Too big to fail or to ignorant to collaborate?

'To criticize the firm's direction was to be branded a traitor and tossed out the door.'
 

I'm currently reading Andrew Sorkin's 'Too Big to Fail: The inside story of how Wall Street and Washington fought to save the financial syste, - and themselves'. It's a fast paced, insiders view of how Lehman Bros collapsed and the GFC escalated.

The sentence at the top of this post is from early in the book and provides a crucial diagnosis of  how the culture in firms such as Lehman's were a direct contributing factor, if not the main cause of the financial crisis. It reminds me of a saying regarding management teams - if I have eight people in a room all saying the same thing, I have seven people too many – essentially showing how Lehman’s chose the one voice, dedication to the corporate line and aversion to conflict over any different points of views.

In the communication world I think this mindset has the potential to be challenged like never before. The focus on social media and collaboration tools is done in the hope of better discussion, to challenge the status quo and promote idea sharing. The benefits are clear for every one to see - but in order to do that there needs to be an acceptance of risk, criticism, discussion and debate.

Are collaboration and social media concepts that in many cases will never truly be adopted, or used to their true capacity in some firms because of the belief that to have a different opinion is to be disloyal or be branded a trouble maker?

The lesson learnt from Lehman’s was that these differing and conflicting thoughts and opinions were shared among the employees with email trails demonstrating the true, yet publicly unsaid, internal criticism of the organisation.  The failure of the management to embrace the opportunity, warts and all, means that social media and collaboration tools could not play any part in averting the final outcome for Lehman.

It will be interesting to see what lessons other businesses, especially investment firms, learn and whether social media/collaboration tools can be embraced to discuss a healthy dose of conflict.

JH

Is 'it's not fair' a suitable argument?

I’ve noticed an interesting phenomenon creeping into the media and issues management for specific bodies. I’ve now seen two very recent examples where a proposed change is fought against on the basis that it will harm an industry and employment.

The Australian Hotels Association is claiming that the pub and club industry will be ‘wiped out’ because of proposed pokies reform by Tasmanian MP Andrew Wilkie. More recently, the ban on live exports of cattle to Indonesia is being protested against because it will ‘destroy farmers’.

Let me make it clear I have great sympathy with farmers and love going to my local RSL, but I can’t help but see one huge flaw in their objection – is keeping a business running a good enough reason to continue injustice? If this was the case would there have been the burning desire to get rid of slavery or fight apartheid? The decision to stop slavery certainly had a real impact on the way Americans operated their businesses and on their standard of living. But it was the right thing to do.

I don’t doubt that the live export ban could be better managed and compensation is deserved, and potentially the same for pokies reform. But if we are all agreement that the practice itself is wrong, then the fact that some people will suffer in the short term to improve long term standards is not really a suitable defense

JH.

Parliamentary ejections: are they still acceptable behaviour?

I've been watching Victorian and Federal parliament question time sittings with interest this week (get a life, I hear ya) and am amazed that the standard of behaviour continues to be seen as acceptable by our apparent leaders.

In Canberra on Wednesday we had six pollies ejected from question time, including one who was out for 24 hours. This led the Speaker, Harry Jenkins, to allude that 'Those outside expect better from all of us, from all of us. And I'm conscious that that includes myself.'. I say he is on the money - we do and should expect better. I stated in a tweet at the time that if six players were sin binned during the State of Origin rugby league match there would be outcry. Yet some how it is seen as part of the theatrics, the drama of politics.

Again today, four politicians were ejected from the Victorian parliament. But again this seems to be seen as normal behaviour. My far from scientific evidence reveals two tweets throughout the day about the Spring St ejections. By comparison the suspension of Geelong football player was mentioned in 105 tweets. Why is it that we as a community seem to be outraged when  footballer is suspended but don't bat an eyelid when the people paid to represent us act out of line and essentially behave in a manner that would not be tolerated in any other workplace or schoolyard?

Maybe I'm the one out of touch and this sort of drama is needed to ensure that there is at least something colourful to fill the required token quota of political coverage on the nightly news, but I will say with certainty that the Mr Jenkins was definitely speaking for me yesterday - I do expect better.

JH

Holiday ponderings and workplace innovation

So the blog has been a little quiet lately - because I was on holidays in beautiful Phuket, Thailand!

While the sun, sand and cocktails where absolutely beautiful, the relaxed nature of the trip did give me time to think about work, life and communication as a whole.

One thing I found over the course of the holiday was the way I interacted and dealt with the locals changed over time. I very quickly adopted some of their mannerisms, their expressions and even occasionally caught myself having a modified accent.

The same speedy acceptance was found with cuisine, trying foods and delicacies that in Australia I would have never dared venture into, and even trying new activities like para-sailing.

It made me wonder why is that when holidays do we adopt the local practices and are willing to change and try new things, but we revert back to our comfort zones and stayed ways because 'that's how it's always been done'?

It was with this thinking that I've made the resolution to keep the holiday line of thought going in my workplace, and spreading the enthusiasm to the rest of my team. For each new idea, change of practice or question asked about old practices and why we do it that way and if we can do better I will present a small cocktail umbrella to that colleague - the cocktail umbrella is a definite icon of tropical holidays! Each umbrella will have a number written on it and each quarter a number will be drawn from a hat and the person who's cocktail umbrella matches that number will win a prize.

Let the holiday love begin at work....

JH

One degree of (doggy) separation

Absolutely nothing to do with communications today, but a great example of how small the world really is. I was up at the off lead dog park with my 2yo lab Holly the other morning before work when another Labrador, 1yo Molly, and owner arrived.

Molly (L) and Holly (R) playing like long lost sisters...

I'd not met either before and started chatting to the owner while our dogs started playing like crazy with each other, chasing each other, wrestling, jumping around, all in all having a great time.

Any way, the other guy (Nick) asked me where I'd got my dog from and it turns out we both got our labs from the same breeder. Not only was that in itself enough, after some further discussion and testing of the memory banks, we realised they had the same mum and dad - Holly and Molly were in fact sisters, albeit Holly was 15 months older!

Sisterly love: Holly and Molly hugging/wrestling

They had a lot of the same mannerisms and both had the defining gold 'racing stripe' down the back. Holly had a little bit of excess baggage but insists she is just big boned...

It just goes to show how small the world is. Needless to say Holly and Molly have now got regular play dates scheduled.

JH

How can middle managers improve all user emails?

It's common knowledge that for internal communications to be successful you need the buy in from the CEO and executive and have them willing to share information.

But what about the middle managers and their role in disseminating messages from above? They either receive information direct and may want to keep the knowledge as power, or they receive it the same time as everyone else in an 'all user email' and feel undermined and as if they have no need to take ownership of the message.

 

Middle managers are the crucial link to ensure all user emails have any hope of success

For all user emails from the CEO to have any hope of real success though, it is the line managers and direct supervisors of employees who are the crucial link. If managers don't take the time to read the email themselves and interpret what it might mean for their team or department, then the email from the CEO might as well as been sky writing for the impact it will have with the individual employees. 

 

If you look at just about any employee satisfaction or internal communication survey the source that employees trust the most for delivering a key message is their direct manager, often in face to face communication. If the CEO has sent an all user email, the impact of that communication is already diminished by the sheer fact that, if your organisation is any larger than say 100 people, there is no way the CEO will be able to talk to every one directly and know their personal situations. 

 

Only middle managers can interpret that information, assess what it means for their team and check with higher management if necessary. Middle managers are the lynch-pin to ensuring that all user emails are able to become specific enough to be relevant for each team or department.

 

So should all user emails come with instructions for employees to ask their manager what this means for you? And do middle managers need to be instructed to interpret this information and say 'this is what we know, and this is what I think it means for us...'? 

As communicators and managers, do people grasp too strongly to the belief that 'knowledge is power' and something not to be shared lightly? It's as if knowledge is a physical entity and if I give my knowledge to you, it might mean I am left with nothing. Sadly knowledge isn't something commonly viewed as improved by sharing. 

 

JH

Internal comms in a real disaster

Photo Credit: Salvatore Vuono

Sitting here in the relative comfort of Melbourne it's hard to imagine the devastation flowing through Queensland following the record floods. With a surface area flooded the size of France and Germany combined, more than 40 towns isolated or flooded, a rising death toll and an estimated $5 billion damage bill, it is a crisis of mammoth proportions.

For the agencies involved in responding to the emergency, it is easy to get caught up in the here and now and overlook the menial yet important tasks - like internal communications.

Without been there I can't speak for what exactly is unfolding in Queensland, but from my experience in major emergencies there are a number of internal communication challenges:

• Staff are spread over diverse location, making face to face communication to large numbers hard
• Employees spend the majority of their time in the field, nowhere near a computer making electronic communications (intranet, email, etc) essentially useless
• Staff are not only responding to the crisis and dealing with the emergency workload, but it is highly likely that they will be directly affected themselves, either with personal loss or property damage, or that of friends or family. The need for communications to also act as a support network becomes vital and to remind staff that it is okay to feel affected emotionally and personally. 
• A crisis like the floods has lasted for three weeks so far. It becomes very hard to sustain the necessary communication staffing levels and overcome the associated fatigue and burnout for such a prolonged period of time.

I've found that in a crisis more than ever for internal communications it is all about getting it back to basics. Find out where staff are going to be, how can you improve information flow to them and how you can make their lives easier.

In the past, like during the 2009 Victorian heatwave and Black Saturday bush fires, I set up 24hour phone hot lines for staff to ask any questions or to make requests for welfare, sent managers out to wait in hospital emergency bays with bottles of water because it was the one spot I knew paramedics would go and used external media to communicate essentially internal messages because every one was listening in for radio updates. It requires innovation and a rethink on standard communications, but it is the least that can be done when dealing with a crisis.

As I say, I don't know what is happening in Queensland yet, but I'm certainly thinking of them at this time and hoping that the crisis passes soon and their communication systems are working seamlessly.

JH