Leading the way

I'm still in my 'how much do we really help our leaders?' frame of mind. So, from the things I've heard consistently from leaders over many years, here's my six step guide to 'things we internal comms types can (and do) do to make life more difficult for line managers'...

1. Don't give them any time to prepare for briefings. If a senior leader insists on actually talking them through the brief, at least make sure it's only a short space of time before they have to brief their own teams. Especially in change scenarios. The commmunication might be awful, but at least it won't leak.

2A. Give them PowerPoint slides or scripts to read from. Ask them not to deviate from the materials 'to ensure consistency'.  Don't give them additional discussion notes or prompt sheets - they'll be fine with the bullet points on the slides. They won't mind at all that their team has read the the lot before they've got through the first line.

OR 2B Give them a VERY large pack of supporting documentation, including process flow charts and a 50 page Q&A - obviously in no particular order and containing answers that have been through Legal six times, so are nice and woolly and don't actually say anything.  Take the really sticky questions out. You don't want to go putting anything in writing, and they're bound to think of something to say if the team asks - see (3) below.  And do remember point (1) - don't give them any time to work out how to use the pack.

3. End all communications with the words 'If you've got any questions, please speak to your line manager'. Don't worry about giving line managers any additional information to answer questions though, they're quite happy to say 'I don't know, but I'll get back to you'. (P.S. Don't give them a route to find out the answers to all those questions they don't know the answers to either. They can always ask their own manager - see point (5))

4. Always publish important announcements on the Intranet, send them out by email to all staff, or even better, tell your customers about them, BEFORE you tell leaders. They like being caught on the hop.

5. Tell middle managers frequently that they are the 'marzipan layer' where communication falls down.  Point out how awful the commmunication scores are in your employee survey and urge them to do better. Ask senior leaders to talk to them often about the importance of communication. (That will be the senior leaders that send out all their briefing material by email because they haven't got time to talk the marzipan layer through it; don't pass on anything from the CEO's leadership updates because they're not sure if it might be too sensitive; and order all team meetings and training to be cancelled in the contact centres for the next three months because of service levels.)

6. Always provide managers with good, solid corporate materials. Their teams really do like to hear about high level figures, governance structures and changes in the senior leadership. It's good for them to see the bigger picture. Include plenty of jargon and business speak that line managers might not understand themselves. And remember, ask them not to deviate from the script. Probably nobody will ask them what 'streamlining our operational imperatives and building world-class propositions' means anyway.

There. That should do the trick ...

Sue

PS I'm not claiming I'm immune, and it's helped me no end to spend a lot of time with line managers in the past year and be constantly reminded of things I've done over the years to make their lives more difficult. So let's be honest, how do you stack up? It can't just be other people's organisations that do these things.