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In fact, the agency had no intention of changing either its traditional mandate or its charter. Senior leadership was instead intent on improving productivity within a long and proud heritage of service. The leadership team was especially concerned about continuing to recognize the employees and volunteers who make the organization successful. Accordingly, the leadership team identified its challenge as a broad-based communication task to reaffirm the organization’s mission and make intraorganization communications a top priority for development.

The team set about its task by holding an all-day meeting to systematically develop communication strategies that could respond to identified issues and goals. The strategies were built on a set of four key statements, or “core messages,” which the agency would use to clearly articulate its mission and strategy across the organization.

The next step was probably the most important one. The headquarters team declared that improving organizational communications would be a top leadership priority during the coming year. Region and district managers were invited to take up the challenge to both share the four core messages with their colleagues and to shape them out further so they’d be well heard and understood.

Taken from : The Leader As Communicator

Over the past decade, a major not-for-profit service organization has faced real competition for the first time. The competition, several privately owned firms, does not have the same public service mandate and can therefore choose customers and operate differently.

Several years ago, this organization realized it was time to revamp some administrative practices and to become more “businesslike” in its operation. In planning these changes, agency leadership discovered two communication issues that required attention. One was the need to help two different operating divisions work more collaboratively. The other was to build employee understanding for why the agency needed to streamline some of its operating practices.

The organization had learned through surveys that “becoming more business-like” had been interpreted by some employees as “becoming more of a business.” For many employees and volunteers, this attitude came out with the oft-heard comment, “That’s not why we joined the organization!”

Taken from : The Leader As Communicator

To manage a smooth flow of information handoffs, middle and frontline managers must be fully functioning, two-way communicators. They need to be well informed and up-to-date if they are to serve as credible, trustworthy interpreters of signals from the top of the organization. They also need to know what signals from the operational side of the organization are important to pass up. There are clear business literacy implications for managers in the middle, as well as implications for quick and timely information exchange (we treat this topic in our discussion of change communications in the next section).

The communication versatility that technology affords most organizational leadership in theory allows top leaders to reach everyone in the organization directly. But most employees still want to
receive certain kinds of communication, especially nuanced messages that have potential job and career consequences, directly from their boss. So long as certain kinds of organizational communication require a dimension of personal trust, along with the ability to engage in real and immediate dialogue, employees will prefer supervisors to CEOs as communication sources and conduits.

Taken from : The Leader As Communicator

“Unquestionably, the employee’s immediate supervisor has more influence over whether or not a communication passes through the system accurately than does anyone or anything else.”

No leader carries out the direction-setting role alone. It’s a shared responsibility, and it has to be. Most organizations have a multitier communication “distribution system.” Key messages originating at the corporate level typically are translated by various levels of anagement
before they take on any real meaning for frontline employees. If this sounds like a paradox, it is.

In a similar way, value is delivered to customers only after employees translate broad organizational goals into specific behaviors that yield things customers want. At each management level, as well as at each divisional boundary, critical communications occur as information handoffs. Certain key message content needs to be preserved in each handoff, while new details need to be added to make the communication actionable by different functional groups. Inevitably, leaders in many different organizational roles, at all levels, play important navigational roles.

Taken from : The Leader As Communicator

? Kudos and “Bouquets” from Clients and Colleagues. Many leaders who receive these about their employees are good about letting the employee know. But they miss the opportunity to circulate them, with
their own comments and thanks attached. In one agency we know, leaders post notes from customers that compliment employees on their office doors for passers-by to read.

? Meetings. Honor and recognition elements in staff meetings can be wonderful ways to manage peer recognition and acclaim, while delivering thanks for good work. If this is done frequently, and rather informally, leaders can add a valuable dimension to meetings. While some individuals might be embarrassed by being called out, they’re more typically ambivalent about public recognition; they might feel awkward, but they also feel good. Sometimes, recognition of teams rather than individuals is easier for participants to accept and manage.

? Special Events. Many organizations recognize achievement at a special scheduled event, where leaders can deliver their appreciation before a larger audience, sometimes including members of honorees’ families. As with all such occasions to express appreciation, the more knowledgeable the leaders sound about the details of performance, the more valued their comments will be. Arranging for “off-stage” opportunities, especially ones where leaders can let their hair down, perhaps with a drink in their hands, is another way to make such communication more memorable and more powerful.

Taken from : The Leader As Communicator

The video delivers the key message points consistently across the organization; local leaders put a local spin on them and talk about action implications for their groups.

Videos are not the medium of choice for employees, but incorporating a short video presentation into a larger, more personal communication puts it to good use. When senior leadership of a Big Three Detroit automaker met in retreat to develop a major quality improvement initiative, a documentary-style video of leaders in their shirtsleeves discussing key company issues was created. Because the video was not overproduced, it captured a degree of informality and honesty in their meeting that helped position the issues and their complexity for colleagues around the world. The video was then included in a communication kit with some basic discussion guidelines for managers around the company.

Figure 6-8. Communication ideas for public recognition.
? Bulletin Board or Web Site Postings of Projects Completed, Honors Won, Etc. Leaders can add personal comments on these to make them really mean something; otherwise, they remain just another HR or corporate communications gesture.

Taken from : The Leader As Communicator

The major print communication company discussed earlier relies, somewhat ironically, on an e-mail “letter,” sent to all employees by the CEO, to get the word out about important business news. The CEO of a transportation organization that was facing stiff marketplace challenges held weekly teleconferences with several hundred managers on the line at the same time. The links that the CEO forged directly to his frontline leaders were invaluable to the company’s ability to pull together and meet their challenge.

Consistency with a Personal Touch
Especially when presenting goals or launching a major planning process, you need to use a consistent set of messages across the organization. Naturally, these messages are carefully crafted beforehand to pack a lot of meaning into a few words and do it with just the right tone. Key messages are not an opportunity for ad-libbing.

So how can leaders balance the need for clarity, accuracy, and consistency with the parallel need to maintain a personal touch in these communications? One effective balancing act involves packaging key messages in a video, typically featuring the CEO, along with a set of briefing sheets and discussion guides to be used by onsite managers with employee teams.

Taken from : The Leader As Communicator

Figure 6-7. Communication ideas for individual recognition.

? Spoken Acknowledgments: They’re most effective as communication when they
? Are personalized: “I would really like to thank you . . .”.
? Sound sincere and unforced: A lot of leaders still feel uncomfortable in bestowing praise and wind up saying their thank-you’s somewhat begrudgingly (“Well, I guess I should show my appreciation for. . . .”).
? Are immediate (rather than delayed or scheduled—“It’s time to pick the employee of the month”).
? Pinpoint a specific behavior or achievement: Conveying real awareness of exactly what was done, rather than focusing on the person per se (also raising the likelihood that the behavior will be repeated).
? Don’t sound patronizing: “We think you did some pretty smart thinking on this job.”

? Written Notes: Short and hand-written are best; they seem more personal and can carry the same value as a one-on-one conversation Many leaders use a smaller, cardlike stationery to distinguish their notes from more formal memos and letters.

Taken from : The Leader As Communicator

Let us share a few of the ways organizations we know work at communicating awareness and appreciation to their people, although our lists are just meant as a sampler. Basically, recognition communications are made either individually (manager talking or writing to employee) or publicly. Opportunities to recognize employee
performance occur along a continuum from totally spontaneous (“Gotcha!”) to highly ceremonial (the annual “President’s Medal” or some such award). In between, there are a lot of ingenious, as well as pretty simple (but effective), ways to get the message across.We offer ideas for individual and for group communications in Figures 6-7 and 6-8, respectively.

Delivering The Massage
When leaders want to communicate with the entire organization, they need to choose an appropriate medium. Some organizations schedule all hands “town meetings” via telephone to announce and discuss major developments. Participants typically gather in conference rooms or offices with speakerphones. The power of these meetings lies in the personal tone and immediacy that a leader can achieve through this everyday medium: the leader chatting with colleagues about matters of common interest, and it’s all live and in real time.

Taken from : The Leader As Communicator

In the 2002 Winter Olympics, a Canadian figure-skating couple was at first awarded a silver medal, but then, after some alleged collusion among the judges, shared the gold. When asked how they felt about this attempt at restitution, they admitted the gold medal was nice, but what they really missed was being able to stand on the podium and watch their flag being raised while their national anthem was played (a wish that was, in fact, granted them a few days later). What they wanted was to feel the recognition of their countrymen at an important occasion.

Expressing appreciation for work done well provides a way for leaders to validate employee efforts, to acknowledge their value to the organization, and to reinforce employees’ sense of self-worth as well. As your mother probably told you many times, “Don’t forget to say thank you!” These two little words reinforce on-target behavior and ensure its continuance better than just about any other force known to managers.

Taken from : The Leader As Communicator