Black Belt Dojo

Networking the old fashioned way?

I'm making a mid-year resolution. No more Heathrow Airport, where I change from easy-going-calm-person to irritable witch as soon as I step into the terminal. From now on, it's regional airports all the way. I've just flown from Birmingham International to Gothenburg in the tinest plane I've ever been in.  Absolutely no queuing and happy smiley staff. Am v.impressed.

Anyway, I digress. I'm here representing Melcrum at a best practice sharing event organised by an impressively proactive head of comms for a global corporate. For the next couple of days we'll be hearing case study presentations and taking part in ideas-sharing sessions, and I'll be reflecting on what we've heard at the end of each day. And tomorrow there's a boat trip to dinner on a very pretty-sounding island.

Social networking. I like it. Am worryingly addicted to it, in fact. Fast, convenient, fantastic for staying in touch.  But good (old-fashioned?!!) 'in person' networking is something else.

If you've worked in a big corporate with a fair-sized comms team take a look at where your former colleagues are working now. Spread far and wide across companies of all shapes, sizes and industries, I bet. Pick a date, find yourselves a room in someone's headquarters building, choose your topic and take along examples  and you're all set for a productive session of 'I'll show you mine if you show me yours.'  As well as probably a good old sociable time. I know this idea is already working well for ex-Vodafone and ex-Barclays folk. (We ex-ntlers stay in touch but our get togethers tend to be in restaurants and focus almost exclusively on 'what's on the dessert menu?' ...)

Anyone doing any networking of the more traditional kind and prepared to share any dos & don'ts?

Sue

PS This is the first time I've been to Sweden when it's sunny in the middle of the night and warm, as opposed to dark in the middle of the day and cold - but it just doesn't seem right to sleep when it's still light! Better start counting sheep ...

Finally done it....

Well, I finally did it - this morning at 0700 I entered Paris-Brest-Paris, a cycling trip in August.  It only happens once every four years and although I qualified last time I never entered because I was up to my eyeballs in the financial restructuring at Marconi.

The ride is a 1,200 cycling marathon from Paris to the far West of France and back again in 90 hours.  Although it sounds tough (well I like to make it sound really tough) anyone with a reasonable level of fitness and a hardened backside could probably do it.  They say it's 90% ridden between the ears - i.e it's about maintaining your motivation rather than being a super-hero..

But I was debating what I could do to maintain my motivation and I was thinking about getting sponsorship.  I was thinking of raising money either for I-Can or World Vision. If I could get lots of people offering me a few quid to finish I might be less tempted to give up when the going got tough...

So, anyone who knows me will be getting an invitation soon to sign up...suggestions on worthy causes most welcome.

Liam

Interesting measurement thought...

Just clearing down my email after a week on the road and came across a regular email from research company Forrester.

My eye was caught by a item on measuring the effectiveness of investment in IT which may resonate with IC people.

The gist was that once upon a time IT investment was driven by what the IT department saw was needed.  But now user departments have a sophisticated view of what they need from technology and so, increasingly what gets spent more closely reflects business needs.  Forrester's point was that this shift changes your whole approach to metrics.

Something here for IC people to muse upon.

Lots of us argue that without good metrics we'll struggle to convince business colleagues of the value of what we do.  The thought is that as we convince these business colleagues we'll be continually forced to up our measurement game in a virtuous circle.

Liam

At least he tried...

Did anyone else see the story in the Financial Times this week about the manager in Shell who copied a speech by General Patten into a motivational memo for his staff?  I've tried looking for an on-line link, but couldn't find one...

At first I laughed at the guy - he'd lifted the US General's eve of invasion speech to his troops from the Second World War.  Pattern, known as 'Blood n' Guts" had a gift for the aggressive idiom and this clearly matched the sentiment this engineering manager wanted to instill in his staff.  So he removed a few of the anti-German suggestions and, hey presto, he was ready to send his boys into battle with the cry "I despise cowards" ringing in their ears (or their Outlook in-boxes). (yep - that was one of the messages in the note).

Rather unsurprisingly, the note found it's way to the media...

Luckily I didn't blog about it right away because I've had a bit of change of heart about it in the last couple of days...

At least the bloke was trying.  OK, he's clearly ill-advised to lift from Patten, but it's a noble thing to be occasionally inspiring.  I bet there are millions of workers out there who are crying out to be inspired on occasion..

Liam

Good comedy is no joke

Let’s face it: all too often in Internal Communications we have to deal with messages that are just dry and boring. Being real professionals, however, we all have tricks up our sleeve to brighten up our communication. In this next bit, I’ll focus on just one of them, which I happen to have a personal interest in: the use of cartoons in IC.

Making your audience laugh is one of the best ways to get to them. But humour can be tricky… When do you use it? Is it always appropriate? Will it be appreciated? What if, for instance, your management has no sense of humour at all? I’m asking, because I don’t have a straight answer. I’m sure most of us know to lay off the jokes when attending a funeral (except when you’re John Cleese). But other than that I suppose appropriateness has to do more with a gut feeling and in-depth knowledge of your company culture. Being from Belgium, I suspect there’s a cultural aspect to it as well. Of course, NOTHING tops the British sense of humour, but I also think you might show a bit more restraint in a professional environment than we do (prove me wrong!).

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I believe comedy is a powerful tool that must be used wisely and yes, with a certain amount of restraint. You don’t want your company newsletter to look like a comic book: it will lose every inch of credibility. So when to use cartoons then? A cartoon added to a positive message is a no-brainer: it’s the reinforcement of a feel-good-moment – a smile on top of a smile. Just go for it. Conversely, a cartoon may be used to put a negative message into perspective BUT watch out, it could make matters even worse. It may be perceived as if the company doesn’t take this problem (or even its employees) seriously. Still, if it’s done right, it can help staff to see the relativity of some issues, which sometimes makes it easier to handle them. And of course, laughing relieves tension.

So do you use cartoons in your IC? How do people react to them, you think?

Ever afraid you'll get found out?

Hands up if you ever feel a fraud. Ever get that nagging feeling you're not as good as other people think you are? You've kind of got where you are by luck. You're not really an internal comms expert - half the time you make it up and hope for the best. You might look good in your company, but standards aren't high. Put you somewhere else and who knows ...

A very senior, extremely competent and highly-regarded friend told me recently that she often worries about getting 'found out' and daren't move companies in case she can't cut it anywhere else. It reminded me of a McKinsey consultant who told me everyone there thinks they're the ONE person HR let slip through the net. Screwed up the recruitment process. At any moment, they could be exposed as 'the dud' in McKinseys.

I found out today this has a name. It's called the Imposter Syndrome. Psychologists have researched it. People have written books about it. Apparently it most often affects successful women. Here's an article about it by imposterful writer Simran Bhargava.

I often see signs of it on Black Belt. People tell me they don't really know what they're doing and they're just waiting to be found out. They hold back from doing major presentations or projects in case someone notices. I see them in action on the course and end up trying to catch them in breaks, buttonhole them before they leave or email or call them afterwards to say 'Clearly NOT true! Please tell me you don't really think that about yourself!'

If this is you, what can you do about it? Here are some things I've found helpful in my imposterful moments:

1. Find yourself a champion. Championing is a coaching skill I learnt. It means standing up for people when they question their abilities. Not in an insincere or 'I'm just being nice to you because you're my friend' way. In a pointing out the reality and setting out people's strengths way. Liam is great at this. When I'm having a doubting Thomas moment he calls or emails and says 'let me tell you again why you're fantastic' and reels off a list.
2. Email a few close colleagues or friends with a list of questions. My first coach made me do this. I had to ask things like 'what three words would you use to describe me?' 'What do you most value about me?' 'What do you think I most underestimate about myself?' I felt a bit stupid doing it but I got some lovely things back and I've kept all of them.
3. One for five minutes at the end of a team meeting. Give everyone a piece of paper and get them to write their name on the top. Pass it to the next person, who writes something they most value about that team member, folds it over and passes it on, until the sheet has been around the whole team and gets back to the original person ... who unravels it and basks in a wave of compliments! My ntl one was stuck up above my phone until the day I left.
4. Keep emails or cards with thank yous or compliments people have sent you. I've got a big noticeboard above my desk (bearing in mind I work from home so the whole world doesn't see it!). It has photos of my favourite times in various jobs, coupled with leaving cards, cards from flowers, emails from leaders, project managers, team members, and yes, Black Belt people.

Some of those will feel horribly soft and fluffy for those rational Myers Briggs T types amongst you, but they're all just about holding up a mirror to say 'hang on, what's the reality here.'  Any other suggestions or observations welcome ...

Sue

 

More on principles

The recent post on the role of principles & integrity in internal comms prompted a fair bit of debate, so you might be interested to see Terry McKenzie's thoughts on the subject.

Terry heads up internal comms at Sun Microsystems and she's an amazing conference speaker - witty, pacey, frank, practical, thought-provoking. If she pops up on a conference programme near you, go see!

Sue

London 2012 - should we laugh or cry?

I have to smile at all the coverage about London's 2012 Olympic logo. The Metro has broken up all the shapes and made its own pictures out of them. I'm told some TV programme yesterday had viewers sending in their own logos.  According to the BBC, 17,000 people have signed an on line petition to get it scrapped.

Having an aversion to most things sport-related (although I've recently discovered the delights of hanging out with the village cricket team on the odd sunny Saturday afternoon with a glass of pimms in my hand) I can't get too worked up about the logo, but I do wonder about a different question.

On the one hand the powers that be are being hung out to try for throwing £400,000 at a logo everyone (allegedly) hates. Not helped, I have to say, by making the usual kind of lofty and vaguely ridiculous-sounding statements that often get trotted out with new brands and values (no wonder visions & values are such loaded terms, and have to agree with the guys at Open to Everyone that it doesn't exactly cover the comms & marketing industry in glory).

But on the other hand, everyone's talking about it. Loads of media coverage, blog posts and commentary galore, people going to the trouble of signing petitions and designing their own logos. Even total non-sporty-person me is actually writing about the Olympic games! Shock! Horror!

So is the whole 2012 thing instantly off to a horrendous start, with reputations damaged and an agency never about to work again ... or should we be celebrating the fact that people are getting involved and having conversations? Is no publicity bad publicity?

What do you think?

Sue

How do you handle idiots?

I was laughing with a friend the other week about the number of people in any given workplace who are just simply idiots?

We weren't talking about people who are perhaps a little less bright - we were sharing stories about the sort of muppet who wastes everyones time and energy with their postings on the bulletin-board/corporate blog.

Every IC person recognises the type (although they come in all shapes and sizes) - some wear patterened bow ties in lieu of personalities, others have extensive wardrobes of  black tee shirts (often preserved from Def Leppard’s glory days playing the Milton Keynes Bowl). 

Others speak in a strained and convoluted English (assuming that linguistic dexterity is in itself amusing) and often hail each other with ‘Greetings’ rather than a simple ‘hello’.  Some could take Lord of the Rings or the works of Terry Pratchett as their specialist subject on Mastermind…

Instead of making helpful postings they ask ‘clever’ questions about the price of sauté potatoes in the canteen or waste time reliving the humorous moments of last night’s team outing to the pub.  Others will see the bulletin board as an opportunity to play Perry Mason interrogating senior management about their personal adherance to corporate policy on one subject after another.

Often they are highly intelligent people who are very good at their jobs – that’s why their line managers never say anything about their incessant time-wasting (either that or their manager can't face talking to them more often than the annual performance review).

However they have the common characteristic of being harmless in the wild but a nightmare in captivitity and with access to communication technology.

But they are a dangerous hazard to IC managers.  Their regular contributions on-line fora make it easy to mistake them for the authentic voice of the organisation.  On top of that, defending their imaginary corporate right to free speech can be a costly and pointless exercise for internal communicators.  And to cap it all, like flashers in a park - when they're lurking,  no one else is going to come to play - making any discussion group a waste of time and an embarssment.

I wonder if there is any benchmark data on the typical proportion of an average workforce is made up of plonkers?  I hope Melcrum develop something soon...but in the meantime, all advice on keeping them off the blog/discussion board most welcome...

Liam

Introducing yet another Black Belt blogger

In her relentless hunt for fresh guest bloggers (“Braaaiiins!”), Sue must have considered me a tasty prey, as she just wouldn’t stop stalking inviting me in the last few months. Ah well, my fault for getting her addicted to my own blog when I attended the Black Belt seminar back in January, I guess.

I tried to convince her that I’d really love to help her out, but had no idea what to write about internal comms. Even though I’ve been in the IC business for over 8 years now, I don’t consider myself to be some kind of a communications guru. I don’t have any grand conceptual theories I work by. I generally tend go with my gut feeling in IC matters. So what could I ever tell you about internal comms which you didn’t already know?

But then Sue suggested another approach, and convinced me. So here I am, politely introducing myself. My name is Jeroen, which strangely appears to be an unpronounceable name for most English-speaking people. Just say ‘Yuh-roon’ and you’re close enough. Never mind my last name though, you’ll break a jaw. I work at the Group Communications department of the Belgian-based financial group KBC. But if you’ve kept an eye on this blog, you may already know I also like to dabble in the art of cartooning, and that will be my topic for this month: using cartoons in internal communications. So get your pencils out, I’ll be back next week!

Jeroen