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:

1. Defining and Differentiating Your Company’s Unique EVP

A winning EVP depends on employee voice and feedback for authenticity. Communications can support HR in:

• Getting direct input from employees on their values though focus groups or other listening methods

• Conducting employee engagement surveys that test for the most important EVP attributes

2. Engaging Employees Through Your EVP

Communications can take a leading role in bringing the EVP to life through organizational alignment by:

• Helping leaders align their actions to the EVP

• Tailoring EVP communications to specific stakeholder segments

• Enabling employees to represent your EVP externally

The insights provided by a deep understanding of what employees care about have important and diverse implications, from strategy meetings and leadership communications to employment branding and recruiting. Check out our full set of resources and tools on EVP for more guidance on Communications role in EVP creation and application.

CEC Related Resources

• Rebuilding the Employment Value Proposition
• Audience Listening Guide
• Best Buy’s Employee Listening System

CEC Related Blogs

• Comms & HR: Partners in Employee Engagement
• A Winning Employee Value Proposition—Recruiting Needs Your Help
• Peeking Down the Hallway – What’s HR Doing?

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:

• What’s happening to Joe Paterno is so unfair.
  This might be an indication that your CEO isn’t fully aware of how easy it is to get caught up in a scandal — even when you didn’t think you were personally doing anything wrong. Hey, right and wrong don’t seem to matter to the media anymore — proximity-to-something-bad may be enough to bring you down. And it IS unfair. So, let’s talk about how your Comms team can help you prevent getting caught up in some unfair future situation.
• Paterno is an idiot. How could anyone be so irresponsible?
  This might be an indication that your CEO doesn’t realize how easy it is to lose one’s perspective within the insular inner-circle of big organizational power. Joe Paterno may be an 84-year old geezer, but he’s no idiot. So why did he think that merely reporting the first incident of child sex-abuse to his boss would absolve everyone of responsibility? Because sometimes that’s the way people in power think. So, let’s talk about how your Comms team can help you see the way the world looks at big companies — let’s make sure you have some true outside perspective.
• This whole mess is gonna be a field day for the lawyers.
  This might be an indication that your CEO believes that in the event of a scandal or reputational crisis, as long as your General Counsel and Legal department are able to win lawsuits, mitigate financial damage and keep the company from going out of business, everything will be OK. So, let’s talk about how Comms can help you avoid crises in the first place — cause what we can do will be much easier on your stomach lining, and SO much cheaper.

My Dad used to say, “Son, there are two ways to learn the big lessons in life — the hard way and the easy way.” In his mind, the hard way is learning from your own mistakes. The easy way is learning from things that happen to other people.

The Joe Paterno situation is an opportunity for your CEO to learn a hard lesson the easy way.

WHAT ABOUT YOU?  What do you (and more importantly) your CEO think about this scandal?

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:

• Are you challenging executive assumptions with feedback and perspective from the frontlines by both employees, customers, and other stakeholders?
• Are you building executive comfort with handling uncertainty? Are you leading efforts to train executives not only in media relations basics, but also in dialogue scenarios with stakeholder groups?
• Are you helping the executive recognize the inadvertent signals—the eye rolls, the glares, the tell vs. ask mentality—that might prevent open communication around the company?

Move beyond Your Comfort Zone
Of course, chances are you haven’t been given the latitude to act less as speechwriter and more as executive coach. That said your own tendencies and preferences might also be holding you back from considering this expanded responsibility. If I had to guess, most executive communicators fall into The Presenter skill profile cohort. This means that you are great at creating simple, memorable messages and motivating audiences to take action. You’re less great, however, at strategic agility & judgment, interpersonal influence, and critical thinking. Taken together, I think that these three skills “under development” are essential to focus on to not only complement your existing strengths, but also to propel you to delivering different-in-kind impact for your executive.

A few companies that we’ve come across are broadening the type of support they provide executives. As a result, these communicators counsel is becoming increasingly sought after and appreciated. For example, the Communications team with a business unit at GlaxoSmithKline has lead sessions with the company’s leaders to help them develop the self-awareness of their communication habits necessary empower their staff.

I admit that speech writing isn’t likely to go away any time soon, but even your approach to this common activity could be improved!  Intuit, for example, outlines every executive speech with “bumper stickers”—short, catchy phrases that are repeated throughout a presentation and meant to be tweeted!

Get in Touch

Are your expectations changing? Do you need to vent about your CEO’s communication style? If you’d like to set up a conversation to share your opinion, email me at kokeefe@executiveboard.com.

CEC Related Resources:

• CEC Best of: Executive Communications
• Support Effective Leadership in Times of Change
• Coach Senior Leaders

CEC Related Blog Posts:

• Why Your Leadership Communications Support Misses the Mark
• What to Ghost Write for Your CEO’s Blog
• Coaching Leaders: 10 Tips for Effective Presentations
• Improve Executive Visibility with Employees

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

Employee’s personal connection to the company and exposure to market context are the two main drivers of their agility, the biggest driver of overall performance in a high-change environment. What’s more is that confidence in leadership has almost zero impact on agility. CEC Members, rely on our research and data on Building a Change-Ready Organization to help teach executives why this is true.

And yet, most CEO blogs that I’ve heard about or come across aim squarely at building employee confidence in leadership. In fact, in times of uncertainty, CEOs ask Communications to help her/him be more transparent, visible, and confident in the eyes of employees. S/he wants to seem personable, like “one of us” to exhort additional effort from employees to keep the company sailing straight even if the waters are choppy.

In the end, the key is to help employees (and potentially other stakeholders) understand how the CEO and leadership team are thinking. Sometimes the CEO and leadership are too close to the company strategy to recognize that most employees aren’t aware of what’s being thought of at the top. To help you help your CEO, consider the information and perspective that the CEO has that, if shared, would help the rest of the organization to think more strategically on a daily basis, not just at the annual strategy summit.

CEC Related Resources:

• Engage Employees in Strategy through Scenario Planning
• Strategy Assumptions Matrix (Lilly)
• Arm Employees with Information to Solve Problems
• Information Needs Assessment Process (ConAgra Foods)
• Information Personalization Session (Saudi Aramco Downstream)

CEC Related Blog Posts:

• How to Talk Strategy in a High-Change Environment
• Make the “Big-Picture” Relevant to Employees
• Questions to Surface Employee Information Needs
• Disappointed by Internal Social Media? You’re Not Alone

CEC Member Discussion Threads

• Use of Social Media & Blogs for Senior Leaders
• Senior Leadership Blogging and Engagement with Employees

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.

The Scenario Planning Approach

At Company B, the Communications team asks Robert, the CEO, when they should schedule the annual strategy kickoff. Robert shakes his head and laments, “Not this year, guys. The environment’s too uncertain. Our strategy could—and probably should—change tomorrow. Let’s just skip it this year.”

Sensing Robert’s despair, one savvy communicator, Linda, suggests a radical idea. “Wait a minute. It sounds like this is the perfect time to get our employees together and have a conversation about our company strategy.”

Robert is quick to reject the idea, “I can’t expect our employees to create our company strategy! That’s what they pay me to do.”

Linda clarifies her plan, “I agree with you, but what I am suggesting is a bit different. What if instead of presenting our 4-pronged company strategy, we shared all of the inputs that you, as the CEO, consider when you set the strategy? Maybe if employees knew what you were basing decisions on, they’d make better decisions themselves?”

Robert furrows his brow for a moment, and then raises his eyebrows in consideration. “Okay, okay. I could see how this might work. What I’m not sure about is what, exactly, I should share with employees. Any ideas?”

“Let’s use something that you’re familiar with, the basic 2×2 scenario plan,” Linda suggests.

“Easy enough! I know our Strategy team already has a future scenario plan mapped out,” Robert remarks as he pulls up the 2×2 on his computer screen.

On the screen is a sharp, easy-to read 2×2 scenario plan. It’s the product of the Strategy team wondering which factors will have the most influence on corporate strategy. Economic, demographic, technological, competitive, regulatory, and organizational factors have all been considered; however, just regulatory and competitive influences will be the most critical for the company to base its decisions on.

Linda and Robert get to work preparing for a conversation unlike he’s ever had with employees. Instead of preparing talking points, the pair brainstorm potential questions to ask employees as well as prepare for those likely to be asked by employees.

At the strategy kickoff, Robert and his team present a slimmed down version of the 2×2 scenario planning exercise. They delve into the cause and effects of relationships in the company’s value chain. They ponder aloud potential trends in each area and their implications. They never say “This is exactly where we are headed.” Instead they openly share what information is being monitored and considered as they make adjustments.

“Now you know what we know,” Robert says to signal the close of the session. “We expect you to surface anything you see that contradicts or supports the trends that we’ve shared here. To those of you who are managers, I want you to have conversations with your team about these strategy assumptions. We’re all responsible for guiding this company forward.”

How You Can Engage Employees in Strategy through Scenario Planning

Do you see the difference? Company B has equipped its entire employee population with the information necessary to not only make better decisions, but also to contribute relevant feedback back to the organization. Company A has simply convened an assembly that most employees tune out; they’re unable to see why they should care.

CEC members, you can be the savvy communicator at Company B, and we can help:

• Walk through an example of a real-life scenario planning exercise conducted by Eli Lilly.
• Help your leaders share these assumptions in dialogue sessions by using Saudi Aramco’s method for making the “big picture” relevant to employees.

CEC Related Resources

• Engage Employees in Strategy through Scenario Planning
• Strategy Assumptions Matrix (Lilly)
• Arm Employees with Information to Solve Problems
• Information Needs Assessment Process (ConAgra Foods)
• Information Personalization Session (Saudi Aramco Downstream)

CEC Related Blog Posts

• Questions to Surface Employee Information Needs
• Communicating the Right Information to Drive Change
• Make the “Big-Picture” Relevant to Employees
• Take a Cue from Obama: Share Context in Your Communication

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?

Gersch: You have to make sure people aren’t pushed to become urgent about the wrong things. Before an organization begins the 8 Steps, we spend a few days helping its senior leadership team get aligned around what we call a “big opportunity.” This is not just a revenue goal or a progress bar or a growth target. The big opportunity is a picture of what an organization can possibly achieve in relationship to the world around it – something so compelling that people want to make it happen. For example, a medical device company might use “we will deliver superior products and increase market value while helping to revolutionize patient care in the United States” as their big opportunity. That’s something people can get excited about. It’s harder to feel energized about something like “grow sales by X%”–it’s too one-dimensional.

Initiatives aligned around this kind of opportunity focus “truly urgent” behaviors and lead to positive change because people want to do them as a way to help the organization attain that opportunity. Activities that don’t align with the big opportunity in some way are the ones that create false urgency and anxiety-driven busy work because people feel they have to do them.

We offer a few helpful questions on our website that can help you spot false urgency red flags.

CEC Members: Help your business partners determine when their initiatives are truly urgent.

Course Correcting in the Midst of a Change

The CEC: One of the problems we hear from Communications executives is that it’s difficult to course correct in the midst of a change initiative. They often lack the tools and resources to spot where change is being stalled and uncovering why that might be. What would be your advice for these executives?

Gersch: This is a great question, and the answer lies with the guiding coalition, which is a large group of respected, trustworthy leaders from across the organization who each volunteers to lead the overall change initiative. One of this group’s greatest strengths is that it includes people from all levels, top to bottom, and every business unit and functional area, so it collectively sees and hears what’s going on across the company. This makes it a lot easier for these leaders to identify areas where changes are stalling and remove those barriers. If one individual spots something going on in their part of the organization, they can work with people to figure out why it’s happening and then talk with the whole guiding coalition to come up with ideas on how to course correct.

We’ve seen members of the guiding coalition do this at NetApp, one of our clients. As one member put it, “There are always obstacles, and before when we experienced them, we would usually stop.  Now when we hit an obstacle, we learned how to help one another, and take on the barrier.  I learned real teamwork and that I just need to know when to ask for help.”

CEC Members: See how the U.S. Navy used message quick polls to identify strategy absorption problems to guide midcourse message adjustments.

CEC Related Resources

• Change Management Topic Center
• Building a Change-Ready Organization
• Empowerment Workshop for Leaders (GSK CPSE)
• Message Progress Quick Poll

CEC Related Blog Posts

• Where Kotter’s 8 Steps Gets it Wrong
• Effective Leadership in Times of Change
• 10 Ways to Help Leaders Give Up Control

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!

1. Start with Confidence, Purpose & Content. The audience should know you’re in charge right away, and that they will learn something very quickly.
2. Half as Long, Twice as Good. Commit to every point you make. Never half-say anything: say it confidently or don’t say it at all. If you can’t decide whether to say something, don’t—everything is premeditated and focused.
3. You’re Happy to be Here. Don’t just smile. Be excited to be here and let it show.
4. Silence is Power. Be comfortable with silence. Use it to own the room throughout the presentation.
5. Believe it. Show us that you truly believe your message.
6. Prioritize. You are here to tell the audience what is most important. Which information matters most? Where should they focus their attention? Tell then what to do, what matters, and why.
7. Don’t Talk What. Talk Why. Why are we talking about this? Why should we care? Why is this hard? Why do we believe we should change? Why are we showing you this information? Always be answering why—that makes for a much more fascinating presentation.
8. Don’t Address Slides. Address the Audience, Using the Slides. You are here to teach and engage people in the room. Use the slides to do that, but make sure you address the people, not the slides.
9. Transition with Purpose. Never say “page 9” as your transition. Tell me why we’re leaving page 8. All transitions are about why.
10. Manage the Clock—Openly. Managing time from the very beginning. Once you have a time problem, it’s too late to solve it.

CEC Related Resources:

• The Modern Communicator’s Skill Set/ Skills Maturity Assessment
• Communication Coaching and Teaching Skill Development
• Enabling Leader-Employee Communications

CEC Related Blog Posts:

• Why Your Leadership Communications Support Misses the Mark
• Strongest and Weakest Skills for the Communications Profession

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.
• Blog. Blogs are a great way for executives to communicate thoughts and opinions to employees. But, one member in the discussion stressed the importance of taking time educating execs on what a blog is and isn’t, working on the approach/tone, and helping with topic. They also recommend avoiding “ghost blogging”—employees can tell whether it’s his or her voice.
• Hold breakfast sessions. Informal breakfast meetings set up a more relaxed atmosphere and provide an opportunity not only for executives to intermingle with employees, but for employees to meet one another. At one company, the CEO takes time to speak to each employee one on one, or in small groups.
• Schedule appearances. The most out-of-the-box response we heard was from a member whose company created an advice booth modeled after the Peanuts comic strip—when Lucy would sit and give advice to Charlie Brown. They set the booth up during lunch hours near the cafeteria, and executives take turns giving advice based on a schedule focused on various topics.

CEC members, learn more about what your peers are saying, and join the discussions in our Employee Communications Forum

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.

Enlightened Change

When John W. Henry, also owner of the Boston Red Sox, bought Liverpool FC in November 2010, they were in dire straits. Once the greatest club side in Europe, their league position of 18^th place (of 20 teams) had disenchanted supporters and players alike. Key to Henry’s strategy was a sense of realism, and a promise to listen to those key stakeholders:

“This is not going to be easy… Our first step as new owners will be to listen. We want to hear from the manager and the players and those who are part of the daily operation of the club. We will be visible and will listen to those who are the rock on which its future success will be built.”

No quick fixes were promised, and nor did Henry suggest that a magic wand of new ownership would solve the clubs ills. But key groups – staff and supporters – would be involved in the future decision-making of the club.

Change for change’s sake

Contrast this approach with that taken by the Venky’s group, who took over Blackburn Rovers in December 2010.

“The fans should trust us, and have belief in us. We want good football and Blackburn to be fourth or fifth in the league or even better.”

Blackburn have traditionally been a weak side. Fourth or fifth was a wildly ambitious target, which alienated fans. Similarly, “trust us” was interpreted as “we know all the answers.” Venky’s compounded their ludicrous ambitions by creating instability by sacking popular manager Sam Allardyce, two weeks later. They currently hover just above the relegation zone, with fears over their Premier League future.

Lessons for communicators at organizations with new owners / leaders

• Listen to key stakeholders groups
• Ambition is to be applauded, but be sure to propose realistic objectives
• Create an environment of stability

What tactics have you used to manage the change that new ownership / leadership brings? How have you communicated the change? Get in touch to participate in CEC’s research on this topic!

Related CEC Research:

Change Management Topic Center

M&A Fast Pack

Strategic Communications Plans for CEO Transitions

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.

Taking time to audit internal communications not only highlights areas needing improvement—it also saves your team time in the long run as messages are delivered more efficiently. After reviewing lagging performance at a North American facility, Toyota realized that messages about the company’s direction and priorities had proliferated to the point of incomprehension by employees. Their team created a solution to bring more discipline to the organization’s strategy messaging that resulted in heightened focus and significant turnaround. It also closed critical performance gaps.

Here, we’ve broken down the main components of Toyota’s Message Alignment Review:

• Create a baseline. Evaluating recent communications is the foundation to figuring out what needs to be adjusted. Toyota conducted a message audit of all official communications within the most recent 60-day period. After segmenting messages by the company goal they were intended to support, the team was able to weed out extraneous communications and hone in on what was most important.

• Fine-tune messages. The internal communications team can now make intelligent modifications to their message mix. Toyota met bimonthly with line partners and contrasted the existing message mix with the evolving needs of the business and performance areas that required additional focus. Performance areas that were slipping received additional messaging, and those that were in line with expectations received less. It’s important to keep in mind the upper limit of message tolerance by employees—if your team increases the volume of messages too much, you risk them tuning out.

• Guide by audience values. Adjusting message content to boost relevance is also important. Communicators need to stay true to the company’s message platform, but it is essential to frame messages in terms that are most likely to resonate with employees. Toyota developed a matrix tool to guide message positioning that shows points of overlap between the organization’s key message categories and employees’ values.

For more details, view the Toyota company case study on Message Alignment.