of performance both on a team and individual basis and to engender a climate of trust throughout the organization.


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2 T H I N K I N G A B O U T I N T E R N A L C O M M U N I C AT I O N S

By publishing even a few principles, you establish credibility for your internal communications and allow people to judge you by whether or not you adhere to those principles. The process of developing a policy also allows you to focus on the business benefits of internal communications, and integrate consideration of communications issues into business planning.

Why we communicate within organizations and why we should do it better The simple answer is of course that we are social animals and we cannot stop ourselves communicating (hence ‘the grapevine’…). At another level there needs to be good communication to get anything done at all. The individual asks the representative of the organization (the leader, the manager, the supervisor), ‘What do you expect me to do and how do you expect me to do it?’ The leader or manager or supervisor then informs the individual. Informing somebody might seem a relatively straightforward activity. But this is a two-way encounter and the result has to be understanding. This is why good communication and interpersonal skills are seen as essential for leaders and managers, for them even to begin to be effective. Our focus here is organizational communications (how the organization communicates with its members and its members communicate with the organization), but it is worth saying here that training in interpersonal skills is well established for leaders and managers, and there is increasingly sophisticated work being done on personal communication style. Of course, the organization wants to inform. Just as the manager or leader informs, so the organization conveys information, which everybody needs to know, in order for it to function at all. Only to inform, though, is to expect merely compliance and acquiescence. Contemporary internal communications work towards winning people’s participation and involvement in the enhanced achievement of the organization’s goals. If that 70 per cent of discretionary effort, already mentioned in the introduction, which is available can be engaged, then the organization is functioning at a greater capacity than before.


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Involvement and participation are necessary conditions for change. Changing behavior is the ultimate goal of systematic internal communications, as organizations have to respond to constantly changing forces in the market place. Not only the ultimate goal, but also the business discipline which requires outcomes beyond mere activity. If the communications practitioner can move from being able to state how many issues of the company newspaper were published in a given period, to knowing how many people actually read it, and then to being able to measure people’s satisfaction with communication and the culture of the organization, then internal communications are producing a measurable result to set against the resources they use. How do we know that internal communications have any effect? Organizations which have invested in internal communications over time and have monitored its effects now have a body of evidence to justify the money and effort involved. In regular surveys and questionnaires, they explore people’s perceptions of internal communications and the difference they make to their attitudes to work and the organization they work for. Apart from the effects of regular communications, the outcomes of particular campaigns can be monitored, because their aims are so specific. If the aim of a particular management initiative, in which communication plays an essential role, is to reduce employee turnover by a certain amount, then the reduction, when it comes, can be measured. If the task is to gain commitment to a restructuring of the organization, again unthinkable without communications, then surveying attitudes throughout the exercise will provide the evidence that communication is working. Wise communications professionals know the value of short, sharp focused campaigns to change attitudes and behaviors around a particular issue; they can register ‘quick wins’ with them, persuade others of their effectiveness and imbed internal communications into the organization. There are other approaches to justifying effort in systematic internal communications. Large-scale benchmarking studies have demonstrated that organizations, which are successful, as measured against other criteria, attach great importance to good internal communications.


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How we communicate within organizations and the best ways of doing it To answer these questions, we can look at what successful organizations do, as illustrated in the case studies in this report. There are also behavioral psychology and research into what people have told researchers about how they prefer to communicate at work. Here are some factors to take into account: •

A general principle dictates that if I am to act in accordance to a new policy, or change my behavior, I must trust and believe in the person or people telling me what to do. And practice follows the same principle: in numerous studies, people say they trust and value communication with their immediate boss more than any other method.

•

I am more likely to pay attention to what is being said to me if it is made clear what the impact will be on me as an individual.

•

If communications of any kind, verbal, visual, behavioral, are couched in a relevant style, then I am more likely to pay attention. This principle is most obvious in terms of printed media: there is no point in producing a Financial Times-style newspaper for people who normally read a tabloid newspaper.

•

At any one time, I have a limited attention span for communication, particularly for material which is unfamiliar.

•

Unconsciously I appreciate repetition over time. It gives me many opportunities to consider what is being communicated.

•

Unconsciously, I also appreciate it if I have a choice of media in which the organization is addressing me.

•

I will pay a great deal more attention if I have the chance to engage with the communicator. The ability to talk about what is being communicated, to ask questions about it, and check that I have understood it is essential. It can also be fun and more likely to lead to a change in behavior than a mere recital of information by somebody else.

•

What also helps me understand and learn is the re-enforcement of communication by activity.

•

If I see the leaders in my organization behaving according to the principles, which they wish me to follow, I am more likely to pay attention to them.


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From the above we can draw a number of conclusions: •

Face-to-face communications will be more effective than indirect methods (written documents of any kind including e-mail, video, audio and so on). Nonetheless indirect methods have an important role in supporting face-to-face communication.

•

Communication is multi-faceted and does not rely on one method.

•

In face-to-face communications, the most effective is likely to be between the members of a team and their immediate boss. Line managers and leaders are a key part of successful internal communications.

•

There need to be respected and credible avenues for people to express their views and ask questions, to which answers should be given.

•

Leaders should be visible.

Other characteristics of good internal communications So, as you focus on the business benefits of internal communications and the preferences of your audiences you begin describe what they will be like. Your internal communications must: •

be measurable in terms of outcomes, not merely in terms of activity; and

•

be two way, with scope for listening to and involving audiences, as well as addressing them.

There should be other characteristics, which can serve as indicators of how well you propose to communicate: •

Accuracy is essential. Alongside any formal system of internal communication, there is the informal at work. The grapevine is not to be despised, nor can it be eradicated, but formal systems must win respect as being proven to be more accurate time and again. Practitioners of internal communications need the status and training to be able to seek out what is accurate, and the ability and experience to tell the difference between a truth and a falsehood.


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•

Honesty goes hand-in-hand with accuracy. If your internal communications have a reputation for honesty in telling the whole truth as much as is possible, they will be respected. It is possible to be honest and at the same time open why it may not be possible to communicate everything. For example, when information would be share price sensitive.

•

Your internal communications must take in everybody in the organization. People can understand that certain groups should be addressed in a particular way (for example, the top managers attending a special conference), but they will resent it if they feel disenfranchised. So most activity needs to reach everybody.

•

Your communications must be comprehensible. We have already referred to the style in which you address people. You also need to think about how much you should be communicating, and how much contextual material you need to provide to help people appreciate the reasons for particular changes or policies.

•

Your communications need to be timely. People’s expectations for immediate communication have been built up to a high level by what they experience through newspapers, radio or TV, and the instantaneity of information through the Internet – e-mail and the Web. There will be occasions too when you are working beside not only the grapevine, but also the mass media. Each element of the mass media wants to announce the news before its competitors. So where your news may be of interest to newspapers, radio and TV, you must see yourself both as a supplier of news to them, but also as a competitor with them: you must get it out first.

•

Your internal communications must be prepared and delivered competently. Everybody you address is in some way aware of the highly developed skills which are applied in the mass media, in writing, graphics, photography, editing, production and so on. They are also participants at events, which are planned and performed with the greatest attention to detail: think of the experience people have at major sports events, in the theatre, at festivals and concerts, in theme parks and exhibitions. The organization must be prepared to develop and acquire these kinds of professional skills and expertise for the deployment of its internal communications; this will include the training of people who may not think of themselves as communicators at all.


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What to communicate The precise content of any communication of course depends on the time, the place and the organization, but you need to lay down some general principles of what to communicate, and who should decide what should be communicated. It all starts at the top. Everybody wants to know where he or she should be going and how well they are doing in getting there. Policy and progress is decided at the top, and those at the top should state what these are, even if others, the communications specialists, are responsible for the actual communication. Wise communications specialists and top teams work together to articulate in simple language, but truthfully, what may in discussion amongst themselves be abbreviated by common assumptions or expressed in jargon. So the top person, or the small number of people at the top, must take responsibility for the key messages which are to be broadcast through the organization. Ideally, this should be reflected in the structure of the organization. The trend in UK organizations is for communications departments, including internal communications, to have a direct line relation with chief executives. There is evidence that fewer organizations than before separate internal communications from other communications activities (PR, marketing and advertising). Now it is less common to find internal communications with the HR function, for example. We have mentioned the need to be relevant, to provide context and to be disciplined about the quantity of internal communications. They may be regular, they may be credible, but a surfeit risks their losing their impact. Equally, it is easier for people to focus on the one or two basic reasons for a particular policy rather than try to guess which is the most important of ten or twelve. (They may also try to invalidate the policy as a whole by quibbling about one of the least important.) The issue of ‘how much?’ becomes more and more pressing as organizations take advantage of digital technologies. These technologies – currently most obviously e-mail and intranets – provide solutions for problems of distribution. Because an e-mail can be delivered to a thousand people at a key stroke, it is tempting to communicate with them more frequently than via ‘conventional’ means – the traditional office memo, the notice-board, or the briefing system. While being economical with information (though not with the truth), you should also in certain circumstances plan for a timetable of communication. A program of change may be anticipated to last months or even years. Communication must stay in step, with milestones set for the communication of certain messages, and checking at each stage that people have understood what has gone before.


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Measuring success Measurement has already been mentioned as an important part of internal communications. You should be able the measure your success in meeting the standards or the particular objectives that have been set; and the measurement will be reasonably straightforward. For instance, if you set a target that everybody should know of any development affecting their job before or at the same time as it is reported externally, then you can record what actually happens. If the aims of a particular communications project are specific, for example to reduce employee turnover by a certain amount and by a certain date, then the measure of success lies in the comparative turnover figures. The outcomes of a project with less tangible aims, for example to gain commitment to organizational restructure, can still be measured. The way is to keep asking a cross-section of people in the organization (large and varied enough to be statistically valid), about their levels of commitment, as you roll out the program of communication. The questions should be simple and few in number; the questioning can be done by phone or e-mail. The result will be a benchmark from the first polling, and then, as you repeat the polling, data to set against the first results. As you accumulate evidence, you can demonstrate success, and adjust your communications to what you are learning of people’s response. Setting up measurement of an organization-wide continuous internal communication presents another challenge. If systematic internal communications are to be launched, or re-launched, then research is required of two kinds, which normally takes the form of a communications audit. Firstly, you need to establish the status quo, i.e. exactly what is being done in internal communications. Many organizations, where in the past there has not been a central focus for internal communications, are surprised to find how much semi-formal communication has been going on, haphazardly and patchily. In parallel, you must find out what people feel about the elements of internal communications, which do exist, and more generally whether they are satisfied with communications within the organization. The aim, again, is to establish a benchmark against which to set responses when you conduct similar surveys in the future. The results of the first communications audit and subsequent surveys can be potent tools in internal communications. If you are enlisting people’s help, publishing the results sends a powerful signal that their participation is appreciated and their views being taken into account as policy is being made.


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Chapter 3 Making a start – policies and audit Internal communications policies The internal communications challenge at the Natural History Museum Selling to the corporate sector Bringing in external consultants to help with the communications audit Promoting the communications audit Publicizing the results ‘Quick wins’ before a published policy Measuring success Writing down the internal communications policy Involving everybody in the organization Tips

Chapter 3 Making a start – policies and audit

Internal communications policies There are many ways in which the organization can arrive at an internal communications policy. Real life is messy and complicated. Even as you are trying to formulate a new policy, you have to carry on doing something and it is rare indeed if you are able to start with a clean sheet, at Year Zero, so to speak – as any theoretical model suggests you are able. Or, as the case study below suggests, you may only arrive at a policy when you have had some success with what you are doing, and think it worthwhile to articulate the principles you have already been following. The policy, in general terms, signals the principles which will guide the organization’s internal communications. There are very great merits in drawing up a policy, to win agreement from the top team and to act as a framework, or template, for the plans that will then follow. There are even greater merits in publishing it, because by doing so, you signal the seriousness of your efforts. As with any mission statement or articulation of general principles, the art lies in balancing general statements, which always risk being bland, or open to the charge that nobody could possibly disagree with the sentiments they contain, with enough detail to give the policy credibility. A policy loses its value when there is not even a suggestion of detail of how the admirable principles will be put into practice. In the other direction, the policy can contain too much detail about mechanisms, in which case options are narrowed to those that have been announced and the communications professional finds him or herself in a straightjacket of over-specific expectations. Here are some examples of general statements found in internal communications: ‘To advise people in a timely and appropriate manner of all change which affects them personally.’ ‘To engender a climate of trust throughout the organization.’ ‘To continuously update employees of key achievements.’ ‘To motivate people through public recognition of performance both on a team and individual basis.’


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3 M A K I N G A S TA R T – P O L I C I E S A N D A U D I T

The best policies have a simplicity and warmth in their phraseology, far from bureaucratic language. They need to be couched in terms of what the individual can expect of internal communications. Wide distribution sends a clear message about the importance attached by the organization to its internal communications, and some of the most persuasive policies are published as part of corporate objectives, which encompass performance targets and aims in training, HR policies and other areas.

The internal communications challenge at the Natural History Museum It is possible to arrive at a published policy other than by following a model, as the story of the Natural History Museum’s internal communications development suggests. It all happened in the 1990s but the principles enacted are just as valid today. Jane Bevan arrived at the Museum as Head of Public Relations in 1992. Her experience is interesting for a number of reasons. Firstly, she persuaded staff at the Museum that communications could be positively improved for the benefit of both the individual and the institution, and chose to adopt a practical approach before developing a formal published policy. She also brought the techniques of professional public relations in the care she took in managing a communications survey and implementing its findings. The Natural History Museum is one of London’s great landmarks. The building, by the great Victorian architect Alfred Waterhouse, stands alongside a great stretch of the Cromwell Road, a cathedral of science faced in terracotta and decorated with exquisite figures of animals and plants. The Museum is the repository of over three hundred years of scientific collecting and study, as well as a center for contemporary world-class research into the natural world. It was and remains one of Britain’s top paying tourist attractions and receives over hundreds of thousands of children on school visits every year. The Museum’s mission is ‘to maintain and develop its collections and use them to promote the discovery, understanding, responsible use and enjoyment of the natural world.’ Jane Bevan recalls her first days at the Museum. “One of the first things I did was to spend time simply talking to people. I wanted to learn what made the place tick, as I knew that once I got into the thick of the job I was not going to have the time. What I thought about the Museum was not really the point, it was how the rest of the staff perceived the Museum that mattered and it really helped me to get the lie of the land as much as anything.”


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Jane found an organization still in shock from a major structural re-organization in 1990. This had been forced on the Museum by a Government decision that it could no longer depend on the public purse for 100 per cent of its running costs. While there had been few redundancies during the restructuring, the huge cultural changes initiated had left a deep feeling of malaise throughout the organization. In addition there were communication blockages particularly between different departments, which guarded their own information jealously.

Selling to the corporate sector The Museum and its staff had, for the first time, to face the rigours of the marketplace as a more commercially orientated organization. That involved adopting a different public face, partly in order to attract commercial sponsorship for some of its activities. In order to do so, the Museum had to package itself to sell itself to the corporate sector delivering business benefits in return for supporting core Museum activities. “PR was really only a tool in this instance to help bring the potential sponsors together with the relevant expert and understand each other’s objectives. While it was important to help staff to ‘speak with the corporate tongue’, part of the role was about managing expectations – on both sides.” While she had been appointed to an external communications role, Jane soon recognized that there was an equally large job to be done in terms of improving internal communications both for its own sake, and because, if it was not done, efforts to improve the Museum’s public profile would be jeopardized. “It did not take me very long to realize, that if the Museum was going to be successful in the public arena, it was vital to solve some of the internal tensions and dilemmas – to build the sense of a Museum team. Like any company, the Museum needed to work as a cohesive whole. Staff across the Museum, whether in the scientific departments or working front of house all needed to feel that they were on the same side. So the starting point for me was to help people articulate why communication was not working in the Museum and then to find solutions for the problems.” It was to prove an enormous challenge. Although Jane had had no previous practical experience of internal communications, she was undaunted. “I felt that it was really no different from any other communications job I might have been doing. It is just that the audience is closer to the hub of things and that brings both advantages and disadvantages.”


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“None of what was achieved would have been possible without the understanding and commitment from the person at the top and I was fortunate that the director of the Museum was both enthusiastic and supportive: that helped to bring the senior management team on board. As the ‘new kid on the block’, I was able to sit down with people and say, ‘Look – none of us will be able to achieve our objectives if we do not address these issues.’ It’s the oft-quoted cliché about staff being an organization’s most important resource, but do you mean it and do they know you mean it?” “The first step was the development of a long term public relations strategy, which also addressed internal communications issues. Having gained the endorsement of the top team for the broad strategic approach, I realized I had to think in terms of some kind of audit. I think in all organizations, you have to fight prejudice, rumour and inertia with fact. A lot of people were taking positions based on hearsay. We needed to ask everybody what they thought about the way in which communications worked so that we could see what the playing field looked like.”

Bringing in external consultants to help with the communications audit Jane Bevan decided to hire external consultants to help undertake a Museumwide communications survey. “Once the consultants were on board, it was not just a simple case of executing the survey. We needed to launch the survey just like any other communications campaign. You had to sell it to the target audience, so we did that in quite a structured way. We did some pilot work and some workshops at a level just below the senior management, in order to tease out the issues the survey should cover. This was also a way of building support for the whole process. We could then begin to build the questionnaire and pilot test it.” “Testing the questionnaire was important. The Museum community is extremely diverse with some staff operating in an academic environment more like a university, while others work in a leading visitor attraction with a greater customer focus. Some staff have two or three degrees, while for others English is not necessarily their first language. The demands and the culture are very different even within the same organization. And we also tested it to show we were listening to the staff by including the issues they wanted us to explore.”


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Promoting the communications audit Once she was satisfied that the questionnaire was right, Jane, with her communications background, wanted it well publicized, to encourage the best possible response. She launched a campaign, using posters and presentations. “We did over 17 presentations in a fortnight, explaining why we were doing a survey and to communicate that if the survey was going to work, as many people as possible should complete the questionnaire.” One of the big issues was confidentiality. Many people were concerned that their comments would be traced and for this reason, Jane felt her decision to bring in external consultants had been justified. “They gave us an independent voice, they gave us a confidential survey; they gave us moral support and a sense of comparability. They were able to tell us that other organizations were facing the same problems as us.” In the end 69 per cent of the staff responded to the survey. “That was only the beginning. Then came all the work in structuring how to feedback all the information to staff and to decide what action was needed. We did some preparatory work with the senior management group, painting a number of different scenarios of the results. It started them thinking what they should do, if the audit came out with a lot of critical material.”

Publicizing the results Publicizing the results of the survey meant a carefully orchestrated timetable of presentations, so that the cascade of information from the director through senior management to line managers and the staff took place over as short a time period as possible – in reality a matter of a few days. “While senior staff needed to have time to consider the survey results and how they would tackle the issues, particularly in their areas, the whole process could easily be un-stitched if staff felt that information was being held back.” “First we sat down with the director to talk through the findings and then we presented to heads of department and their deputies. We brought in the consultants to talk through the statistics side. Next we did three presentations in the Museum’s lecture theatre with an audience of 250 people at a time. We prepared a top-level summary of the key issues for staff to take away with copies of the Museum-wide findings.”


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“People were desperately keen to get the detailed findings for their department, for all sorts of reasons, so the next stage was for heads of department to sit down with their departmental staff to tell them using the team briefing system we had in place. ‘You know the Museum-wide findings, now here is the situation in our department’. However it was important not to create any kind of ‘communication’s league table’, which would only widen the departmental divide.” So the principle adopted was to release the information to the Museum as a whole, and later the detail in a much more personal way at the department and team level. The results were inevitably a mixture of good and bad news. For instance 80 per cent of people said they were proud to work for the Museum and that it was a friendly place to work – way above the national average. Other areas were not so good. Jane thinks the variety within the findings was a benefit. “It gave you an opportunity to say it is not a staff problem or a management problem, it is our problem. We all know how we feel if we fail to work together as a team.” She was unprepared for one aspect of the results. “The findings threw up two main problem areas – communications, as I had expected, and areas where the issue was poor management. I needed to distance myself from issues that were management-led and therefore more properly dealt with by the director and the HR staff, and deal with issues which I could legitimately address which were communications-led.” “What was scary was the volume of what we had discovered, but we identified key areas that needed to be addressed which reflected Museum-wide communications problems.”

‘Quick wins’ before a published policy Jane considered developing a policy and master plan for internal communications, but she was eager to move quickly. “I felt that it would be all too easy to procrastinate by arguing that we had to develop a policy first, when all along we had been saying ‘tell us what needs to change and we will make it happen’. How could we give people confidence that change could happen? We need to identify some ‘quick wins’, which would drive the progress and staff confidence.” Two quick wins were a Museum newsletter and TalkBack, a monthly forum for discussion. At the same time Jane felt she should have a structure for engaging people in the communications process.


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“At that stage I set up what I had had in my mind for some time, an inter-departmental communications steering group, people who were not at a very senior level, but represented the body politic. They were very significant in the early months, in brainstorming the things we did. The steering group talked to other staff and came up with ideas for the newsletter (christened Waterhouse Times), they encouraged other staff to join the editorial team or write articles. They became a sounding board and a way of tapping into the Museum grapevine to find out what staff really thought was important.” “I remember standing in front of the heads of department. I said ‘If you touch this newsletter and try to make it the voice of management, it will die. You have to trust me to make sure it is legal, decent, honest and truthful etc.’ But for a long time, we had a problem that staff felt it was controlled by senior management.” TalkBack was another early development and created a forum for discussion and feedback. The format was simple – 20 minutes for a presentation on a subject of interest – often a contentious issue, followed by questions and then the rest of the hour-long session open to debate from the floor. “It proved very popular with audiences never below 100 and usually nearer double that.” After 1994, came a range of initiatives, some quite straightforward like creating a set of key information points designed for the display and distribution of news, information and literature – dubbed ‘hot spots’ and placed at strategic points around the Museum. Others like the launch in 1998 of the Museum’s intranet involved considerable investment in technology, time and training and while led by the communications functions, contributed enormously, Jane believes, towards a ‘freer culture’ within the Museum.

Measuring success Although the consultants said the survey should be repeated every year, Jane decided to leave it for three years. Real cultural change, she argues, takes a long time, and by opting not to do the survey annually, she felt there was a chance that real change would be demonstrated when it was repeated. In 1997, the survey proved an easier process, with the newly established communication channels such as Waterhouse Times, the Information Points and TalkBack all helping to spread the message. She had also recruited a new member of staff specifically to concentrate on internal communications and to manage the Museum’s intranet, with its daily news page which had radically speeded information exchange.


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The 1997 survey showed there had been improvement, both against the 1994 survey and against the norms drawn from the consultants’ own group of 100 companies. “We had made real improvements, but then so had the rest of the world – internal communications was now, it seemed, on every organization’s business agenda. Recruiting and keeping staff, involving and motivating them – it’s all part of giving people job satisfaction for the long hours they work.”

Writing down the internal communications policy The next stage was the development of a more formal policy.“As I was reading the books on internal communication it made me ever more conscious of the importance of a written internal communications policy, to put the practical steps we had taken to improve communication into some sort of contextual framework.” Alongside the formal policy was planned a user-friendly version – a leaflet for all members of staff laying out what they should expect from their manager in terms of communication. Jane does not regret that she asked people first, made ‘quick wins’, built up a program of internal communications and then thought about writing the policy. “It was right for the Museum. We could have tackled the problem at a theoretical level. Because of our academic culture, we could have first formulated a policy and a plan; lots of people do it that way. Instead, we asked people and put in the policies later which provide the intellectual and management framework.”

Involving everybody in the organization Equally she feels that communications are too important to be left to the communications department. “It would certainly have been easier to do things in isolation – for my department to plod away with all the things we should take formal responsibility for, but I believe that you need to make people part of the process. Naturally we were leading on some projects, like producing Waterhouse Times, because we had the writing and production skills.”


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“But there were other things which later on I felt quite legitimately needed to be devolved to the HR team. We moved the communications steering group on to become simply a communications group. You have to draw people in even at the risk of their getting involved in areas of professional expertise which they do not know very much about.” However, “getting managers to manage the communication process is the hardest thing.” Nonetheless in the attempt, when the Museum introduced its own management development program, Jane was asked to develop and run a two-day module on communications. And communications now have their place in the Museum’s induction course. If you ask Jane Bevan what mark she made on internal communications at The Natural History Museum, she will ask you what your image of the Museum is. She will then mention the independent markers of success. In 1998 the Museum was voted ‘Visitor Attraction of the Year’, by the London Tourist Board. “Also my team won the PR Week Gold Award for ‘In-House PR Department of the Year’ in 1998, and I feel that the work that we had done not only for the external face of the Museum, but inside, was part of that professional accolade.” Visitor numbers had also risen from 1.3 million a year in 1992 to 1.85 million in1999; the Museum had become the most visited of all the museums in the UK which charged an entrance fee. “I think that these achievements reflected our success in raising the Museum’s profile. Not only were we seen as a world class visitor attraction staging exciting exhibitions and events, but our 300 scientists and outstanding collections make it a Mecca for all those interested in natural history. We really had begun to work much better as a team, pooling our skills and expertise and creating a culture of professionalism, where we were drawing in sponsors who wanted to work with us to fund the activities we wanted to do. Most importantly we had a staff who believed in themselves, and are even prouder to work there than before.”


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Tips •

An effective communications audit must be comprehensive. You need to look at what is supposed to be happening, what is actually happening, why there is a gap, and what people at all levels would like in communications.

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In addition you need to do a quantitative and qualitative survey of all media being used.

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Spend as much as you can on a first or re-launch audit. It will be an important benchmark and needs to be credible.

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Hire external consultants. They will give the audit confidentiality, independence and stature. Look for objectivity, good judgment in assessing your current activity and media, and knowledge of other organizations, to provide benchmarking.

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Consultants come in all shapes, sizes and prices.

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Make the audit a communications activity in itself, with all the transparency and openness you wish for in your communications.


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Chapter 4 Channels of communication Face-to-face communication Conferences Notice-boards E-mail Intranets Publications Annual reports Web-sites Video and audio Employee surveys Tips

Chapter 4 Channels of communication In this chapter, we look at a variety of channels or mechanisms which organizations use to communicate internally. They represent options which can be chosen for particular audiences and circumstances to form an integrated system of internal communications. Each medium or mechanism has its own particular strengths and weaknesses. Remember that you should address the same audiences about the same issues across a number of media; that way you get impressive mutual re-enforcement across media, and stand a better chance of communicating in a way to suit everybody. There is an essential difference between direct and indirect communication. Direct communication happens where people interact in real time, most effectively in the same location, or via video and audio conferencing, live TV and radio, and internet chat rooms, for example. Other media, for example, publications, videotapes, audio discs and tapes, are by their very nature indirect. They can provide absolute consistency of message, which may be difficult to achieve by indirect means.

Face-to-face communication Formal face-to-face communications can take many forms – big meetings, small meetings, management conferences, team meetings, team briefing, company or organization jamborees and so on. The chief executive ‘walking the job’ is ‘internal communications’, provided that he or she listens at least as much as he or she talks. All these occasions should promise two-way communication. If there is not a heightened sense of involvement, then the real possibilities of face-to-face communications are not being realized.


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4 C H A N N E L S O F C O M M U N I C AT I O N

Conferences We cover team meetings and team briefing elsewhere; their role is in regular communication. Organizations use infrequent cascade, road-show or conference communications for new developments or special announcements. The possibilities of such meetings are very rich, as anybody who has attended a good management conference knows. Here is the opportunity for management to put its case, for it to be questioned by others in the organization, the opportunity for structured discussion in groups of people who know each other and who do not, and the opportunity for networking amongst peers who may not know each other well enough. In addition, the process of preparing and planning the conference itself stimulates speakers and strategic planners. Nobody wishes to feel that what they will say is simply a re-working of what everybody knows and has been working on for months. Conferences are a time of new policies, new plans, new directions. And the effort to articulate them will itself help develop new initiatives. What such meetings should not be is simply an arena in which top managers talk at their people, with no opportunity for engagement.

Notice-boards Notice-boards are the most primitive channel for formal internal communications. They are a fast and reliable way to reach everybody because notice boards can be mounted in sites of maximum exposure. The best notice-boards have plenty of space around them, and provide a home not only to ‘official’ notices but also social and other notices from staff members to other staff members. Even in organizations where, because of the nature of the business, e-mail coverage is almost universal, notice-boards can display notices whose content does not merit special face-to-face communication, but deserves to be displayed longer than average e-mail stays on its reader’s screen. The most obvious content is new appointments or ‘official’ announcements. What you put on notice-boards needs to be kept simple, because readers are not going to stand reading for long. Also there does not need to be too much of it; what applies to the lay-out of publications applies also to the look of a noticeboard.


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Alongside such notices, reminders of the organization’s core principles – even the organization’s internal communications policy – can be very effective, as can special displays. I have seen a display at a factory showing how new protective metal guards on machinery will make life safer for the operators; the display showed photographs of the machinery with and without the guard. Any particular project can be allocated a part of a notice-board where updates can be posted. For all the simplicity of notice-boards, they do require effort to maintain. As with any other means of communicating, you should not underestimate the time it needs to manage even a relatively modest numbers of notice-boards. Of course e-mail and the intranets serve some of the purpose of real physical notice-boards, especially where access to a PC is universal. Universality is a necessary condition for relying exclusively on the intranet to communicate information. Typically, the central corporate function has fewer conventional boards than before, while factory or operational sites maintain them, because people there do not use PCs or laptops in the normal course of their work. There are organizations which use the two methods in parallel, the conventional board being used to highlight the most important announcements in contrast to the intranet, where differentiation may be more difficult.

E-mail One of the benefits of e-mail is that you can target particular groups of people, as well as carrying out mass mailings. E-mail is fast and confidential and contains the possibility of response from individuals but, as in notice-boards, messages need to be factual and short. The downside in formal internal communications may be that people are less inclined to pay attention to widely disseminated mails in a medium in which they use predominantly for person-to-person communication. If only to have their own material given the right attention, internal communications practitioners must be in the vanguard of developing guidelines to lessen e-mail overload, a serious problem in most organizations.


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Intranets Corporate intranets have undoubtedly opened up new avenues and possibilities in internal communications, as another mechanism in the portfolio available to communications professionals. Intranets are a repository of information and opinion – a huge notice-board, if you like. Their search functions allow users to find their way rapidly to the kind of information, or the particular facts they are looking for. Chat rooms provide forums for discussion. So for internal communications, intranets can take some of the pain away as a simple, rapid form of distribution of information. But don’t ever believe they should replace the harder methods, of face-to-face communication and indirect methods, where an equally rigorous editorial process has been applied.

Publications Publications for internal communications come in all shapes and sizes in almost as wide a range as we experience outside our work-life. People still like to read from the page, and they can show the printed word to others outside the organization more readily than electronic text. Different sorts of publication are generally for different readerships within the organization. Many organizations produce management publications, distributed in print or increasingly by e-mail. These management publications may be a review from top management, or perhaps with less detailed context, local operational information from other groups of managers. The content is often interpretive of what is going on more widely in the world economy, national economies or the relevant industry and how developments are perceived as affecting the organization. Such publications, with their complex, perhaps controversial content, are not the means to convey urgent news widely. For wider coverage, organizations use newsletters and company newspapers. The content tends to be a blend of non-urgent company news and employee social news. The best such newspapers do not feature the chief executive on every page but balance articles which recognize particular team and individual performance (with names and photographs) with material which supports other media.


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There is a broadly informative role newspapers can play which could almost be described as ‘educational’. You can run a report on what the people in IT do, or the production engineers, or the finance department. Or there is the news of the exceptional contract or job – all of them with a good picture. Provided it’s not the only place employees learn about the organization, this kind of material over time enlivens and enlarges the organization’s knowledge of itself. Issues of style and complexity within internal communications present themselves most obviously in printed media. It is a fact that the average reader is comfortable with the prose style typical of the middle tabloid newspaper market. These papers are written with immense skill, in short sentences and paragraphs, uncluttered by verbiage. Such newspapers (Daily Mail, Daily Express, Sun) appeal to a wide range of readers; this is the reason they sell in enormous numbers. It follows that all communications, even those with a limited, managerial circulation, must be couched in uncomplicated language. Anybody who has prepared a presentation with real attention to what their words will sound like when spoken knows that it is only rarely that a sentence of many clauses and arcane vocabulary cannot be broken down into a number of shorter, simpler sentences, with no loss of meaning.

Annual reports Many organizations provide a copy of their annual report to all their people as a matter of course, either on paper or electronically. This is good practice for a number of reasons. If everybody sees the annual report, it shows seriousness in acknowledging employees as stakeholders, along with investors, customers and a wide range of other interested parties. As in other circumstances, the thought that the people within the organization will be party to the same information as those outside, provides the discipline to be credible and consistent to all audiences.


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Web-sites If organizations have not in the past been keen on credibility and consistency for all their stakeholder groups, building an organizational web-site forces them to reconsider. The web makes no distinctions as to who are the readers of a particular site. The people who work for an organization are probably the most dedicated users of its website.

Video and audio Video and TV represent other indirect channels of communication. In successive surveys by the IVCA and CBI, the most important use of these media has been in employee communication and training. Video and TV can communicate consistent messages powerfully and immediately, while at the same time showing the organization to itself. They allow the top management to be seen by large numbers. The production of the programs themselves, provided they involve enough people, can generate interest and enthusiasm. In the near future, with increasing use of broadband technologies, the web will become the easiest means of distributing video. That should encourage the use of video more widely, and in more different formats. The cost of video production is an important consideration to many organizations. Audiences are TV literate and are not likely to take kindly to watching programs of less than professional production standards. Some organizations have opted for the production of audio programs, as an alternative to video. The big advantage is the universal availability of the medium, with everybody at one time or another in a car, with a radio/cassette or disc player. Most often audio programs are magazine style, featuring reports, interviews and discussions.

Employee surveys Publishing the results of employee surveys can make them a genuine channel of communication, if an unusual one – in old-fashioned terms the upward communication in turn fed downwards.


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Tips •

Think hard about the media you should use. Their effectiveness differs.

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Distinguish between your use of media for information and for motivation.

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Never use only one medium if you want to make a real impact.

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If you are not sure whether one channel or another can be effective, look at what other people have done, and really think whether the example is doing its job.

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Be creative in your use of media. If creativity presents a problem, there is training available.

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Be ruthless as editor and sub-editor. Lots of communication materials fail because there is too much content. There is far too much to take in and the consumer is given no help in understanding what is really important.

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The writing, design and production of communications involves skills. If you know that you and your colleagues do not have those skills, buy them in, but ask to see examples of work before you commit to anybody.

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Go for the best you can afford; you are competing with all the media used by your readers and viewers. If you decide fine writing is more important than expensive design, go for it. If great design means fewer words, go for it.

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The media world is exciting. Be part of it and respect the skills and experience of the people who work in it.


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Chapter 5 Leadership: communicating the vision dmg world media, a company in a hurry An entrepreneurial strategy Strategy first, vision second Communicating company culture The top team travel and communicate constantly The value of conferences Tips

Chapter 5 Leadership: communicating the vision People at the top need to insulate themselves from the routine operations of the organization in order to develop and exercise power. But this very insulation can lead to another form of powerlessness – lack of information. Leaders who are cut out of an organization’s network understand neither what is going on at lower levels nor that their own insulation may be having negative effects. All too often top executives declare a new humanitarian policy (e.g. ‘Participatory management is now our style’) only to find the policy ignored or mistrusted because it is perceived as coming from uncaring bosses. The temptation for them then is to pull in every shred of power they can and to decrease the power available to other people to act. Innovation loses out in favour of control. Dictatorial statements come down from the very top, spreading the mentality of powerlessness until the whole organization becomes sluggish and people concentrate on protecting what they have, rather than producing what they can. When everybody is playing ‘king of the mountain’ guarding his or her turf jealously, then king of the mountain becomes the only game in town. Rosabeth Moss Kanter: Power Failure in Management Circuits (Harvard Business Review July/August 1979) The best internal communications have leaders who support them. In best practice organizations, there is an implicit sharing of responsibility for internal communications within the management community, to the point where it becomes difficult to make out where ‘communications as part of the culture of the organization’ ends and ‘systematic communications’ begin. In such organizations, the professionals need to spend less time justifying their existence, and more time working to make the media as effective as possible. There is increasing evidence that good communications led by the top team really enhance the performance of organizations. An impressive recent example has been the Sheffield Effectiveness Programme, drawing on data from an on-going long-term study of more than 100 manufacturing companies in the UK. It shows that employee attitudes and company culture make a big impact on the performance of organizations.


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5 L E A D E R S H I P : C O M M U N I C AT I N G T H E V I S I O N

Often it is one individual or a very small number of people at the top, who determine the organizational culture, and the style of communication integral to it.

dmg world media, a company in a hurry dmg world media is a manifestly successful business which has grown rapidly since its creation in 1995. The top team of three has remained the same over that period, with Mike Cooke its chief executive officer. dmg world media has a vision which was articulated early on in its life and which the top team has never ceased to communicate inside and outside the company. Its espousal of vision and core values echoes the thinking of James Collins and Jerry Porras, the authors of Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, although the founders and senior managers seem to have known instinctively what was required for the fledgling organization. “We’re on the map as well because scale does something, somehow. People start to notice you. We are the most prolific and by number of shows, the largest organizer in North America. If you count our shows and the George Little Management (GLM) business we own, we are by far the biggest trade show organizer in North America. We’re the largest in the Middle East and we’re the largest in Australia and New Zealand. We’re the fourth largest in the UK but the Ideal Home is such a big brand that everyone knows us anyway.” We are talking at Mike’s home close to San Francisco. He re-located from London in late 2002. With North America now supplying over half dmg world media’s revenues and profits, Mike sees his key role now as raising the profile of the company in the USA and Canada. Meanwhile the corporate headquarters stays in north London. Mike says the company is in no hurry to acquire corporate offices in North America. “If I’m here for two and a half weeks in the next three months, I’d have an empty office for ten weeks. So what’s the point of me paying, or anyone paying for me to have an office that’s empty for 80 per cent of the time?” dmg world media is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Daily Mail and General Trust plc (DMGT) publishers of the Daily Mail and the Evening Standard, London’s only evening paper. dmg world media organizes over 300 exhibitions and publishes over 70 related publications, as well as having two thriving e-commerce businesses. Revenues in 2002 were £154 million, and profits £28.2 million. The company employs 800 people, and manages its business through more than 30 offices in 8 countries.


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An entrepreneurial strategy Mike Cooke is an entrepreneur. Before joining dmg world media, he had his own publishing and exhibition company. dmg world media’s Chief Operating Officer, Michael Franks ran his own magazine publishing company. Of the top three, only Mark Alcock, the deputy chief executive and chief finance officer, worked for DMGT before dmg world media was created. “There are a lot of the fundamental drivers that make us a bit different and we have kept it simple. Two things that are driving us all the time are the speed we’re growing and the breadth of the business. You can’t run it all; you physically can’t make every decision so you have to have a set of guidelines.” dmg world media grew from DMGT’s desire in the mid-1990s to diversify into non-newsprint, non-UK and non-regulated businesses. An exhibition business – both consumer and trade – was a natural fit for a media conglomerate, as DMGT already ran the Daily Mail Ideal Home Show at Earl’s Court in London each year. The Daily Mail Ideal Home Show was an undisputed market leader, a national institution and a solid flagship for the new enterprise. DMGT funded dmg world media to grow rapidly by acquisition. “We were looking to grow in stages, outside of the UK certainly. We wanted to be business sectorbased. We wanted to work closely inside industries; we wanted to be sure we had in depth understanding of our customers’ wants and needs.” Mike and his colleagues also knew that they should aim for leadership in the markets they entered. “The highest barrier to entry in the exhibition industry is market leadership. The Daily Mail Ideal Home Show has a huge amount of brand equity: it is by far the biggest show of its kind in Europe and it is untouchable in many ways. You can’t replicate it; no-one could start another Ideal Home Show tomorrow.” “Most industries have one or two big shows which they will do in any given region of the world and everyone will go to them. When you’re in that position, providing you are close to the industry, you’re in a pretty unassailable position. So you’ve got to have deep in-depth market knowledge to build a market leading position in a business sector.”


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Strategy first, vision second Mike Cooke says, “To be honest we were a bit unorthodox and we did things a bit back to front. We had a strategy but we didn’t have anything driving the strategy. If you read the textbooks you are supposed get this wonderful vision, like a bolt of lightening out of the blue and that’s your guiding light, the star you sail the ship by and you set your objectives and your strategy from it.” “We had the strategy first and then we filled in the bits behind it. We knew we were going to grow primarily through acquisitions, we knew we were going to be industry-led, sector-led and because it made commercial sense we wanted to build market leadership. That was the end of our strategy and that strategy hasn’t changed either.” So what was the company culture Mike began to create in filling in the ‘bits behind’ the strategy? “We said to each other ‘How do you manage that strategy and what kind of business do we want to be part of?’ We were driven by necessity. We needed to be quite clear about who we were and the way that we would do things, i.e. the culture of the organization.” “For good commercial reasons, and equally because it’s not in my or Michael’s or Mark’s nature, we didn’t want to be a command and control operation, where everything happens out of one place. It wouldn’t have succeeded and it wasn’t of any interest to us to run a business like that.” “The next big decision was, ‘How corporate and centrally driven do we need or want to be as opposed to how local and non-central do we want to be?” “We have gone for the structure, which says we actually want to have as little in the middle as possible so we are always trying to push decision-making out. So for example, at the moment, we do most of our order processing and invoicing in regional back offices. Centrally, we have some HR support because we need someone who understands all the different markets well enough to make sure that we have a standard and that we abide by the law. Then we have me as CEO, a Deputy CEO who’s also the Chief Finance Officer, and a Chief Operating Officer. Everything else is out in the business sectors and out in the regions.” “In the long-term most of these businesses will become increasingly self-sufficient. My utopia is to have three people in the middle, one PR person and a couple of accountants and everything else would be done outside.”


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The vision came next. “Our vision has stayed the same and has remained our guiding star and the reason it’s so strong is that I didn’t write it.” It was written by the managers who attended dmg’s first annual management conference in Atlanta in 1999. “We explained the strategy. We said that to be successful we’ve got to run this business in a certain way and we explained the certain way. I stood up and described the kind of company I wanted to work for, with people who are honest and have integrity. A company which is sparse and breaks rules and breaks boundaries. Then I said ‘Right, if you buy into that kind of company, go away and write the vision.’ The whole tier of next management wrote the vision.” Mike states the vision whenever he speaks to audiences within or outside dmg world media. He says it is the basis and key driver for all the company’s actions and culture. It is refreshingly simple: “to inspire, enthuse and support our customers to do business together and be recognized around the world as our customers’ first choice.” “The only word used twice is ‘customer’. By instilling the values in our managers of inspiring, enthusing and supporting our customers we will come to better understand their needs and their industries, and of course build exciting market places in which they can do business.”

Communicating company culture The focus on communicating a company culture based on the vision has intensified since late 2001 when dmg world media called a halt to acquisition in order to focus on fully integrating the businesses it had acquired. Communication became even more focused than before, especially after external consultants had completed an exhaustive audit of employees’ preferences. The audit uncovered an appetite for more information about the diverse activities of what was by now a large conglomerate; people said they also wanted more performance data, more communication of best practice and more visits from the top team. As a result, the executive management team began to cascade news from its monthly meetings. Michael Franks recalls, “We had acquired 60 different companies and with them 60 different ways of doing things. It was vital to make sure we developed our way of ‘doing things around here’, that our people should recognize the ‘dmg world media way’ that they could be proud of, and that would attract others in the industry.”


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“We have mostly achieved this by constantly communicating our message through e-mail newsletters, company conferences, sector meetings and continuous travel to talk to our people face-to-face.” Indeed Michael Franks preceded Mike Cooke in re-locating to the USA in order to travel more easily and effectively to offices in the company. Early on, they were determined that there should be a free flow of communications, and that they as the top three should set the example. Michael Franks remembers addressing the annual management conference in early 2001. “I said, ‘There is no politics amongst us three, we are a partnership, and we would not tolerate it amongst you. Politics – and by that I mean not cooperating with colleagues, not sharing important information, hanging on to it – wastes time and damages the business’.” Mike Cooke often uses a nautical analogy to describe the way dmg is run. “We encourage our people to buy into this way of thinking. dmg world media is like a round the world yacht race. We, the top team, are the race organizers. Our people are the captains, officers and crew. We agree the rules, the ports they should stop at on the way and which way round they should go. We provide the weather forecasts and satellite navigation systems. But then it’s up to them to complete the race as efficiently and cost effectively as possible. And to communicate with each other about the dangers and hazards on the way.” Mike says he wants everybody to be clear that all the company’s teams are pulling in the same direction and that it is the team leaders’ responsibility to carry their people with them and build team spirit. The team leaders must also create a sense of excitement and pride at being part of the race so that everybody behaves in line with the vision to inspire, enthuse and support one another, as well as dmg world media’s customers to do business together. The constant communication of culture is now obviously bearing fruit. “We’re evolving. At the moment, Michael, Mark and I are spending six weeks on the road going round each of our business units doing our latest business planning meetings. Our managers, for the first time really, are telling us what they want to do instead of us giving them businesses to make their units bigger. They are thinking strategically.” While the culture is the subject of much direct internal communication, the top team reinforces the vision indirectly via external audiences. “We’ve always got two different strands of communication”, says Mike Cooke. “We’ve the communication of local brands to get the right interest and audience to an event which is done entirely locally. Then corporately we communicate why dmg world media exists: what it is and what it stands for. We spend a lot of time communicating outwardly so the inward audience can see it reinforcing the messages we are telling them internally.”


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The top team travel and communicate constantly In order to better reach the external audience, dmg started to use some printed material: they published an attractive, well designed annual report. Otherwise Mike endorses Michael Franks’ list of media. “We use the intranet and we’re using the email system for sending the newsletter. Mark, Michael and I circle the globe in different ways and in different directions constantly. In the next three months I will be at home for 2 1/2 weeks. It’s almost entirely seeing our people, our products, our shows, visiting competitor shows and attending functions. The three of us actually spend little time in a customer’s office. Because we manage the corporate entity, we don’t manage the products.”

The value of conferences Perhaps because the exhibition industry’s raison d’être is to bring people physically together face-to-face, the company invests heavily in company and sector conferences. The annual management meeting in late 2002 was a full two and a half days. “We made sure there was a lot of fun involved, we went out for dinner somewhere special, we had an afternoon playing, just so this peer group below us could socialize. They will now feel comfortable to pick up the phone and ask each other for help – more often than we know.” “That’s what doing those kinds of meetings brings for you. A bunch of people who were running their businesses not knowing anybody else and now they’re talking to each other all the time, because we got them together. We identified common things that everyone needed to talk about and made sure we found a way to socialize so these people became friends.” Mike Cooke is sceptical about the way many other companies operate. “Most businesses are run in silos. People in different silos never talk to each other; they are constantly warring, they deliberately set up competition. Of course, our people are quite competitive with each other but we didn’t set up competition, they did it themselves but they help each other all the time.” “That’s why I use the same analogy as for the yacht race. If a boat was in distress you’d immediately go there. If you hit a heavy storm and heavy water, you’d immediately tell the others. That’s your responsibility: you’ve got to radio home and say there is a real issue coming down here.”


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Tips •

The engagement of the top people is vital to internal communications. They set the tone and the organizational culture.

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Investors and other stakeholders have a much greater awareness than before of the relationship between culture and performance.

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The communications implications need to be addressed at the highest level at the same time as policy is being decided, so that communication becomes part of the business process.

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Even if they are well supported by communications specialists, top leaders need to be out in their organizations, listening to employees constantly.

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Videos, newsletters and e-mails are the next best thing.

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Vision and values must be clear and simple, and often repeated.


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Chapter 6 Face-to-face communication Everybody’s preferred form of communication Skills in everyday face-to-face communication Team briefing The virtues of team briefing How team briefing developed Team briefing is not necessarily plain sailing Team briefing feedback channels Team briefing and virtual teams Establishing team briefing Team briefing means listening Tips

Chapter 6 Face-to-face communication

Everybody’s preferred form of communication Face-to-face is at the same time the most primitive and sophisticated form of communication. It is what most people crave and enjoy, ahead of all other. There is nothing like a well-managed meeting, one-to-one or a group, to generate enthusiasm and momentum for a project which simply did not exist before, or a meeting which, whatever the difficulties people have in expressing themselves or in coming to the point, succeeds in dispelling suspicion or misunderstandings. Equally, of course, there is nothing like a meeting at which people feel they have been invited to attend but not to participate, or where the proceedings are taken over by one or two individuals who, in the view of everybody else, have the least to contribute. Face-to-face communication is potentially the most effective form of internal communications. By its very nature, it is two-way, inviting response, reaction and motivation to action, on both sides. Within it, and with good will on all sides, participants are able to make sure they understand and have been understood. Face-to-face communication is also the form of communication which most people prefer, both in order to hear from their manager or supervisor what is happening in the organization, and in order to make known to management their feelings and ideas. This has been confirmed by numerous surveys and studies. A Comparative Study of Employee Communication in Private Sector Companies: Final Report, by researchers at Templeton College, Oxford, surveyed 4,000 employees in France, Germany, Italy and the UK. Perceived availability of direct forms of communications, (one-to-one formal meetings, team meetings and informal discussions) was very high (in all cases over 90 per cent) compared with indirect means. When asked how useful they found different channels, respondents again found the direct methods for upward and downward communication more useful that the indirect by a substantial margin.


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6 FA C E - T O - FA C E C O M M U N I C AT I O N

Yet, it is easy to be lured into thinking that new technologies make face-to-face communication redundant. E-mail may be very effective in allowing us to send urgent, short messages or larger packets of data rapidly and across distance, but they are not a substitute for being together with the other person in the same room, talking: this is the way relationships are built and maintained. It should perhaps be no surprise that while people use new communications technologies more and more, they do not stop travelling to see each other. So if in an organisation there is a sense that internal communications could be improved, it could be that there is simply not enough face-to-face dialogue going on, or that what is passing between managers and their people is not meeting people’s needs for meaningful person-to-person communication. Complete breakdown does happen. There are organizations in which people sitting in the same office e-mail each other, rather than talk to each other. You do not have to have reached this level of dysfunction to decide to do something about everyday face-to-face communication. For example, Asda, the supermarket chain, became keenly aware that, if it was to achieve the empowered and creative culture it was aiming for, people needed to spend more time talking to each other, but in a way that would add value to the business. The company made it possible for people to take time away from operational pressures in order to talk with colleagues and managers. The point was to be able to talk freely and purposefully about the company and its work. For instance, a routine was established for staff to have five-minute ‘huddles’ before and after their shifts to discuss operational details, and formal sessions were set up for store managers to listen to employees.

Skills in everyday face-to-face communication Increasing the quantity of communication, by creating more opportunities for people to talk about their work in a purposeful way, is one thing. It is quite another to improve the way people communicate. There is of course a multiplicity of exchanges and encounters, which are happening all the time all through every organization – unchecked it can be an unceasing flood of words, silences and gestures. Many of them are between managers or leaders and members of their teams, and call for skills from all parties, particularly the former. If levels of skill can be improved, the benefits will be felt in the effectiveness of teams, and, ideally, in increasing confidence when managers and leaders are asked to contribute to systematic internal communications (team briefing etc.).


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Many organizations have recognised that leading team briefing is a core competency for leaders and managers at all levels, but traditional training in presenting, listening and giving feedback is rarely wide-ranging and far-reaching enough for the demands made in real situations.

Team briefing “It is now in the dictionary. And you don’t meet people who haven’t heard of it. Everybody has heard of it.” Jenny Davenport, director of People in Business is describing team briefing. “When you work in an organization, your most credible source of information is your immediate manager because a lot of what you want to know is very local. It needs a human being to tell me what links what I do every day with the big picture, which may be given in big meetings, newsletters, broadcasts etc. That human being is probably my immediate manager.” “And the telling needs to be face-to-face and probably in a team, because that is the most economical way and emotionally it is much stronger in a team. And it is important that whoever runs that meeting is engaged in and understands where the organization is going, so they are confident of running it.” “Those managers should have some established and smooth channels for passing on issues that are raised and which they can’t deal with. There is a bit of bureaucracy about team briefing which you need to have if you are to achieve for people what they need.” Team briefing can provide a framework to almost all the other internal communications. Other media – the intranet, e-mail, video, newsletters – can be incorporated into, and support, team briefing. Team briefing at its best acts as the model of internal communication. It is face-to-face, for most people the preferred means of communication; it is a regular process congruent with the shape of the organisation; it is formal with focused input from the top, and has two-way communication built-in. For over 40 years, team briefing has been an important tool for many organisations to communicate internally. It is almost certainly the only one of the many channels available to be created expressly for internal communications.


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For many, it is the core of their internal communications. In a survey in the late 1990s conducted under the auspices of the Economic and Social Research Council, Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS), the worlds largest-ever survey of employers, worker representatives and employees, 62per cent of organisations interviewed said they had systems of team briefing. Team briefing is a cascade of information through the organisation. A series of meetings that happen at every level in sequence, starting from the top (or the centre) involves every person in the organisation. The information content starts as ‘the core (corporate) brief’ at executive or management board level. This core content diminishes as information local to each level progressively replaces it. The creators of team briefing thought that at any level 70 per cent of the discussion should focus on ‘local’ issues and 30 per cent on organisation-wide topics. The intention has always been to link wider issues with issues closer to home, and so give them more relevance and immediacy. The process is supposed to happen quickly, and may trigger a ‘reverse cascade’, the questions and issues raised at the meetings at all levels being fed back up the organisation. This in turn creates a virtuous feedback loop, with answers and policy decisions reactive to the upward feedback being cascaded back down either as part of the next team briefing cycle, or independently of it. In many other organisations if the immediate manager can’t answer the question it is fed back to a central point. Also, in many organisations all the feedback, whether it be question or comment, is fed back to a central point so that the internal communication manager can keep a finger on the pulse of what issues are of interest to people.

The virtues of team briefing Organisations which have persisted with team briefing have a solid basis for all their internal communications. The medium is the message. Commitment to team briefing sends a powerful signal that the organisation is serious about communication. Within team briefing, regular communication is formalised. As communication happens within the same context, month after month, the content of communication comes to be respected.


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Consider the opposite of regular communication, which is ad hoc communication. One form is to communicate only in a crisis. The reaction is predictable: ‘Oh, they (the management) are talking to us; that must mean some bad news.’ In another case, where the emphasis is on irregular bulletins of good news, the reaction is more likely to be ‘Why don’t they treat us like adults? We know what is going on’. Team briefing, with its varied agenda of the good and bad, becomes a credible medium. As more and more members of the workforce are ‘knowledge workers’ with high levels of education, it becomes increasingly important to have a means of communication with them which treats them as adults and allows them to get involved with discussions on topics where they have relevant expertise. How formal to make the meetings is for each organisation to decide, but the formality of the process is one of its great strengths. The formality lies in distinguishing team briefing meetings from other kinds of meetings, which people may have, even in the very same groupings. In effect, by attending a team briefing meeting on the first Monday of each month or whenever, people are saying, ‘This is something different from other meetings we have, which either focus on set tasks, or are reactive to new developments which we must deal with immediately’. Team briefing also takes place in the work teams that form the familiar environment of people’s everyday working lives. This is in contrast to the way they experience many other media used in internal communication. When they read the company newspaper, its appeal is partly that it will show aspects of the organisation the individual does not know about. Similarly, special events, where disparate parts of the organisation are brought together, are attractive precisely because they are not in the ordinary run of events. Team briefing anchors itself in the familiar. The animators of team briefing meetings are the leaders of the teams – directors at a senior level, then managers and supervisors. Team leaders, because of their abiding relationship with the team, are trusted intermediaries when carrying messages from elsewhere. It is only in times of very rapid change and crisis that people begin to feel it is only the top management team that is party to the real truth. As Jenny Davenport says, “The majority of people want to hear things directly from their line manager. Even if you have the news from another source, and the bigger picture interpretation from a senior manager, you want the local interpretation from the line manager.”


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How team briefing developed The Industrial Society was the first organisation to promote team briefing from the early 1960s. Jenny Davenport, as development manager there, first got involved in the 1970s, promoting the concept to member organisation of the Society. “Team briefing was extremely radical for the time and it was extremely hard work selling it. Production people thought it was a waste of time and money; they said that all people were interested in was their pay packets. Objections also came from industrial relations specialists, who believed in the systems that the organisations had in place already, such as works councils, consultative committees and productivity councils which often dated back to the First World War. These bodies talked to union representatives about what was going on in the organisation, with the personnel director on first name terms with the union people. The only reason why you might have wanted to communicate was to avoid an industrial dispute.” But by the end of the 1970s, a critical mass of organisations had adopted team briefing. “Organisations, while retaining good relations with the union representatives and using them as a listening channel, had begun to put in team briefing through which they were telling the whole workforce about the changes they were making and why. They found making those changes was a lot easier than before.” “Organisations which do it successfully share a commitment to openness, a willingness to learn, a willingness to say, ‘We were wrong, we changed our minds’. Also a willingness to share plans. One of the things that so often goes wrong is that an organisation will not divulge anything about a change that is going on until the last ‘i’ has been dotted and the last ‘t’ crossed – by which time it has been on the grapevine for six months.”


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Team briefing is not necessarily plain sailing Team briefing takes work and commitment to maintain. “Too many layers and the meetings just don’t happen. People are too frantically busy.” Although an enthusiastic advocate of team briefing, Jenny Davenport has no illusions about how difficult it is to get completely right. “The idea is incredibly simple. But it is difficult to do. I do not think I have ever seen an organisation where every single person in the organisation says, ‘Yes, I get exactly what I, personally, want from it,’ because people want different things from it.” “Surveys consistently show, however, that even if it is not being well done, employees do not want team briefing scrapped. However badly you are doing it, it is almost certainly worth doing. People keep saying it is a really good idea. They feel that where it is not working well, their managements should just sort it out.” There are some quite common problems. “Content, first. At the meeting level, content needs to be relevant. It is almost certainly not the agenda which is interesting the board. Unless you can say to the bunch of people being briefed, ‘This is why you need to know this’, the chances are the subject is not the right one. So when the agenda is driven from the top, instead of being demand-driven, you get a lot of irrelevant content. Every manager needs to understand the content relevant to his or her audience because it is obviously a very different meeting in the accounts department from that in the call centre or the warehouse.” “A second difficulty arises from the sheer numbers involved in making it happen. If you do a newspaper or a corporate video, you get the right people and you can do a perfect production. If you have so many people involved in leading the briefing meetings, any one of them can mess it up.” Jenny Davenport also believes that organisations underestimate the skills needed for team briefing. “The skill of creating an agenda which is going to keep people focused and motivated, is quite a heavy skill, which quite a lot of managers do not have. They need to get lots of material from different sources and to know how to filter things out. They need to allow people to have their say of things they want to talk about, and think through the issues. That is very time-consuming for people who are already far too busy, and not often taken very seriously as a skill people need to have.” “And then there are just straight presentation skills. In a lot of organisations, there are still many people who just recite the core brief. They do not have the confidence or the skills to use their own words, to make it come alive, to use the right examples.”


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And again, many organisations are geographically very widely dispersed; and many people do not have somewhere they can call a place of work. Equally, in many organisations, a large number of people work part-time, or in shifts, whereas their managers or supervisors do not. None of this need be a bar to team briefing, but the classic model is no longer suitable. In a retail setting, the manager of a store might give the same briefing a number of times to workers on different shifts, and where a large number of people are working ‘off site’, the manager travels to them for a briefing. There are further issues. Surprisingly considering the investment necessary to team briefing well, its purpose and structure is often not clear to people at the outset. Equally Jenny Davenport believes that the wide use of e-mail to distribute the core brief – in many organisations, everybody sees it – has accentuated another issue which affects not only team briefing but the whole organisations’ internal communications – the lack of clarity at the top about the organisation’s objectives. There is often a further issue. “At the meeting where the core brief is approved, you need to have lots of forthright conversation. The top team must bash out what it really thinks. Often that does not happen. Often somebody gets the job of drafting; it gets a desultory sign off, when there should have been a robust discussion. Nobody has addressed exactly how the messages should be articulated.” “The core brief these days is often e-mailed to the people who are to run the meetings, and it gets rubbished. So that’s why that message needs to get hammered out in a healthy discussion at the top. Also everybody recognizes a fudge!”

Team briefing feedback channels It is now rare for team briefing to be used to disseminate news. Electronic media have completely taken over from team briefing for announcements “unless it is something very shattering like a plant closure, in which case you have to manage the secrecy very carefully, in a planned way. So the ‘telling’ aspects of team briefing have been divorced from the team-building and engaging aspects of team briefing.” Jenny Davenport believes e-mail and intranets can support team briefing. “What e-mail and intranets have allowed people to do in many organisations is to separate the information-giving from the discussions of what it means to people. Now a manager can e-mail it out to his or her team before the meeting, ‘We are going to talk about this and this. Look at this on the intranet.’ Members of the


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team can also say, ‘I want to talk about this at the team meeting.’ So, it is becoming a more democratic process, but also less information-giving but more a discussion of ‘What does this mean to us?”’ Not all organisations are ready for this degree of openness. “Generally where we have seen this work well is in organisations where there is a very well-established team briefing system, where people already have a huge interest and commitment in the organisation, and they understand the financial figures.” “I was in an organisation recently which does not have a briefing system but decided to put all their management accounts on the intranet. The management is now terribly upset because nobody is looking at them. That is because they have never done the investment in understanding why their people might want to.” However, the use of new media has highlighted what for many organisations is a problematic area: how to make a reality of the ‘reverse cascade’ by which comments and ideas from team briefing meetings are registered, and acted upon. “The team leader can no longer say, ‘I have got something to tell you, folks.’ But it isn’t good enough either for them to turn up and say, ‘I read that too. What do you think?’ What the leader has to say is, ‘You will have read on the intranet, through your emails, through whatever means, about some particular subject. I want us to discuss what that means to us.’ And they may be quite difficult meetings to handle. Managers will need to know about the context of the organization; they must be able to explain what makes it succeed and not succeed, what are the competitive forces in play.” “Managers will get a lot of flak unless the organization has put in a lot of feedback channels. If it hasn’t it is very difficult to know what to do with what managers pick up in terms of comments and ideas from team briefing meetings.”

Team briefing and virtual teams Electronic media have made it possible for organisations to adopt new structures. “The old structure is breaking down; at one time your boss was co-located with you and with your entire team. IT enables virtual teams. Team members may be placed all over the world. What do you do about the briefing?” “There is no one answer, you have to work it out case-by-case. Any team needs to consider its communication, how often it needs to meet. I say that they need to meet at least three times, probably four times a year, physically face-to-face,


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and if the team members are not doing that, they are not a team. In order to work as a team, you need to have relationships, as well as information flows. So these quarterly sessions must be very explicitly relationship-building.” “In the meantime, at least monthly, you have to do something which is in real time, and is interactive, which you can do by video conferencing or by having a chat room on your intranet, by telephone conferencing. There are some quite low-tech solutions which are perfectly effective for a team which is really a team.”

Establishing team briefing Suppose you want to establish, or perhaps re-launch a team briefing process. How do you go about it? First of all, you have to test whether your organization is ready for it. A degree of openness needs to exist already. Says Jenny Davenport, “We have developed a sort of grid about levels of sophistication in communications which organizations can cope with. It goes from 1 – a military-style organization, which we characterized as, ‘Belt up you lot. We will tell you what is going on’.” “No 2 has a different attitude: ‘We will tell you what is going on and you can ask some questions about it if you like. And we may even occasionally ask you some questions about it.’ Further along the grid, the notion of hierarchy becomes less and less relevant. We used various criteria – the level of management commitment, skills levels, communication infrastructure, organizational culture.” “There are very few organizations at 1 these days, but quite a lot of organizations which have bits that are at 1, and are therefore failing to make more sophisticated systems work.” “Much bigger benefits are available from team briefing as organizations became more sophisticated. Many organizations want the benefits of grades 3 and 4, when in fact they have the characteristics of 1 or 2.” The level of sophistication identified in the grid then determines what is involved in establishing team briefing. “You might have junior managers and supervisors who haven’t the faintest idea of what makes the organization tick. In that case, you need to do some work on communications for the whole organization – from the top explaining the context. This is a major piece of communication which you cannot do through the line, as the line doesn’t understand it.”


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“Meanwhile you have to do a lot of interpersonal skills training with your managers to start running meetings on their own. In France and Germany, they don’t even attempt to communicate through the line. They do it through works councils and notices and so on. Establishing team briefing, getting it right, and maintaining the momentum is not easy.”

Team briefing means listening Jenny Davenport left the Industrial Society in 2000 to work for People in Business, the management communication consultancy. She believes team briefing has made, and continues to make, a difference. “On the whole the internal communications industry has made a very great success, of which team briefing has played a very large part in educating most people at work. If you did a spot check now compared with 30 years ago about how much people knew about the context in which their organization was working and the criteria for success that has been a huge success story.” She believes that organisations often make the best decisions when they listen to people. “This is not really a communication point. It is a matter of how management teams think. They often see the value of consulting their employees only in as far as ‘Did you get the message? Or do we need to send it again?’ They should be asking ‘How are you feeling? What ideas do you have?” “Listening doesn’t have to be everyone through team briefing. Very often you can listen well through workshops or focus groups but I think it is a shame not to involve everyone. It is a missed opportunity not to be consulting more widely than organizations very often are.” Jenny Davenport deplores the downgrading she perceives of middle managers in the communications process. “The middle managers are the people who make the place run and they have the knowledge and experience to do so. Denigrating those people in your communications process is a real mistake. The reason middle managers often don’t convey the communications materials they are given is either because it is rubbish (which it very often is) or they just don’t have the time or the skills to translate the big picture for their teams.”


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Tips •

Face-to-face communication should be given priority in any organization.

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Team briefing as a process has addressed many of the issues inherent in face-to-face communication, particularly in large organizations.

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Team briefing puts team leader’s center stage in the communications process.

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If you decide team briefing is for you, do not underestimate the commitment and training required.

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Assess honestly the degree of openness in your organization in order to gauge the sophistication you can achieve in team briefing.

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Team briefing requires constant attention and renewal.

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Encourage other kinds of face-to-face encounter, by making available materials about the organization to act as the basis for discussions.

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Top people should seek as much face-to-face communication as possible with people in all parts and at all levels in their organizations, via ‘town hall meetings’, small group meetings and ‘walking the talk’.


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Chapter 7 ‘And then…’ story-telling in internal communications The power of the story Communicating a merger as an unfolding story The internal communicator as witness and story teller Telling the story through several media ‘Rich, coherent and engaging’ stories Measuring success Story-telling in ‘steady state’ organisations Tips

Chapter 7

‘And then…’ story-telling in internal communications

The power of the story Most of the chapters in this report are either told as a story or have stories in them. Story-telling captures human experiences. Stories tell what happens to people, what they do. Story-telling can also provide a common history for groups of people, which binds them together. And the story-teller can weave universal truths and lessons into the particularities of the story being told. Story-telling is one of the most powerful tools for the internal communications specialists. ‘Where have we come from?’ ‘What is happening?’ ‘Where are we going?’ ‘Why?’ are four of the most fundamental questions they are required to answer. The answers can be communicated in stories, colourful, full of life, with a memorable narrative drive – stories with everybody in the organization playing their part. Or those same answers can be bloodless abstractions, with no anchor in the real experience of the people who work in your organization.

Communicating a merger as an unfolding story Some events seem to demand the story treatment. The merger of two British multi-nationals, Grand Metropolitan and Guinness to form Diageo is a case in point. The story of internal communications in GrandMet during the merger also has lessons for organizations supposedly in ‘steady state’, and justifies the use of story-telling much more widely. The creation of Diageo in 1997 was the largest merger ever by British firms at a total value of £24 billion. Guinness’ famous brands, Johnnie Walker, Bell’s and Dewar’s whiskies, Gordon’s and Tanqueray gins, the Guinness beers and Moët


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7 ‘ A N D T H E N … ’ S T O RY- T E L L I N G I N I N T E R N A L C O M M U N I C AT I O N S

Hennessy came together with GrandMet’s Smirnoff vodka, Bailey’s Irish Cream, J&B Scotch whisky, Pillsbury, Burger King and Häagen-Dazs ice cream. John Harben was internal communications director at GrandMet at the time of the merger. In recognition of their work during the merger period, he and his team won the Institute of Public Relations’ award for the Best Internal Communications in 1998, and Institute’s Sword of Excellence for the best of the category winners the same year. John Harben cannot but talk about the merger… as a story. One Friday evening in May 1997, his boss phoned him and told him to be in the offices of a central London law firm the following morning, Saturday. ‘Is it that important?’ ‘Believe me, you need to be there, John. Trust me.’ So the following morning, he found himself in a large conference room in central London with a certain number of people he knew or recognized, and a large number he didn’t. He and those of the assembled company who initially did not know why they were there were not kept in the dark for very long. GrandMet and Guinness were to merge. The companies in both groups had to receive the news at the moment the announcement was to be made at the Stock Exchange the following Monday morning at 7.30 am London time. John Harben and the assembled managers from Guinness and GrandMet would spend the whole weekend planning how to handle the merger. When he had recovered from his initial surprise (the news had been a very wellkept secret), John realized that it presented pressing questions from the employee communications perspective. His most urgent task was to ‘check the plumbing’. John’s two colleagues would need to work quickly to put the appropriate IT in place. Other questions crowded in. Should the announcement be distributed only in English? John Harben recalls: “Suddenly it seemed quite important that we make some attempt to translate the announcement, as a mark of respect. Normally announcements would go out in English and local managements would spend a few hours getting them translated. In this case, we wanted the announcement to go straight to the staff.” In fact, there was no time to have the initial announcement translated, but during the merger, most of GrandMet’s communication materials were translated into the principal languages of the business.


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So all weekend, groups of lawyers, accountants and managers worked to address different issues. From time-to-time, everybody was called into the solicitors’ main meeting room to be told of a new problem which had emerged and which would affect all the separate discussions.

The internal communicator as witness and story teller John needed to work out what should be the role of the internal communicator during the merger, which it was estimated would take six months to complete. “In all the things we were doing before the merger, we felt our customers were the bosses, the people who were paying our budget and to whom we put in requests for information which we would then play back to staff.” “In circumstances of great drama, like acquisitions and mergers but also plant closures and so on, the internal communicator becomes the servant of the customer base, namely the employees, rather than the leadership team. People would demand to know what was happening, rather than what the view was of a particular manager or a leader.” “The sense we got in the course of the weekend was that there was a huge amount of complexity, if you took it from the leadership perspective. I realized the trick would be to reduce the complexity in the minds of individual leaders and managers to simple stories about what was happening and get that to the employees around the world.” What should be the key media? John Harben started to think about ‘the oldest form of formal communication’, the weekly newsletter. It would be written by his internal communications team and distributed across the Group, via e-mail and the GrandMet intranet, MetWeb. But the newsletter needed not just to report the leadership’s actions. “As the HR and other management functions tried to predict what questions the employees would ask, I decided that a formal communication aimed at everybody should in itself contain a loop. So during the weekend I contacted somebody I knew who could set up telephone lines with people speaking the eight languages to take people’s questions. The day after we published the Stock Exchange announcement, we sent everybody help-line numbers.”


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During the period of the merger, the help-lines were well used. Questions would be translated within twelve hours of the call and forwarded to the internal communications team. From the aggregate of questions from different countries, they would then decide which members of the leadership to approach for an answer to be included in the next newsletter.

Telling the story through several media As the merger progressed, John Harben added to his armoury of media to incorporate a leadership road show round the world and team briefing materials. The key principles were variety of media and speed, “which squeezes out corporate lying or propaganda.” Before the merger, audio programs were being used to communicate regularly to the 300 top managers round the world as well. The GrandMet organizational development team produced them, to share stories and interviews on particular issues in order to ‘build the senior management community’. The internal communications team took over the audio series, re-named it Merger Update, and produced it as an upbeat, current affairs magazine program. The programs included interviews with members of the leadership, and recorded sections of the chief executive’s weekly presentations to head office staff in London. Three programs were produced and distribution grew to over 800 copies. For the first program, John Harben went to the offices of senior people to interview them. Later, it became more practical to establish a radio studio in his own office and interview them there. This was symptomatic of the way in which relationships with top managers changed during the merger. “One of the interesting aspects of an event like a merger is that communication goes to the top of the agenda and senior people no longer need the ego-stroking, the memos and the formal set-ups.” As a result, access became easier. John says, “If you do things reasonably well, word gets around very quickly. A lot of the information about people’s feelings was being relayed to the leadership not by formal communication but by the noise amongst their community that the formal communication was generating.” “The formal media were keeping people on a single page as to what the story was. The top people began to see that they should do interviews with us on issues as they arose, just as they would with journalists.”


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The newsletter ran for 36 issues. In all their work during the merger, the internal communications team distinguished between formal communication, (for example publications and electronic media) and informal communication “which is more powerful and about face-to-face conversations and leaders walking the talk.” The materials they published gave managers accurate information on which to base their discussions with employees. The guiding principle for formal media was “to replicate as far as possible what was to us the highest, most powerful form of communication, namely being in the same room listening to the chief executive.”

‘Rich, coherent and engaging’ stories John Harben says, “Our job was to make the management’s stories as rich, coherent and engaging as those on the grapevine.” He and his team recognized the cross cultural differences within the company, and different attitudes to the merger; many businesses outside the drinks company would be relatively unaffected. But that recognition underlined their determination to keep the story simple, “and to use the only resource we had, getting the story from the top in the best journalistic tradition.” In each newsletter, the team reminded readers of ‘the story so far’. They developed a way of cross-referencing to allow readers to access earlier references to the same people or events. “Anybody could come into the merger story and know what had happened. Full stories are not often told in a corporate environment, because it is assumed people know.”

Measuring success To assess the success of their approach, John organized telephone polling of 500 or so employees around the world, carried out four times during the merger. “Polling was driven by what we felt were the legitimate needs of the newsletter, as an authoritative source. We wanted to play back to the readers what they were all thinking about all this.” John Harben felt it was important to publish poll results quickly. “Those would be top line results, but people are not stupid, they realized that the pace we were working at did not allow for messing about with the figures. By that stage, the


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media we were using were trusted partly because they were so speedy. People took it for granted that those results were genuine.” The poll results also gave the leadership team a snapshot of anxieties across the company, which they could then address in subsequent issues of the newsletter. Some results of the telephone polling were as follows: •

81 per cent of staff felt well informed about the proposed merger;

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74 per cent believed that communication had been candid and open;

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74 per cent of staff felt positive about the proposed merger;

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79 per cent believed the new company would be well-managed and 92 per cent thought it would be successful;

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61 per cent strongly agreed or agreed with the statement ‘since hearing about the merger, my morale is good’.

Story-telling in ‘steady state’ organisations John Harben says there are lessons from his GrandMet experience for companies in ‘steady state’. He believes that most organizations at any given time are undergoing major change affecting people’s lives. “You can go into a large organization and see scores of projects which are changing some aspect of its life. If managers were to be respectful enough of employees say about something as apparently trivial as changing the IT system, they would realize that for employees this is quite dramatic, and they should then use the same principles as we used in the merger.” “You may find it difficult to engender the same sense of drama round the change of an IT system as in the merger of GrandMet and Guinness crashing around in the corporate Valhalla. But why not regard it as something as worthy of spirited, speedy and direct communication? Why not communication not just an afterthought to a rational, left brain process, but which has a beginning, a middle and an end?”


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Tips •

Stories give communications a real sense of reality.

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The communications specialists should be the story-tellers. Others can be the actors.

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The job is to make sure the story is varied, colourful and comprehensible.

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Everybody should hear the same stories.

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Effective feedback processes provide you with more material to include in the unfolding story.

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Access to all the actors is crucial.

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There are craft skills necessary for story telling, not least command of structure, writing of narrative and perceptive interviewing.

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When interviewing, ask loose, open questions, e.g. ‘What happened next?’, ‘Tell me about...’

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Remember to summarize ‘the story so far’.


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Chapter 8 Internal communications partnerships Letting people have a say in organizational culture Involving the management team The first ‘temperature check’ Further measurement Identifying different feelings in different employee groups New communications initiatives in response to employee attitudes Responding to what employees say Tips

Chapter 8 Internal communications partnerships This is a story about the merger between two huge companies. It tells how in one of the new company’s businesses, a new culture was forged. Key to the success of that new culture was a commitment to involving everybody, and a dedication to measuring progress. The internal communications function worked hand in hand with organizational development. And measurement was critical to success.

Letting people have a say in organizational culture On 1st January 2000 it was announced that the two pharmaceutical giants Glaxo Wellcome (GW) and SmithKline Beecham (SB) would merge. It was the second time of asking, as two years before the same announcement had been made, only for the projected merger to falter. At the time, the British press put the failure down to incompatible cultural differences: SB was seen as very much ‘command and control’, with GW having a much more consultative culture. The new entity would be called GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). In the UK, the two companies’ pharmaceuticals businesses would come together to form GSK UK. Mandy Bennett was to be Director, Organization and People Development of the new company. Because the first merger had foundered apparently on the question of culture for the new organization, she was determined that the development of the culture of the new organization would be a priority. During the due diligence period, the communications departments of the two companies were allowed to talk to each other only about merger related issues. “To begin the culture development process in GSK UK we ran a series of workshops called ‘Creating our Destination’. And literally all we asked people to do was to come together in groups and to write on the back of a postcard – a ‘Wish You Were Here’ message – containing the elements of culture they wanted to see in the new organization. SB collected all their postcards and GW collected


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8 I N T E R N A L C O M M U N I C AT I O N S PA R T N E R S H I P S

all their postcards and we had two lists of the top 15 things people wanted and then we looked at them and they were nearly identical. So we knew then, very early on, that irrespective of what was going on in the heritage companies people wanted the same things.” Angela Enever, now Head of Internal Communications for GSK UK was not surprised. “What people said they wanted were things like openness, transparency, less hierarchy, processes which were fair and applied to everybody in the organization, a real business focus, a role for everybody, roles that had meaning and purpose.” Both organizations had similar populations – predominantly graduates, generation X, all late 20s and early 30s. “This population we have is very demanding, very choosy, and if it wants to, will go and work somewhere else. If you want to build an organization which will succeed, you have to build an organization where people want to work. There has to be more than just turning up, doing a job and going home.”

Involving the management team In late 2000, the new senior management team had been appointed and had planned a three day off-site meeting to discuss the strategic plans for the new business. However, further delays in the merger meant that when they came together they were unable to discuss detailed business planning. They were persuaded to talk about the culture instead. “We were able to say to them ‘OK, let’s talk about the organization you want to build from a people perspective. To facilitate the discussion, we used a tool from Cranfield University called the Cultural Web, which is normally used as a diagnostic tool. The model is populated through observing an organization. There are sections on stories, control, symbols and organizational structures, for example. The result is a paradigm that represents the culture of that organization.” “We had Cranfield’s permission to turn it on its head. Using the outputs from the ‘Creating our Destination’ workshops as a basis, the senior management team constructed a paradigm to represent the new desired culture of GSK UK.” They agreed on the overarching theme of GSK UK as a winning team. The paradigm was PASSION: Pride in what we do, Authentic, Simple, Stimulating and Supportive, I make a difference, Outward-looking and Nimble.


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Mandy and her colleagues then ran 60 Cultural Web workshops to test the new paradigm. “So we said to people, ‘OK this is how it’s going to be, Do you agree this is how you want it to be? What are the stories, what are the symbols, what are the structures, what are the controls you want? Populate the model for us’.” From all the outputs of the workshops, they were able to distil the main themes and construct a ‘Cultural Web’ that represented the new organization. For example it was clear that people wanted openness, symbolized by an open plan environment. They wanted diversity and a sensible dress code. They wanted training and development for everybody and policies and processes that were applicable to everyone. Soon after, the company launched a recognition program based on PASSION. Anybody could nominate another person for demonstrating the behaviors now associated with the new culture. Awards were made at three levels, bronze, silver and gold.

The first ‘temperature check’ In June 2001, six months after establishing the new culture, Mandy Bennett and Angela Enever launched their first ‘temperature check’. Says Angela, “The only benchmark we had was historical data from both the heritage companies. There was a good tool in one of the heritage companies so we decided to continue to use that methodology. Some of the questions were typical of any employee opinion survey and we added in new questions that were specific to our organization and our culture so that we could see if we really were supportive, if we really were nimble, if we did have quick decision-making and so on.” The questionnaire was sent by email and was reckoned to take about 20 minutes to fill in. As with all questionnaires, some people were worried about confidentiality. This was overcome by having the process managed by an external organization. The audit and analysis took about six weeks to complete. A processing house turned the data into a report for the whole organization, and GSK’s own research team analysed the report. Each team received its own data and report plus structured briefing notes on how to interpret the data, and worked out its own action plan. Mandy says, “This is part of being an adult organization. We were leaving them to work out what was critical to their teams.”


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The company results were distributed in a simple leaflet, featuring a thermometer to display the results of each question. Green showed ‘Agree or strongly agree’, yellow ‘No strong view either way’, and red ‘Disagree or strongly disagree.’ Mandy and Angela were astounded with the response rate (74 per cent) and with the results. Mandy says, “Because it was six months into the new organization, people were still living with change and therefore it would not have been surprising if the results reflected this upheaval. However, the picture was very positive with high scores in many areas.”

Further measurement The second temperature check was carried out six months later, in spring 2002. There was an even higher response rate than before (78 per cent) and the feeling was still very positive. “However, what was becoming apparent was that head office was moving through the change more quickly than our field based people. But we did not want the risk of building two sub-cultures in one organization and we did not want to slow the pace of change at head office. So we began to focus our efforts on helping the field people understand where we are in the change process, and what they could do to manage this change.” “The field sales-force is based all over the UK. They are about 1000, and they all work from home. They all have cars, they all have computers, they are communicated with by voicemail, email and telephone. They get together most often as local geography teams. They do not come into head office very often, but do meet as regional teams quarterly and there is a national sales meeting every year.” The feeling that the pace of change for the field was slower than head office came largely from responses in a free text section introduced in the second temperature check. Angela Enever remembers, “We had 200 free text comments out of 1300 responses. There were at least twice as many responses in the free text boxes from the field than from Head Office people. That was interesting in itself. Their comments were re-enforcing the data which was also revealing the gap.” The data had shown up disparities. For example, 55 per cent of respondents at head office agreed that “this organization inspires me to give the best performance”, with only 34 per cent of field respondents agreeing. And there were similar disparities in the Stimulating and Supportive section of the survey, with fewer field representatives than head office people registering that they felt that they were working reasonable hours, and more of them that it was more difficult for them to balance family and work commitments.


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Identifying different feelings in different employee groups It was not altogether surprising that the field was beginning to feel left behind. They had stayed in the same positions at the merger, calling on the same customers as before. But at head office in Stockley Park most people had had to apply for a role in the new organization. Mandy says, “The building was re-designed as a largely open plan environment with less office space. So everybody in head office had to go through some sort of change.” “The field-cased staff were in the main protected from significant changes to minimize the impact of potential disruption to customer facing roles. However with hindsight, we now know that the downside of ring-fencing the field in this way was to delay the change for them and delay their buy-in into the GSK culture.” So Mandy Bennett and the organizational development team set about closing the gap between Head Office and field people. “We did a lot of work with the regional sales teams on how to live PASSION. We had a change model called ‘Less Pollyanna, more Moses’, looking at four phases of change.” “The model, a metaphor for change, was based on a voyage by ship. People were at different stages of the journey. Some were still docked in the Old World; they were ‘Reluctant Travelers’. Some had just started the journey and sometimes this is worse than staying in the Old World because you may become ‘Lost at Sea’, and you may want to go back. You become ‘Land Ahoy!’ so you think you see where you want to be, but you are not sure. Then finally you are ‘Pioneers’: you have landed in the New World.” The model was used to help individuals understand where they were on their journey and what they needed to do to progress and was particularly useful with field-based staff many of whom were ‘Lost at Sea’ or ‘Reluctant Travelers’. Mandy says they developed the ‘Less Pollyanna’ story because more traditional models were too theoretical. It was a story people were able to associate with.


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New communications initiatives in response to employee attitudes Before the third temperature check, Mandy and Angela reviewed the last year’s activity. They concluded that people liked the PASSION idea but were waiting for it to happen to them. To enable people to understand that culture wasn’t something that was going to be done to them but something they had to live for themselves, they launched a new campaign in spring 2002. ‘PASSION is NOT a Spectator Sport’ was based on a sporting metaphor. The message was simple: Get onto the pitch and play the game, because only you can make PASSION happen by living it. Postcards were the main communications vehicle for ‘PASSION is NOT a Spectator Sport’. Each postcard represented one of the elements of PASSION. They were distributed as desk drops at head office and sent to the homes of field based staff. They were also displayed as posters in public areas and as wallpaper on the field force’s laptops. The postcard images came with an individual message from each member of the UK management team. Mandy Bennett says, “A postcard did three things. It helped people engage with the individual element of PASSION, it raised the visibility of the senior management team and it made people feel really valued as they were getting a personal message from somebody senior in the organization.” Stories supporting the PASSION culture appeared in the company magazine, in regular audio communication for the field, and on the intranet. The final element of the campaign was the PASSION annual review, a hard copy publication in which teams were invited to tell their own stories about what they had achieved through stories and photographs. Feedback was excellent and an added bonus was the energy generated in the organization by people telling their own stories in the process. The third temperature check was carried out in September 2002. The response rate at 83 per cent was even higher than before.


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Responding to what employees say Mandy and Angela always knew that measurement would be vital to the culturebuilding process. Mandy says, “Once you establish where you are, and you measure it, what you do in Year Two is determined by what you get as a result of Year One.” “We have a lovely story. We are building a culture. We now have people on the pitch and playing their part. The challenge now is ‘Raising Your Game’ to do even better. We are now developing a campaign to support this.” Angela Enever believes the temperature check process whose results were widely publicized became more and more credible as time went on. “We have visibly been using the results of the temperature check to drive the PASSION campaign. That is one of the reasons for its success and why 83 per cent of the organization filled it in last time. Because they knew their views counted and that something would come out of it.”

Tips •

Working closely with a key business unit, internal communications becomes integral to business strategy.

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Measurement becomes more useful the more often it is repeated.

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Measurement results should dictate action plans.


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Chapter 9 Intranets in internal communication Bringing multiple intranets together Driven from the center Issues about opting for an Extranet Editorial independence Knowledge management Tips

Chapter 9 Intranets in internal communication Intranets have become an inescapable part of the internal communications landscape. They can present huge amounts of information. They can be seen as a support to face-to-face methods, or as reliable and consistent distribution channels. This chapter is about an intranet which has specific aims in terms of internal communications, but is becoming a vehicle for knowledge management.

Bringing multiple intranets together Aviva is the world’s seventh-largest insurance group and the biggest in the UK. It is the leading provider of life and pensions products in Europe and has substantial businesses elsewhere around the world. Its main activities are long-term savings, fund management and general insurance. It has premium income and investment sales from continuing operations of £28 billion, and more than £200 billion of assets under management. The group has 59,000 employees and 25 million customers worldwide. In mid 2002, the group changed its name to Aviva from CGNU. The old name reflected the last merger in 2000 of CGU and Norwich Union, which created the present company. Lynne Gray is Aviva’s director of corporate communications. “After the last merger there was certainly a move to be more centralised as a group. We decided we needed a global intranet.” The problem was that the company had been built up from many different mergers. Subsidiary companies around the world had their local intranets, so there was no initial buy-in from them. In addition, local companies had varying IT standards and infrastructures so that superimposing a corporate intranet appeared a huge technical challenge.


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9 I N T R A N E T S I N I N T E R N A L C O M M U N I C AT I O N

Driven from the center The solution was in fact an extranet, a site that would sit on the Web, and be accessible to employees using their own passwords. It was to be called Arena, and it would be driven centrally, with major input from the company’s news team. Lynne Gray says, “Everything is very tightly controlled. Everything is published from my team in Norwich. We are not prescriptive about its use. We are saying, ‘Here is all this information, you use it as you wish’.” On the home page, there are the top internal news stories. Other content includes a monthly column by Richard Harvey, the chief executive, which is well liked: usage figures increase markedly when it appears. Richard Harvey also records audio messages for Arena, and there are news web casts. All content on Arena is deliberately ‘big picture’, in clear distinction from the content of local intranets. For example Pulse, the Norwich Union intranet is very focussed on local information relevant to that specific operation. Arena’s value was proved at the time of the name change. “Obviously, because of Stock Exchange rules, the name change was kept very ‘hush hush’. But people told me that when they heard the news on the radio, they went to Arena as soon as they came into work and found full details and background to the name change, with a clip of Richard Harvey.” Initially, the audience was restricted to the top management professionals in the company, effectively the top10 per cent, about 6,000 to 7,000 people.

Issues about opting for an Extranet Take-up was slow but steady. People in the UK company were used to viewing Pulse so saw Arena as complementary. But in many parts of the company, in addition to lack of familiarity with the idea of a corporate digital presence, web access has been an issue. Robert Campbell, a senior infrastructure analyst, admits that in opting for an extranet, the Aviva IT team did not think hard enough about existing internet connections. There had not been a great deal of investment in internet connectivity, because only certain people were allowed to access it for business purposes. Yet Aviva wanted Arena to be appealing and interesting, not simply plain text.


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“Our assumption was that everybody had a Web browser. Yes they had, but different versions, and each country had a different way of doing things. When you launch a service like this, it is very difficult to draw the line between where your service stops, and their service starts. You want acceptance of your service, so you sometimes have to step over that line and resolve a lot of local issues about browsers. You have to know what the internet access is like in particular countries. We discovered a lot of things about the internet, how it works and how it does not work.” “There was no way we could dictate, when Arena went live. But now we are finding that because people now see what Arena is, and they want to embrace it, they are more prepared to change their technical standard.” There was also some resistance because users had to frequently re-register their passwords. Security issues have been reviewed and passwords now need to be changed every 90 days, with the effect that usage has increased by 20 per cent. Much of the early feedback dwelt on the password issue, overshadowing the reaction to the content which Lynne Gray says has been overwhelmingly positive. With the most critical technical problems dealt with, the way is open for more systematic systems of feedback and appraisal. Also access is soon to be widened. There is a much wider population, which has a lot of product information and it is felt would benefit from larger-scale, contextual communication. Greater access will be the occasion for a marketing campaign to draw people in. Arena was not widely marketed at the beginning, because it was a pilot. Richard Harvey helps beat the drum, promoting Arena in conference speeches and in satellite broadcasts. Arena won the gold award for electronic media at the Communicators in Business Awards in 2003. The citation read, ‘Arena is truly exceptional. An outstanding and mature news service.’


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Editorial independence Lynne Gray has guarded Arena’s independence. “Some people said we should not be reporting rumours but have resisted any interference in the news service.” But she will not let it rest on its laurels. She wants to include softer content, a wider variety of business stories from around the world, stories with a fun element, or stories about sponsorship or charity work. She wants people to contribute stories that “demonstrate our values. We need examples where they are being upheld.” The decision to set up Arena as an extranet may now be showing benefits in knowledge sharing. “Communications was the driving-force behind Arena. We knew that the knowledge sharing element was important but were surprised at the huge demand for setting up global communities. Now we are moving very much towards global knowledge sharing and Arena will be invaluable in supporting this push.”

Knowledge management Teams across the world have begun to use Arena as the vehicle for what Robert Campbell calls ‘micro knowledge management’. Opportunities have opened up for co-operation across geographies on projects or issues, such as underwriting standards. Arena carries what are effectively discussion forums with the facility to store documents. Users can log in to review and comment on them. Robert Campbell says Arena has a lot of room to expand, but that further investment in knowledge sharing requires a new mindset. “The internal communications content gets managed quite strictly, but when we started the knowledge sharing, it just took off. There were no standards, it just evolved. So you have to switch your thinking: people can do their stuff with minimum IT interference.” Such knowledge sharing is releasing new demands for chat rooms and search tools. Not so many years ago, Aviva’s predecessor companies dealt with merger and other business communications by biking and flying paper all over the world. As for most organisations, the digital age has transformed communications, particularly internal communications. Lynne Gray comments that employee communications still need to be multi-channel. “You cannot expect your messages to get through just by putting them on an intranet. Key messages need to be backed up by other communications tools such as newsletters and best of all by managers briefing their staff.”


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Tips •

Make of your intranet what seems right for your organization. For example, some carry large amounts of social material, others almost none. Constantly find out what is of most interest to users.

•

Intranets are very effective information channels, carrying organizational and industry news.

•

Intranets must not be the only channel of internal communication.

•

Intranets can be a mixture of tightly controlled content – news, corporate information and so on – and applications which allow people to share knowledge and expertise, much more informally, where they make up the rules.


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Chapter 10 Conclusion

Chapter 10 Conclusion It is a truism, but nonetheless true, that tomorrow’s successful organizations will be those which embrace change today. The best employee communications will continue to be innovative, entertaining and face-to-face. It will be based on a thorough, and constantly up-dated, understanding of what kind of communication people want in particular organizations. To be successful, the internal communications function needs to command respect and status. Some of that can be accorded it by the senior management; much it has to win for itself. Whether the function sits within HR, marketing, corporate communications, or elsewhere, it needs to demonstrate thought leadership, and high levels of craft skill. There are already enough people who seek apparently cast-iron, quasi-technical ‘solutions’ to communications issues, when they simply are not amenable to such an approach. So employee communications need champions who talk about its human values and complexity. They must emphasize that you can only get so far with communications based on IT structures, or regulation. Technology has played a role in bringing internal communications into the mainstream. It is safe to say that it will carry on playing a role in changing internal communications as far as anyone can see into the future. More and more organisations will reap the benefits of intranets. Those already with intranets will make them accessible to a larger proportion of their workforce. But while intranets and other technologies may make people better informed and help them feel part of their particular community, perhaps the reliance on technology will raise other issues. The new head of a large retail bank was asked what the greatest challenge is in business these days; he replied that it was knowing how to motivate people who spend all day in small cubicles, communicating with others only by electronic means.


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1 0 CONCLUSION

E-mail may prove a poor substitute for group meetings and human contact. It is possible then that more emphasis will be put on there being real benefits from the occasions when dispersed teams do get together. Innovation will grow in this area, such as creating a model of communication for managers and leaders. In Europe, a Works Council directive requires large companies with employees in more than two EU countries to set up advisory and information councils. Regulation will only be problematic where organisations are not yet committed to direct employee communications.


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Other specially commissioned reports BUSINESS AND COMMERCIAL LAW

The commercial exploitation of intellectual property rights by licensing

The Competition Act 1998: practical advice and guidance

CHARLES DESFORGES

SUSAN SINGLETON

£125.00

£149.00

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1 85418 205 6 • 2001

Expert advice and techniques for the identification and successful exploitation of key opportunities.

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•

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Insights into successfully managing the in-house legal function BARRY O’MEARA

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1 85418 174 2 • 2000

Damages and other remedies for breach of commercial contracts ROBERT RIBEIRO

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Negotiating the fault line between private practice and in-house employment can be tricky, as the scope for conflicts of interest is greatly increased. Insights into successfully managing the In-house legal function discusses and suggests ways of dealing with these and other issues.

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Commercial contracts – drafting techniques and precedents ROBERT RIBEIRO

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The legal protection of databases SIMON CHALTON

Email – legal issues £145.00

SUSAN SINGLETON

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1 85418 215 3 • 2001

Inventions can be patented, knowledge can be protected, but what of information itself?

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Litigation costs MICHAEL BACON

•

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TUC guidelines

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1 85418 241 2 • 2001 The rules and regulations are complex – but can be turned to advantage. The astute practitioner will understand the importance and relevance of costs to the litigation process and will wish to learn how to turn the large number of rules to maximum advantage.

International commercial agreements REBECCA ATTREE

£175

1 85418 286 2 • 2002 A major new report on recent changes to the law and their commercial implications and possibilities. The report explains the principles and techniques of successful international negotiation and provides a valuable insight into the commercial points to be considered as a result of the laws relating to: pre-contract, private international law, resolving disputes (including alternative methods, such as mediation), competition law, drafting common clauses and contracting electronically. It also examines in more detail certain specific international commercial agreements, namely agency and distribution and licensing. For full details of any title, and to view sample extracts please visit: www.thorogood.ws You can place an order in four ways: 1 Email: [email protected] 2 Telephone: +44 (0)20 7749 4748 3 Fax: +44 (0)20 7729 6110 4 Post: Thorogood, 10-12 Rivington Street, London EC2A 3DU, UK

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HR AND EMPLOYMENT LAW

Employee sickness and fitness for work – successfully dealing with the legal system GILLIAN HOWARD

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1 85418 281 1 • 2002 Many executives see Employment Law as an obstacle course or, even worse, an opponent – but it can contribute positively to keeping employees fit and productive. This specially commissioned report will show you how to get the best out of your employees, from recruitment to retirement, while protecting yourself and your firm to the full.

How to turn your HR strategy into reality TONY GRUNDY

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1 85418 183 1 • 1999 A practical guide to developing and implementing an effective HR strategy.

Internal communications JAMES FARRANT

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1 85418 149 1 • October 2003 How to improve your organisation’s internal communications – and performance as a result.

Data protection law for employers SUSAN SINGLETON

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There is growing evidence that the organisations that ‘get it right’ reap dividends in corporate energy and enhanced performance.

1 85418 283 8 • May 2003 The new four-part Code of Practice under the Data Protection Act 1998 on employment and data protection makes places a further burden of responsibility on employers and their advisers. The Data protection Act also applies to manual data, not just computer data, and a new tough enforcement policy was announced in October 2002.

MARK THOMAS

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1 85418 270 6 • 2001 Practical advice on how to attract and keep the best.

Successfully defending employment tribunal cases

1 85418 008 8 • 1997

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New ways of working STEPHEN JUPP

DENNIS HUNT

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Why do so many mergers and acquisitions end in tears and reduced shareholder value?

Successful graduate recruitment JEAN BRADING

Mergers and acquisitions – confronting the organisation and people issues

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Knowledge management SUE BRELADE, CHRISTOPHER HARMAN

changes to internal disciplinary and grievance procedures

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new rights for those employed on fixed-term contracts

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1 85418 230 7 • 2001 Managing knowledge in companies is nothing new. However, the development of a separate discipline called ‘knowledge management’ is new – the introduction of recognised techniques and approaches for effectively managing the knowledge resources of an organisation. This report will provide you with these techniques.

Reviewing and changing contracts of employment ANNELISE PHILLIPS, TOM PLAYER and PAULA ROME

This specially commissioned new report examines each of the key developments where the Act changes existing provisions or introduces new rights. Each chapter deals with a discreet area.

Email – legal issues £125

SUSAN SINGLETON

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1 85418 215 3 • 2001

1 85418 296 X • 2003 The Employment Act 2002 has raised the stakes. Imperfect understanding of the law and poor drafting will now be very costly.

360,000 email messages are sent in the UK every second (The Guardian). What are the chances of either you or your employees breaking the law? The report explains clearly:

This new report will: •

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Enable you to protect clients’ sensitive business information

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Enhance your understanding of potential conflict areas and your ability to manage disputes effectively.

Applying the Employment Act 2002 – crucial developments for employers and employees AUDREY WILLIAMS

•

•

How to establish a sensible policy and whether or not you are entitled to insist on it as binding

•

The degree to which you may lawfully monitor your employees’ e-mail and Internet use

•

The implications of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 and the Electronic Communications Act 2000

•

How the Data Protection Act 1998 affects the degree to which you can monitor your staff

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What you need to watch for in the Human Rights Act 1998

•

TUC guidelines

•

Example of an e-mail and Internet policy document.

£125

1 85418 253 6 • May 2003 The Act represents a major shift in the commercial environment, with far-reaching changes for employers and employees. The majority of the new rights under the family friendly section take effect from April 2003 with most of the other provisions later in the year. The consequences of getting it wrong, for both employer and employee, will be considerable – financial and otherwise. The Act affects nearly every aspect of the work place, including: •

flexible working

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SALES, MARKETING AND PR

Implementing an integrated marketing communications strategy

Tendering and negotiating for MoD contracts

NORMAN HART

TIM BOYCE

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1 85418 120 3 • 1999

1 85418 276 5 • 2002

Just what is meant by marketing communications, or ‘marcom’? How does it fit in with other corporate functions, and in particular how does it relate to business and marketing objectives?

This specially commissioned report aims to draw out the main principles, processes and procedures involved in tendering and negotiating MoD contracts.

Defending your reputation Strategic customer planning ALAN MELKMAN AND PROFESSOR KEN SIMMONDS

SIMON TAYLOR £95.00

1 85418 255 2 • 2001 This is very much a ‘how to’ Report. After reading those parts that are relevant to your business, you will be able to compile a plan that will work within your particular organisation for you, a powerful customer plan that you can implement immediately. Charts, checklists and diagrams throughout.

1 85418 251 • 2001 ‘Buildings can be rebuilt, IT systems replaced. People can be recruited, but a reputation lost can never be regained…’ ‘The media will publish a story – you may as well ensure it is your story’ Simon Taylor ‘News is whatever someone, somewhere, does not want published’ William Randoplh Hearst When a major crisis does suddenly break, how ready will you be to defend your reputation?

Selling skills for professionals KIM TASSO

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1 85418 179 3 • 2000 Many professionals still feel awkward about really selling their professional services. They are not usually trained in selling. This is a much-needed report which addresses the unique concerns of professionals who wish to sell their services successfully and to feel comfortable doing so. ‘Comprehensive, well written and very readable… this is a super book, go and buy it as it is well worth the money’ Professional Marketing International

Insights into understanding the financial media – an insider’s view SIMON SCOTT

This practical briefing will help you understand the way the financial print and broadcast media works in the UK.

European lobbying guide £129.00

1 85418 144 0 • 2000

Corporate community investment £75.00

Understand how the EU works and how to get your message across effectively to the right people.

1 85418 192 0 • 1999 Supporting good causes is big business – and good business. Corporate community investment (CCI) is the general term for companies’ support of good causes, and is a very fast growing area of PR and marketing.

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BRYAN CASSIDY

CHRIS GENASI

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Lobbying and the media: working with politicians and journalists

Managing corporate reputation – the new currency

MICHAEL BURRELL

JOHN DALTON and SUSAN CROFT

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1 85418 240 4 • 2001

1 85418 272 2 • June 2003

Lobbying is an art form rather than a science, so there is inevitably an element of judgement in what line to take. This expert report explains the knowledge and techniques required.

ENRON, WORLDCOM… who next?

Strategic planning in public relations KIERAN KNIGHTS

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At a time when trust in corporations has plumbed new depths, knowing how to manage corporate reputation professionally and effectively has never been more crucial.

Surviving a corporate crisis – 100 things you need to know

1 85418 225 0 • 2001

PAUL BATCHELOR

Tips and techniques to aid you in a new approach to campaign planning.

1 85418 208 0 • April 2003

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Seven out of ten organisations that experience a corporate crisis go out of business within 18 months. This very timely report not only covers remedial action after the event but offers expert advice on preparing every department and every key player of the organisation so that, should a crisis occur, damage of every kind is limited as far as possible.

FINANCE

Tax aspects of buying and selling companies MARTYN INGLES

Practical techniques for effective project investment appraisal £99.00

RALPH TIFFIN

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1 85418 189 0 • 2001

1 85418 099 1 • 1999

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How to ensure you have a reliable system in place. Spending money on projects automatically necessitates an effective appraisal system – a way of deciding whether the correct decisions on investment have been made.

Tax planning opportunities for family businesses in the new regime CHRISTOPHER JONES

£49.00

1 85418 154 8 • 2000 Following recent legislative and case law changes, the whole area of tax planning for family businesses requires very careful and thorough attention in order to avoid the many pitfalls.


MANAGEMENT AND PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

Strategy implementation through project management TONY GRUNDY

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1 85418 250 1 • 2001 The gap Far too few managers know how to apply project management techniques to their strategic planning. The result is often strategy that is poorly thought out and executed. The answer Strategic project management is a new and powerful process designed to manage complex projects by combining traditional business analysis with project management techniques.

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