Black Belt Dojo

And now, the end is near...

So, it's time to bid you adieu. I've loved it - I get to rant a bit and then hear your thoughts on my ramblings. All we need is a bottle of chilled white wine... Anyways, two things for this post - a final rant-ette and a handover.

First with the handover - I'm passing the reins over to Sarah Darlington from Centrica - good luck Sarah. Hopefully, you'll all be nice and welcome her with open minds and lots of comments.

Secondly, my rant-ette for the week. I saw recently in Metro (can't find the link!), the free newspaper in UK cities (and thanks to Emma for not nicking this story despite threats in the pub), that the smoking ban soon to come into effect in England will affect company cars. This means that if your staff have company cars, they aren't allowed to smoke in them. The story in itself didn't surprise me - company cars being an extension of company property and all. What did surprise me was the small internal comms plan the paper had included in the article - things for companies to consider when talking to their staff. Included were ideas like putting posters up in smoking rooms, leafleting those who stand round the back of the building having a sneaky one, or using regular newsletters to remind staff about the changes.

All very noble. Thanks Metro. But this doesn't help our cause - what we do takes time to master and, while it may be common sense, not everyone has the experience we do. On the otherhand, it was probably quite useful to the small business owner (who, incidentally, probably doesn't commute, and therefore probably doesn't read Metro, but who's nit picking...).

Thank you for listening to my final rant (well, as a blogger anyway). This has been a lot of fun - I'd encourage more of you who read this but don't comment to get involved! and I'm still waiting on those contacts through Facebook and LinkedIn - don't make me feel like this...

Fiona

Dilbert on blogs

Have a look at the Daily Dilbert for 27th April for the wise one's advice on writing blogs. (you might have to go to 'read past strips'). Thanks to Graham Keen for sending this to me. Excellent!

Sue

PS Serious advice on ghost-writing blogs for other people: don't! 

Getting the balance right

So, next week is my first four day working week.  On Monday I start reading with kids in my local school through Volunteer Reading Help. 

As a serial workaholic, I have to put something in my diary that will actually stop me from working if I'm serious about getting a life. So every Monday morning from now on is school time and Monday afternoons are 'finally write my children's book' time.

Add to that the fact that I'm taking 4 holidays this year (compared with none last year) and am in the middle of a run of 9 weekends staying with friends/having friends to stay (which means NO work!), and I'm in danger of getting a life! Thanks to those who have cajoled me, reasoned with me, tried to scare the hell out of me, bullied me or persistently and patiently nagged me into getting a better balance. You know who you are.

I was interested to hear from Chapple about a global survey of recruitment consultants.  A quarter of consultants surveyed said work/life balance is now more important to job applicants than increased salary, and six out of ten said both are equally important.

If you want to do some thinking about whether you've got a healthy balance between work and not-work, try the wheel of life - used by life coaches the world over.  Here's a PDF version I found on Mary McNeil's Create a Space site.

You just look at each category on the wheel and rate how satisfied you are with each area of your life by giving it a score from 1 to 10. It soon shows up where the problem areas are, and then it's up to you whether you want to do something about them ..

Sue   

So many men....

Had a bit of laugh earlier this week when a delegate at a course said that she wanted to "reach out to 1,500 men.." - I think she meant that she had a mobile workforce that posed some communications problems, but it took us ages to get the conversation back on track after that.

And Sue and I just had quite a funny email exchange.  I got back from several days away to see a couple of books I've ordered from Amazon waiting for me along with a route sheet for a 400 k cycle ride I've entered.  So I said "Oh no, when do I get to read my books...?" and Sue said, "funny that, I've been waiting ages for my books from Amazon...".

Ten minutes later she forwards an email from Amazon saying her order has been finally despatched..."How spooky is that?" says Sue.

Not half as spooky as the book she's ordered... The Secrets of Speed Reading!!!!!!!!

Liam

I made it to Basel!

Amazingly I made it from Cranfield to Luton in time to get my flight to Basel - with seconds to spare.  Amagingly a journey that I could have cycled in 45 minutes took me the best part of two hours.  It's great living in one of the 8 largest economies in the world....

But what a week it's been so far.  Two days' Blackbelting with some very funny people (Sue and I are going to have to start paying for these things soon!) and on Monday chairing a one day conference at the CIPR in London.

I had to fill in a session because our speaker on crisis IC had a crisis of her own (hope she's better now) and thank God for post-it notes (anyone who's been on one of our courses is going to start wondering when we get some new exercises!)

I never thought I'd say this but the public sector - in the form of Westminster City Council and the tax man (AKA Russell Grossman) showed what good practice looks like...

And the CIPR seems to be coming alive again in the UK - I'm looking forward to their next Event on 22 May which looks at internal branding.  It's the day before the Melcrum Engagement Summit so if you're in town I hope to see a few old friends dropping in.

Liam

Latest Black Belt gang!

We’ve nearly finished the first module of our latest Black Belt at Cranfield.   Lots of laughs right from the start on this one – kicked off by the mix of interesting, entertaining and downright bizarre ‘secret talents’ people shared in their introductions.

To name but a few, we have an expert in nail clipping rabbits, someone who enters chickens into poultry shows, one person who wants to connect with 1500 men (greedy, I call it), a singer with an acapella group, a comedian who once played a prostitute on the TV, a bell ringer and a celebrity gossip expert.

I really should be keeping a list of memorable secret talents/previous jobs. Front of mind from previous courses is the person (hello Anna!) who won awards for her tuneful sneezes (and I can vouch for their tunefulness) and in a former life had to reject cucumbers that were too bendy to go onto supermarket shelves.

Any more intriguing interests/talents/former jobs anyone fancies sharing? It’s always interesting to hear what fellow IC-ers do when they’re off duty …

Sue

PS Stop press - the comedian that played the colourful role on TV ... she's our guest blogger for May. Stand by!

It's who you know... isn't it?

I've recently been sucked into the world of social networking, through Facebook and LinkedIn. For those of you unfamiliar with these, Facebook seems to be overrun by teenagers and is like the interactive version of Friends Reunited. It makes me feel old (and I only caught the last few months of the 70's). Very much at the social end of networking spectrum. At the other end, LinkedIn, in my opinion, is the more worthwhile for career / professional networking. I've already found Sue on there and it allows you to find former colleagues, post your career experience and maybe find a new job there. All very neat and I wish I'd thought of it...

The beauty of these sites, as far as I'm concerned, is the ability to have a look at who your contacts are connected with. You can request an introduction - much less awkward in cyberspace - and an easy way to widen your networked circle.

However, I always have something to rant about in my posts, so here it is:

There is too much cloak and dagger competition in IC. While our companies may be competing, we're not. I'm not asking you for trade secrets of the sector you're in or begging for insider trading tips. Linking in to what Sue said last week, maybe there is no short cut to hard graft. I agree there is no 'quick fix' but, on the other hand, someone, somewhere is bound to have done it before. Maybe not to the letter, but in all the companies, in all the world, your dilemma / project / change programme / niggle has been tackled before.

So, perhaps this really does prove "It's not what you know, but who you know". You can hide away in a room and work out how to solve your problem. Or you can post a question on here. Let other people share their knowledge, experience and wisdom to make your life easier. Perhaps even log onto LinkedIn and find me - I'll gladly share my (limited) contacts with you and we can create our own network of IC professionals.

I'm all for making things easier - that's the natural lazy person in me. But I suspect that all our lives could be made a little easier if people in IC talked to each other a bit more.

Fame at last

I'm rather excited that we're getting famous.  Publishers Melcrum issued a press release to promote the report Sue and I wrote on core competencies and...someone has used it.  In fact two people!  One is a blogger called Stuart Hall and the other is the PR Institute of Australia.  All I need is for it to appear on the front page of Road Cycling for my happiness and ego to be complete....

Liam

Picture Power

I've just been reading an article about elearning and the power of images on the training zone. It quotes research that shows people learn and remember things better if you use images, not just words.

Apparently Generation Y'ers prefer graphics to text. This piece from Jessica Morgan at California State University has a good summary of the Gen Y characteristics, and one of them is that a 'picture paints a thousand words'.

Sonya Hamlin's book How to Talk so People Listen makes the same point.  She says turning messages into visuals makes them clear and succinct, grabs people's attention, gives credibility (seeing is believing), makes them memorable, adds emotion and impact, simplifies complex facts and ideas and provides easy contrasts and comparisons. For three quick ways to make messages visual, she suggests:

1. Showing AND telling, to be clear and memorable
2. Showing THEN telling, to capture people's interest and give context
3. Showing and NOT telling - visuals can be enough by themselves

At Melcrum's US summit last year, Steve King from the Institute for the Future talked about how video is the next best thing, and warned that if we're not looking at how to use it already, we're behind the times. A WeeWorld survey of Generation Yers found You Tube was their number one regularly-used site.

Some interesting examples of using visuals in IC I've heard recently:

• Getting a cartoonist to capture key points being made in a workshop
• Painting the strategy at a conference as the CEO talks about it
• Painting a mural on a factory wall to show the stages of a change
• Giving people cameras to shoot video diaries to bring the brand to life

Years ago my Barclays team decided it would be fun to act out our team day action plan in a video instead of writing it down. The best was 'making sure we deliver the little things' - shown by Paula screaming her head off in supposed maternity delivery suite whilst Dr Richard reminded us of the action!

Anyone got other examples of things you've tried or seen?

Sue

The easy option?

I've been reading an article in my mum's Sainsbury's magazine called 'Can a book change your life?'  It has four people reviewing self-help books 'to see if they really work'. Each review followed a general pattern:

1. "I can't believe how blindingly obvious the content is. I already know I should be doing all that"
2. "But here are 101 reasons why all those things are too difficult. So I'm not doing them."
3. "Pretty useless book really. Makes sense, but where's the v.easy and miraculous solution that doesn't involve any effort on my part? Pah. Some hotshot self help guru THIS is."

I think it must be human nature or something. We do it in IC too. I reckon sometimes the reason people stand up at conferences and describe apparent miracles, as Fiona said last week, is because they know that's what we're secretly hoping to find. A hundred people looking up at you expectantly, waiting for you to deliver the Eureka moment. No pressure!

Yes, we trawl conferences, read case studies, listen to webinars looking for THE thing that's finally going to solve our problems. But it's the same old stuff about linking comms to the business agenda, setting objectives, knowing your audience, measuring, blah blah blah. We know all that. Where's the innovative new solution?  What's the BEST practice that we can just take back and copy?

We might 'know all that', but are we doing it?  Or do we decide, half the time, that there are 101 reasons why we CAN'T segment our audiences/ test things/measure results/ use techniques that get people to have a dialogue and learn for themselves instead of just sending things out and telling/selling as hard as we can?

Sometimes, you do either need a miracle or a ticket out of the organisation to somewhere else that appreciates you. A lot of other times, the 'stuff we know already' will work - not miraculously, and not without some huffing and puffing, a fair bit of patience and a sense of humour - but it will definitely make a difference.  For me, what the books/conferences/webinars do is

• remind you of what we already know
• inspire you to actually act on some of it when you see how well it's worked somewhere else
• give practical ideas or different perspectives about how other people have done it that make it easier to take the first step or give you food for thought.

Where do you get your ideas from? Anyone got any examples of things you learned from other people/organisations that have worked for you? (simple ones - although if you happen to have a miracle up your sleeve, Fiona's still waiting to hear that they actually exist ...)

Sue