Author: Jon

Jon https://jweedon.wordpress.com
Jon's avatar

Should this be on the intranet?

When one of your Exec sends you an email with the subject “Should this be on the intranet?” and the body text comprising a paragraph on an external accolade recognising the achievements of one of your Business Process Improvement team’s recent projects, what goes through your mind?

Is he suggesting that this is good news that should be shared with the rest of the company? Or could he perhaps be questioning the appropriateness of the wording of an existing news story.

Wrong numberThis happened to me earlier, and like a half wit, I plumped for the former. The thing is I spend a fair bit of my time encouraging our senior leaders to contribute intranet news stories as well join in the online discussions that accompany them.

So when the said email popped up in my uber congested inbox, it never even crossed my mind (not a long journey at the best of times!) that he was suggesting something already on the intranet may not be as suitable for publication as the author had intended. So what did I do? What do you think? I hastily fired back a cheeky email saying “You should read the intranet more often 😉 I published a piece on this last Friday”. I even included a helpful link to the story I was so sure he had missed.

Yep – you guessed it. I was wrong. Very wrong. And once alerted to my wrongness it was so bleedin’ obvious I still cannot quite believe I didn’t see it.

Some people may leap to my defence by suggesting that the email lacked clarity. I don’t buy it. I write for a living. For my interpretation to be correct, the email title would have had to have been “Shouldn’t this be on the intranet?”

So I’m sitting here right now somewhat bloated by enormous helpings of humble pie, recording this afternoon’s minor  cock-up for posterity, promising never to take anything for granted ever again, and taking some small comfort from the fact that just the act of writing this down has made me feel a bit better – and is damn site cheaper than paying for therapy!

Professional Development in Internal Communication

Not so long ago I completed an online survey at the invitation of Internal Communications (IC) recruiters extraordinaire VMA Group. Designed to gather independent information on salary benchmarks, skills requirements and key career development trends within the UK IC industry, the survey was completed by 250 senior IC practitioners. 

This evening I popped along to RIBA to see the survey results presented back to a posse of grim faced IC ninjas eager to find out how the industry has fared since the last survey in 2008. So what if anything has changed? 

Salaries have remained pretty static, with modest uplift at all levels broadly in line with inflation. Given the economic backdrop over the last 2 years I’d say this is a good sign for the industry.

 One of the most interesting changes was around reporting lines. Since 2008 the three notable changes are:

  • The number of Heads of IC reporting directly to the CEO has doubled, from 4% to 8%
  • A 10% increase in Heads of IC reporting to the Head of Marketing
  • A significant reduction (11%) in the amount of Heads of IC reporting to Corporate Communications

 Team size was interesting, in particular the fact that 25% of IC teams comprise just one person operating alone. There was no figure for 2008 to compare this figure against. I’ll ask VMA tomorrow if they have this.

Another interesting finding was the difference between the top 5 skills deficits as perceived by IC practitioners versus those of their employers: 

IC practitioners Employers
Coaching senior leadership Strategy setting
Social media development Coaching senior leadership
Change management Influencing
Influencing Writing
Strategy Setting IC theory

Interesting to see that Social media development does not feature in the employers’ wish list. Personally I think that this is a reflection on the relatively slow recognition of the game changing nature of social media channels and actually IC practitioners are ahead of the curve here. I’d expect to see it higher up this list in the next survey.

To finish off this whistle stop tour of the survey findings, what do you make of this one? In 2008, 19% of respondents felt that their senior executive team were key IC advocates. In 2010 that figure rises to 30%.

Could this be an indication that employee engagement and the role IC plays in increasing it has become progressively more recognised by senior executive teams as an important and relatively low cost differentiator of corporate performance during harsh economic times?

I’d like to think so, but then I would wouldn’t I!

Freedom and Responsibility at Netflix

Up until last September I’d never heard of Netflix. Then I stumbled across these slides which set out the key aspects of their corporate culture. Every now and again I return for a quick refresher to see how my own appreciation of the slides has changed.

It hasn’t. I love so much of what Netflix stands for. Especially the value they place on communication as a valued colleague behaviour (slide 11).

I recommend spending 15 minutes reading the whole slide deck. And stick with it – I almost stopped reading at slide 6 where they made a crude reference to Enron’s core values. If I had a pound for every time I’ve heard Enron’s core values used to highlight the danger of having a lovely sounding value statement that has no grounding in reality blah blah blah.

Persevere and you will be rewarded. Here are some of my personal highlights:

  • Some companies tolerate brilliant jerks – for us the cost to teamwork is too high
    (slide 34)
  • Good processes help talented people get more done – bad processes try to prevent recoverable mistakes
    (slide 61)
  • Netflix vacation policy and tracking – “there is no policy or tracking”
    (slide 68)
  • There is no clothing policy at Netflix, “but no one has come to work naked recently”
    (slide 68)
  • Netflix’s expenses policy – “Act in Netflix’s best interests”
    (slide 71)
  • No bonus, no stock options, no philanthropic matching – instead pay big salary and give staff the freedom to spend it as they think best
    (slide 106)

If it all sounds a little fanciful take a look at their 5 year graph. Looks to me like they’ve been riding out the global recession pretty well!

The Clegg Factor

Tonight’s election debate was certainly an interesting experience. As a piece of live TV I found it pretty sterile, clearly hampered by the terms and conditions. I found the lack of audience reaction most disturbing, although I do concede it helped not to distract viewers from what the three party leaders were saying.

The pre-debate chat at work today centred on the expectation that Clegg would nick it in the post-debate polls, which he did. Personally I found him the most unnatural of the three.

For me his performance was just that – a performance. His attempt to demonstrate what a good listener he is by thanking each questioner by name at the end wasted valuable wrap-up time and felt horribly contrived.

To demonstrate how shallow I really am, here are my personal highlights:

  • Half way through my 15 year old daughter announced that you couldn’t possible vote for Gordon Brown because he looks like Mr Potato Head (from Toy Story). I think it must be something to do with the ears. Nice one Jessica – nice to see you focusing on the big issues. I wonder where she gets that from….
  • At the very end of the programme, Brown broke the rules by jumping off stage clearly before he was supposed to. Cameron pulled Clegg back when he tried to follow him and they both stood there looking very uncomfortable and increasingly desperate as Brown began shaking hands with the front row of the audience. Alistair Stewart then signalled to them that they could leave the stage, at which point they then also piled into the audience. Comedy gold!
  • As Alistair Stewart closed the programme there was an old geezer in the audience gurning (unintentionally I’m sure). The girls noticed it and we then re-played several times and the more you watch it the funnier it gets. If I can find it on YouTube I’ll be sure to put the link in here. It was brilliant.

What will be very interesting is how Brown and Cameron adjust their approach in round two as they both seek to overcome the Clegg factor. Can’t wait!

BTW, this post was originally a comment on Rachel Allen’s blog, but the site kept crashing when I tried to submit it. Sorry Rachel!

Feeding frenzy on Twitter

Perceived wisdom is that Twitter offers companies exciting new ways to reach out to their customers and build authentic relationships with them. Quite right too – I follow many of my favourite brands on Twitter and certainly feel closer to some of them as a result.

One particular area that attracts a lot of attention is Customer Services. Some companies have received very good press through the extension of their customer services offering onto Twitter, and off the top of my head I can think of a few that seem to do this very well: @virginmedia @easyJetCare @starbucks @SouthwestAir for starters.

The company I work for has been experimenting in this area and has had some very positive reactions to real time monitoring and intervention when one of our customers has cried out for help on Twitter.

The recent Vodafone ‘twincident’ was an interesting lesson to all of us exploring the value of using  Twitter in this way. However, on that occasion it appears to represent poor judgement and a non-malicious error by one individual. What happened to a friend of mine last week is very different and just as scary. His company name has been changed to Feeding Frenzy to protect confidentiality.

He noticed a tweet from a customer who was clearly finding the experience of using his company’s core product frustrating. He contacted his customer services team who rolled into action in the hope of helping the guy out and potentially turning a poor first time experience into a much more positive one.

They quickly identified the customer from his profile information on Twitter and put in a call to him to see if there was anything they could do to help. Within seconds of making the call, this was his reaction, live on Twitter:

“Extraordinary. Feeding Frenzy just called me on my mobile, after I tweeted earlier about how fucking hard it was..unbelievable.. Still in shock” 4:57pm

“Not kidding, the bloke says “We see you’re having issues with Feeding Frenzy and mentioned on Twitter” fuck that. Madness madness madness” 4:58pm

“yeah, now I’m over the shock I feel all terroristy, like fuck them.” 5:09pm

What followed resembled a pride of lions feeding on a freshly butchered zebra. A small number of his followers started biting chunks out of the company at the suggestion that the comments were hilarious and they should try and get them trending.

Eight individuals with a combined total of 3,700 followers created sufficient noise to represent over 20,000 ‘negative reads’ within an hour. The story did not trend because it never spread beyond the small group.

I guess Feeding Frenzy were lucky.

I was quite taken aback by this tale. I could not understand how this kind of reaction could have resulted from a genuine attempt to help someone out.

And then it twigged. Feeding Frenzy had intruded on his personal space when they looked up his phone number and rang him. And like a lion feeding on a zebra’s carcass, he reacted violently when an intruder tried to get in on his feast.

So here is my question. Was this an isolated incident representing wholly untypical behaviour which we can all afford to dismiss, or should the lesson from this tale be that Customer Service interventions based on Twitter comments should be restricted to offers of support via direct interaction only on Twitter?

What do you think?

Emotional hedging

I have been a loyal Fulham supporter, man and boy, for the last 35 years. Nothing hits my emotional sweet spot more than being there when Fulham win. Watching them beat the blue filth 1-0 at Craven Cottage in March 2006, for the first time in 26 years was without doubt the most emotional experience of my life.

Quick clarification needed just in case her-indoors reads this one day: by emotional I mean the rip-roaring, adrenalin filled, mind blowing, excitement kind of emotion, not the beautiful, warm, dewy-eyed kind of emotion that has punctuated our marriage, especially when the girls were born. Love ya sweetie!

So when I tell people that I quite often bet against my beloved Fulham, they don’t get it. Many footy die-hards can’t get their heads around it and think I’m being totally disloyal. I don’t get this. Emotional hedging rocks, and here’s why.

If Fulham lose I am generally inconsolable for hours, maybe days. However, I have a nice chunk of cash in my Betfair account to soften the blow. If Fulham win, I treat the loss as my contribution to their victory. I kid you not! The amount I stake is always based on how much am I prepared to pay to see Fulham win the match. It is never based on how much I need to win to make me feel better – I could never afford to take that kind of risk!

The key to emotional hedging is to always bet with the head and not with the heart. Backing your team through blind faith and devotion is a mugs game. Look at the evidence and leave emotion out of the decision. This allows me to back Fulham to win – and it allows me to back them to lose (called a lay bet). If I’m at the match and I can feel the momentum going our way, I sometimes trade out of my original bet (thank God for Betfair Mobile!). Other times, if my head says Fulham will win before the match I’ll happily back them and let the bet ride if I’m not at the game.

Example – earlier this evening, Fulham played Wolfsburg away in the quarter finals of the Europa League. Betfair punters had Wolfsburg as clear favourites to win the match despite Fulham going into the game with a 2-1 advantage from the home leg. I use betfair punters as my benchmark as we all know that Betfair odds are better value and much more accurate than the bookies, right? I took a view that they were probably correct and my head was saying betting against Fulham to win the match was the correct bet. I decided my contribution to a Fulham victory would be £70.

At no stage during the match did I ever even consider anything other than a Fulham victory. We won, I’m off to Hamburg, I lost £70 and I am happy as Larry. If we’d lost, I’d have been miserable as sin, I wouldn’t be off to Hamburg and I’d have £90 sitting in my Betfair account. If I’m going to be miserable I’d rather be miserable with some extra wedge in my pocket.

£70 may seem a bit extreme to some people, but the truth is my emotional hedging strategy more than pays for my season ticket every year. Happy days!

Predilection for negativity

Human beings seem to be wired for negativity. Research conducted in 2001* determined that 62% of every known ‘emotion’ word in the English language was negative versus 38% positive. The same study examined hundreds of articles on psychology and concluded that for a wide range of human behaviour and perception, bad is stronger than good.

I guess I touched on this a few weeks ago when I had a pop at Dilbert fans.

When people are shown photographs of bad and good events, they spend more time looking at the bad ones. When people learn bad things about people they remember it more than the good things. Marital problems and skin conditions sell magazines. Misery, depravity and dysfunction attracts viewers – just ask Jeremy Kyle.

I’m going to make a conscious effort to avoid gratuitous negativity on this blog. Not completely; that would be unreasonable. If I can achieve two thirds positivity versus one third negativity I’ll be happy as that will represent a positive contribution to blogosphere and I will be doing my bit to combat the human predilection for negativity.

I will lose readers for sure. I read the other day that two out of the top 3 global HR blogs for quality and influence are the ‘seasoned and cynical’ Laurie Ruettimann’s Punk Rock HR, where ‘team building is for suckers’, and My Hell is Other People, written by an anonymous British HR Director. I had a good look around both and they are without doubt a damn good read – but not because of their rosy outlook on life!

*Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Finkenauer & Vochs (2001) “Bad Is Stronger than Good” Review of General Psychology, pages 323-370.

Some is not a number and soon is not a time

I’m reading a brilliant book on change management called Switch by Chip and Dan Heath. I’m only 50 pages in but already I know these guys are the voice of reason and I’m going to enjoy the rest of the book. And it was dirt cheap on Amazon!

To set the scene they talk a lot about the tension between emotion and logic, referring to a cute analogy of an elephant and its rider, where the heavyweight mammal represents emotion and its rider, who holds the reigns and provides direction, represents reason and logic. Provided the rider has clarity over where to guide the elephant and provided there is something in it for the elephant, the rider should be able to keep the elephant heading in the desired direction. Any disconnect between the rider and the elephant is likely to result in the elephant choosing for itself where to go and what to do. After all, it is far bigger and far more powerful than the rider.

We have all experienced this conflict between emotion and reason. Every time we oversleep, over eat, skip the gym or bark at an inconsiderate driver we are letting our emotional side win over the rational.

It is very easy for the elephant to give in to temptation. It’s not great at short term sacrifice for long term gain and change often fails because the rider cannot keep the elephant on the path long enough to reach the destination. The elephant’s hunger for instant gratification is the opposite of the rider’s strength, which is the ability to think long-term. And the elephant’s strength, which is the enormous energy it can generate through its capacity for love and loyalty can be the opposite of the rider’s weakness. In search of logic and rationale the rider can over analyse and over complicate things and end up driving the elephant around in circles.

Out of this analogy comes a three part framework which the authors believe can guide any situation where you need to change behaviour.

  1. Direct the rider – provide clear direction, because what looks like resistance is often simply a lack of clarity – and remember that “some is not a number and soon is not a time”.
  2. Motivate the elephant – the rider can only get his way through force for so long.
  3. Shape the path – what looks like a people problem is often a situational one and small seemingly insignificant situational changes (“bright spots”) are often the key to unlocking successful change.

I love the stuff about identifying the bright spots and leveraging them. That’s just what Jerry Sternin did in Vietnam to tackle child malnutrition and links in seamlessly with the concept of positive deviance, which I wrote about a couple of weeks ago.

And it was a special treat to see my old chum Richard Pascale get a mention on page 41 😉

Don’t bother me while I’m at work

I had a very interesting chat today with a colleague who objects to the fact that we recently installed poster holders on the back of every toilet door in the building, strategically positioned to catch the attention of anyone seated therein.

He accepts quite happily that when he is out on the lash he expects to see toilet advertising. He’s fine with that; that’s quite legitimate and makes commercial sense. He does not accept however that his employer should use similar tactics to try to grab his attention when he is in a state of temporary captivity and at his most vulnerable, with his trousers wrapped around his ankles.

Just turn up

And he wasn’t getting precious about us intruding on his ‘me time’ in trap two. Investigating his stance further it became clear that he just doesn’t want to be ‘spammed’ when it’s not on his terms. “Don’t bother me while I’m at work” he said, “send me an email so I can delete it if the subject does not interest me”.

The content carried over the last few weeks on ‘Loo Media’ promoted a company donation of £100 to every member of staff to give to a charity of their choice when they sign up for payroll giving, and a reminder that any member of staff who introduces a graduate to the company’s graduate programme would win a bounty of £500 if subsequently selected.

It’s hardly propaganda is it? It’s not like we are trying to ram our core values down his throat.

What struck me most though was the ‘don’t bother me while I’m at work’ line. Would he prefer to be ‘bothered’ when not at work? Of course not.

He seemed oblivious to the fact that ‘bothering’ him while he was at work is precisely what any reasonable employer would seek to do in an effort to make his work experience more fulfilling and rewarding. His attitude was you pay me to do a job, I do my job, that’s it. I don’t ask for you to communicate with me, so you have no right to communicate with me.

What next I wonder. Maybe an opt out clause in every new starter’s contract, giving them the option not to receive any form of internal communication? Perhaps an unsubscribe button on every corporate email? I know – how about a 15 yard exclusion zone preventing any manager from violating his personal space?

I guess it’s just been one of those days…..