Q: How can you get your employees to do the things you want them to do?

A: Trick question. You can’t.

Q: How can you be sure your employees will do what’s best for your customers?

A: Trick answer. Most employees are told to do what’s right for the company.

At CEC this past month, we’ve been asking ourselves:  What makes some companies more successful than others during times of extreme change and uncertainty (like, for example, present day)?  In other words, what are the attributes of “an adaptive organization?”

Here’s one hypothesis:  Adaptive organizations believe strongly in empowerment – i.e., encouraging ownership of  decision-making at all levels and supporting a culture of action.

Ironically, while companies can’t always get people to do what’s best, they can let them.  See the difference? Read More »

Click to watch the video from Best Buy

By Kirsten Robinson

Companies recognize that they live and die by the extent to which they understand their customers’ wants and needs. But are they tuned-in to what their own employees are thinking?

Think about it…most communicators have a general sense of what matters to employees based on the organization’s annual engagement survey or informal pulse surveys.  But, do you, as a communicator, know what’s on your employees’ minds right now?  Do you know how they are reacting to a company decision or change?

Best Buy’s internal communicators came to the humble realization that they weren’t experts on their own employees.  When they realized this, they decided to learn more and created a solution off the strategy the company used to gain knowledge about their customers.  They developed an employee listening system, which uses open communication to uncover the unmet needs of workers.  The end result is a deeper understanding of employees, which has allowed the company to correct (previously unknown) problems and make communication more effective.  It has also allowed them to improve their understanding of business partners, which in turn opened up possibilities for new opportunities with internal clients. Read More »

With only 31% of communicators having a formal dashboard, many of you are reading this blog title and probably saying, “Woah, let’s start at Dashboards 1.0.  We’re just beginning to invest more in measurement.”  While we at the CEC are happy to help guide you through the building blocks of how to create (even a 1.0) dashboard…your senior leadership team likely isn’t going to hold your hand in the same way.

End of year reviews are quickly approaching for many of us, and your CEO will be asking, “Did your work this year matter to the business?” And you, communicator, are looking for the easiest way to say, “Yes! Let me show you why…”  Yet so often the communications metrics that we show to demonstrate the strategic impact of the function are things like: click/attendance rates, number of media hits, followers, etc.  While these can be impressive in their magnitude, they just don’t carry the weight we’d like them to.

Essentially, communicators often begin with transactional metrics and attempt (unconvincingly) to make a leap to translate those metrics into business outcomes.  See below:

Read More »

Let me begin by making a confession: as a rookie to the world of corporate communications, I was at first surprised to hear the emphasis on corporate social responsibility . But as I have put my CSR hat on, aside from the headspin with all the buzzwords (CSR? Social Responsibility? Sustainability? Philanthropy? Corporate Citizenship?… Gaah!), one interesting finding has emerged from conversations on the subject with executives around the world:

Communicators have for long focused on CSR rankings and reporting as the finish line, aiming to be portrayed as good corporate citizens, but they are losing the connection of CSR efforts to company performance.

Read More »

On Monday night, Michael Vick put on one of the most incredible individual athletic performances I have ever witnessed – racking up more than 400 yards of offense and six TDs in a record shattering Monday Night Football game for the Philadelphia Eagles.

As a Philly native, I gobbled up hours of post-game commentary lauding Vick as the season MVP and perhaps the game’s best player.  And yet, less than 24 hours later, as I have my professional hat back on, I can’t help but marvel at the equally phenomenal comeback in his reputation following a conviction for horrific crimes centered around dog fighting.

Let’s examine how Vick seems to demonstrate the capacity for well-directed reputation recovery efforts to redefine a media narrative. First some perspective via the always insightful Google News search results as of Tuesday afternoon: Read More »

By Mike Wellman

I don’t know if it’s my geeky family heritage, the thrill of growing up in the internet boom, or a personal appreciation of Silicon Valley’s aesthetic appeal and entrepreneurial spirit, but I’ve always enjoyed speaking with communications executives in the Tech space.  There’s something magical about those organizations that are working on the front lines to make the bolder, better future possible, which is perhaps one reason that the World’s Fair exhibit “Futurama” is still so captivating.  (Check out Futurama on YouTube for a blast from the past!)

I was recently pointed to the transcript of a keynote speech delivered by IBM Senior Vice President of Marketing and Communications, Jon Iwata.  In that speech, he painted a vision of a “Futurama” of sorts for the Communications function and highlighted what he believed to be three emerging qualities of successful communications departments: Read More »

On Wednesday, 1st December, CEC will host the first in a three-part webinar series.  During the series we’ll highlight some of the most progressive thinking we’ve found around Corporate Social Responsibility.  For the first event, we’ll focus on innovative approaches to CSR strategy and the resultant challenges facing communicators.  CEC members, sign up today.

Traditionally, demanding stakeholder groups have forced organizations to adopt CSR activities.  As such, CSR has grown up  “separate from profit maximization”; and therefore, viewed only as corollary to the business.  The best companies we’ve seen in CEC are shifting to a new role–helping  the organization spot and create opportunities for business growth that simultaneously benefit society.  This is called “Creating Shared Value.”

Two genuine pioneers in the CSR field will join us for this event to share their experiences and answer your questions.

Read More »

By Kirsten Robinson

Are leaders in your organization constantly on the road? Is your organization geographically dispersed? We all recognize it’s important for employees to feel a connection with their leaders, but many executives struggle to make their presence felt where they can’t be in person.

We recently received a question on our Employee Communications Forum from an executive eager to hear about how other CEC members drive virtual engagement with leadership. Most organizations are using the Internet and other visual media to bridge the gap — here are a few of the takeaways from the thread:

• Get “face time” in real-time. Employees can get virtual face-to-face contact using a video chat program.  One member suggests Live Meeting, which hosts web conferencing in real-time meetings, training sessions and events.
• Communicate through video. Seeing an executive deliver their message (even recorded) can provide employees with a more personal sense of who’s addressing them. One member creates DVDs, noting that they’re often more effective than having employees read an email, or listen in on a conference call. Read More »

One of the privileges of my role here at the Council is that I see not only what the best Communications departments are doing to address their key challenges, but also what is happening with the rest of the C-Suite.  We at the Corporate Executive Board have been going through an exercise over the last couple of months to look across all the trends we see, function by function, and extract the most important ones for the C-Suite to address.  In doing so, we identified a clear theme that underpins companies’ 2011 agenda: achieving intelligent growth, meaning outperforming their industry in both revenue and efficiency.

You can get an inside look at this work by following here as it is released over the next few weeks.  Our leadership team will also host a series of webinars in early December.

I think this topic merits particular attention from communicators because (1) top executives will struggle to achieve their goals without our help, yet (2) few senior executives will know to ask for it.

Let me explain.  When we look at what organizations must do in order to grow intelligently in 2011, we find seven priorities that stand out:

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What if you overheard a story around the water cooler?  And instead of the typical office gossip, your colleagues were discussing good news. And you reacted: “wow, this message is spreading like fire among employees (and outside the organization) and that was exactly our goal”?

Research shows that engaged employees are more productive, exhibit less absenteeism and are more likely to stay at their company longer. So how can you capture the power of a passionate group?  The Allstate Insurance Company has proven that engaging them as Ambassadors can drive positive business results.

Allstate’s exclusive, in-the-know employee group has been designed from the bottom-up with the goal of expanding the company’s network of advocates to promote its brand and reputation.

CEC members, join us and Laura Glaza, member of the Reputation Leadership team from Allstate, on November 18th to hear how they’ve designed the program and how the movement has created ambassadors who are excited about speaking on behalf of the company. We guarantee that this is not your standard “corporate” ambassador program. Register here.

For a sneak peak into how the program works, read on.

Read More »