CEOs are gearing up to share their 2012 strategy with employees through live and virtual town halls, blog posts, and Q&A sessions. While no one underestimates the importance of company leaders’ plan for the year ahead, employees often leave strategy sessions unsure of what, exactly, they should do with the insight and how they will be expected to contribute.

One of the best tools to think about engaging employees in strategy conversations is your employment value proposition (EVP). Your EVP is the set of attributes that employees value about working at a company. Attributes like compensation, future career and development opportunities, and work-life balance are usually at the top of the list. Understanding what employees value and feeding these insights into leadership communications and business unit discussions about the implications of company strategy.

EVP, or employment brand, is usually the purview of Human Resources because of its importance in recruiting and retaining employees. But Communications can play an important role by supporting HR in crafting and communicating about the EVP, and taking the lead on driving employee engagement through organizational alignment with the EVP.

Learn how you can support HR in creating a successful EVP and engage employees through your EVP. By breaking the EVP realignment process into two stages, it’s easy to see just how big a role Communications can play: Read More »

As a former journalist, ohhhhhh how I HATE media hyperbole. Don’t you? Every bad weather system that’s described as (this year’s) Storm of the Century…every one-day drop in the stock market that has investors reeling…every tragedy that forces local residents to rebuild the shattered pieces of their broken lives. Uhhhhhhgggh.

When I think about what’s become of the news business, I don’t know whether to laugh, cry or go out on the front lawn and start eating grass (isn’t that what animals do when they think they’re about to barf?).

But I gotta say — although you may already be getting a little queased-out from the relentless coverage of this Joe Paterno/Penn State story — for once, this ain’t hype.  This really is the biggest scandal in sports history. More than just another ringing bell for the Pavlov’s Dogs of Media to salivate over, this is a cautionary tale for EVERYONE in a position of authority at any big organization in the world.

Here’s a strong recommendation from your friends and colleagues at CEC: Use this moment as an opportunity to have an important discussion with your CEO.  Particularly if he (90+% chance it’s a he) is a football fan (gut guess on my part = there’s a 75+% chance he at least likes football).

All you have to do is ask him, “So, uhhhh, whadda ya think about the whole Paterno mess?”, then sit back and let him spew. Whatever he says next will enlighten both of you about his understanding of “the way things work” in today’s media environment.

Chances are you’ll get one of three responses: Read More »

A lot of communicators are jealous of you, Mr. or Mrs. CEO or C-suite communicator. That’s right, your functional peers envy your access to the CEO and your ability to put words in his mouth that make him sound genius. The CEO trusts you to make him look good and sound smart, and you deliver with captivating speeches that reiterate strategy and motivate people to act. You have the proverbial “seat at the table” that communicators covet!

But what if I told you that what got you that seat won’t necessarily help you keep it, especially given a change in CEO? Allow me to propose that being a solid speech writing is no longer “enough” to be an effective supporter of CEO communication.

Hear me out. What if today’s best executive-level communicators are those that act more as coaches than true speechwriters? Imagine. In this capacity, you would spend less time writing and editing drafts to get to “the perfect speech” and more time feeding insights and perspective from the front lines to challenge executive thinking. You would spend less time orchestrating major presidential-like events and more time hosting small discussion groups among employees.

Help Execs in the “In Between” Moments
Now why would you, an executive communicator, lessen your focus on your bread and butter activity? It sounds crazy! Well, you might if you believed that executive communication today is a lot less about formal “wow” presentations at the typical “big” moments like the annual strategy kickoff or the quarterly investor relations call and is a lot more about what’s happening in between those major moments.

Many of you tell me that you struggle with closing the say-do gap at the executive level. It’s painful to write a speech that focuses on being more flexible as an organization only to see the CEO enforcing red tape or pressing for more analysis to make decisions. So how can you help executives help themselves by aligning daily behaviors to momentous speeches?

For starters, think like a coach. Ask yourself: Read More »

Dirty little (anecdotal) secret: Most CEOs don’t write their own blogs.

That’s right. Despite CEO’s best intentions to write frequently and informally, most communicators end up having to write—or heavily edit—these personal posts.

Ghostwriting your CEOs blog can be an exhausting endeavor! You have to come up with an idea, craft a post that mimics the CEO’s voice and vision, incorporate substantial edits from the CEO, make the post live, and then, wait, fingers-crossed, hoping that the post will receive enough comments or views to prove that blogging is indeed a worthy pursuit, which, of course, it may not be at all! CEC Members, visit our Leader to Employee Communication Topic Center to consider the appropriate channel for leadership communication given your objective.

CEO blogs come in a variety of audiences, intents, and styles, but for the purposes of this discussion, let’s focus on the CEO blog that sits on your corporate intranet and whose main audience is employees. If you’re going to have to write the post anyway, why not write about something that will have an impact on employee performance?

Here are my top 10 questions that your CEO’s next employee-facing blog post could answer:

1. What are the strategic goals of our organization? Which ones are the most ambitious? Why?
2. Which market trends should employees pay most attention to?
3. Which key markets matter most to our company? Will those be the same ones in 2020?
4. What are the risks our company is facing? How are we mitigating them?
5. In what ways might pending government regulation in key operating regions impact our company?
6. How have people or teams from across silos of the business come together to produce amazing results?
7. How is our company building an infrastructure that enables employees to communicate and collaborate more effectively?
8. Which of our competitors do you admire most and why?
9. What publications and people do you follow to stay informed on our business and industry?

10.  What’s the most surprising customer or consumer trend you’ve seen develop over the last five years?

To be clear, I’m not advocating that your CEO spill your company’s proprietary secrets in a 500-word blog post; that just wouldn’t be smart business. What I am advocating is that your CEO shares the bigger picture trends and assumptions that most employees, who must focus on a small piece of the business, might fail to appreciate. Would you rather talk about the CEO’s upcoming marathon or newly adopted golden retriever? Read on to learn why that approach won’t move your organization forward.

Why Talking Trends Works Better than Being Personal

Read More »

Long-term, rock solid strategic plans may be relics of the past, but future scenario planning is in vogue. One of Communications most critical tasks is to communicate strategy so that employees work in alignment with the company’s key priorities.

Today, as priorities shift frequently and employees are overwhelmed with information, it’s harder than ever to not only communicate the company strategy, but fully enable it to be implemented through good communication.

If you really want your strategy to stick, we think that you need to create a forum for conversation with and among employees that focuses on what’s behind the strategy; that is, the market context and assumptions that underpin it. After all, employee understanding of this important, but little discussed information is a top-three driver of employee agility.

To consider the difference, let’s explore two alternative communication approaches to strategy kickoffs—a common vehicle used to “share strategy”. In the first, the strategy is communicated at a large town hall. In the second, the assumptions or influences on the strategy are used to generate conversation among employees and enable them to make decisions daily in line with strategy.

The Straightforward Approach

At Company A, the Communications team organizes a major strategy kickoff session at the beginning of each year. Employees at headquarters crowd into an auditorium while those at regional offices dial-in to listen to the standard hour-long teleconference. The CEO and his cadre of senior leaders run through the company’s top four or five priorities for the year. In sparse PowerPoint slides, they explain the “why” behind the strategy and paint a picture of what success will look like. Bold, energizing statements like “In five years, we will be the number one retailer of socks in Brazil!” flow freely.

As the hour draws to a close, the CEO asks employees if they have any questions. Rare, however, is the organization where an employee questions and challenges a strategy in a room with peers and her manager. And so, the strategy effectively communicated, employees race back to their desks and full Outlook inboxes, and pick up where they left off, the new strategy already a vague memory. Read More »

Kathy Gersch, CMO at Kotter International

Last week our post, Where Kotter’s 8 Steps Gets it Wrong, generated lots of great discussion in the comments section about leading change at organizations. In this post we interview Kathy Gersch, the Chief Marketing Officer at Kotter International, Dr. John Kotter’s change company that seeks to build leaders’ capability to drive transformation in their organizations.

Change Management v. Change Communication v. Change Leadership

The CEC (Kayleigh): People often conflate “change management” with “change communication”. What is the difference between these two concepts and what is the danger of combining them?

Kathy Gersch, CMO Kotter International: I think it’s important to first differentiate between “change management,” which is what almost everyone thinks of when they think of organizational change, and “change leadership,” which is what Dr. Kotter advocates and what we do at Kotter International.

• Change management is often focused on incremental improvements with a goal of minimizing the impact a change has on an organization.
• Change leadership is disruptive by design. It gives people the freedom to change in a way that propels an organization forward in leaps and bounds.
• Change communication is too often focused on the communication about the change that has already been determined by leadership or a small committee.

Communication plays an essential role in any change process, but the quality of leadership is what determines success. Relegating communication to a reporting function (which is generally the case in change management) is problematic because it does not drive engagement.  The concepts of “leading” and “communicating” are much more complementary, as the act of leading (establishing direction, aligning people, motivating and inspiring) is inherently centered on good communication.

CEC Members: Help build “change leadership” at your company with an empowerment workshop by GlaxoSmithKline’s CPSE.

Determining What’s Urgent

The CEC: At some organizations Kotter’s first step, “Create a Sense of Urgency,” is taken too seriously, that is, every initiative is thought of as urgent! In today’s environment of constant change, it’s impossible for employees to contribute to the number of “urgent changes” required by the business. What can a communicator do to diagnose and push back against “false urgency” created by the business?

Read More »

They may be experts at setting strategy and managing a leading organization, but unfortunately not all of our CEOs can walk up to a podium with confidence and truly engage their employees, investors, or stakeholder audience.  How about your CFO? CIO? Are they able to lead a presentation that captures and keeps the audiences’ attention and teaches them something?

Coaching the leaders of the organization to be better communicators with their respective stakeholders is a critical skill of today’s communicators—and one that our skills maturity assessment highlights as a common development area for today’s communicators. Our goal here at the CEC is to help you be a better coach, and thus enable better communication across your organization.

Recently, the oh-so-talented team of executive advisors at the Corporate Executive Board gathered for a few days of training (yep–we’re trying to make our presentations more engaging and effective for our members as well!). Below are 10 of the top tips from CEB’s masters of effective presentations. Share them with your leaders in your next coaching session! Read More »

By Kirsten Robinson

When it comes to employee and executive relations within a company, a little extra face time can go a long way. Establishing a connection between lower-level employees and C-level executives can help boost office morale, and increase the staff’s discretionary effort.

But, given everyone’s busy schedules, it’s often too difficult to create those connections.

So, what can you do to improve executive visibility with employees?

A member recently posed this question in our Employee Communications Forum, sparking a dialogue between executives offering suggestions on new and creative ways to reach the employee base. We also had a similar question asked separately in the forum, specifically on connecting the CEO with staff.

Here are a few key takeaways from the two discussions:

• Solicit Q&A. Companies have found success posting a “solicitation” for questions, and then asking the CEO or executive to answer them in a video posting. While other forms of media can be used to deliver answers, being able to see the executive speaking is a particularly authentic way. Read More »

Having recently embarked upon a project about how progressive companies communicate organizational change, I’ve found myself scanning this week’s news with a fresh perspective.

Stan Kroenke has acquired Arsenal Football Club

As readers with more than a passing interest in the English Premier League may have noticed, Arsenal FC were acquired this week by American businessman, Stan Kroenke, owner of numerous sports franchises in Colorado. This is part of a wider trend of foreign owners investing in English football, with recent takeovers having also occurred at clubs Liverpool FC and Blackburn Rovers.

Each acquiring party has inherited different scenarios, and each has communicated the change with a mixed bag of results…

Enlightened Continuity

In Arsenal FC, Mr. Kroenke has acquired a successful business, in excellent financial health. Amid the uncertainty that comes with new ownership/leadership, he has been quick to allay fears of sea-change amongst key stakeholder groups, such as supporters:

“Arsenal are a fantastic club with a special history and tradition and a wonderful manager in Arsene Wenger. We intend to build on this rich heritage and take the club to new success.”

Rather than leap straight in with sweeping change, Kroenke has adopted the mantra, ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ – he has aligned himself with the popular former shareholders, providing continuity for key stakeholder groups such as supporters, and playing staff. Read More »

By Kirsten Robinson

Good communication skills are fundamental to every successful relationship. In time for the holidays, let’s think about the film Home Alone in which series of miscommunications results in young Kevin being left behind while the rest of his family travels to Paris over Christmas. And while the boy successfully fends off burglars, I can’t imagine anyone would be happy with such a scary misunderstanding.

Poor communication doesn’t just affect personal relationships—it also hinders us professionally. Employees can’t learn how to improve their performance if they have little clarity on what the company really wants to prioritize. Successful communications begin with the sender of the message, so it’s essential for executives to package information as effectively as possible to ensure that employees are able to decode it. Read More »