Black Belt Dojo

In any other language

   

Hi and welcome to my first blog! I'm Rosie Mowatt and I’ve been let loose on the Black Belt Dojo as July’s guest blogger – thanks, Sue, for a great learning opportunity!

Last month Jeffrey talked about the different routes to market for internal communications professionals …. And so by way of introduction, this is my story. I love languages – always have and studied French, German and Spanish at school, uni, college before getting my first job at an international bank in Switzerland and then I discovered I loved skiing, too (with chocolate a close third). When I left 12 years later (having added Italian and Swiss German to my language belt, along with far too many tales of diplomatic incidents to recount here), I had to start my career again in the UK. I didn’t realise at the time how often I would draw on that early experience – all about internal communication, I recognise now with hindsight!

So my love and technical training for translating languages to seek shared understanding is a different perspective that I bring to internal comms – and is invaluable on a daily basis when “translating” business jargon and industry speak. I started my first "proper” internal comms role in 1995 and I’ve never looked back (along the way I also discovered I love change – phew!). For the past year, I’ve headed up the UK internal communications team at RWE npower (great opportunity to use German!) and I’m based in Swindon, Wiltshire - please feel free to look me up on Linked In to fill in the gaps.

Reading Lee Smith’s blog post about the launch of “My BT” and comparing that to an article in the UK weekend press (Sunday Telegraph) about how Google and Intel are seeking ways to protect workers from email overload, it struck me (not for the first time!) how at odds we are in different organisations with our approach to the advent of social networking at work. And I believe that the gap will get ever wider between those companies that embrace new social networking techniques in their internal communications and have the spend to do so and the companies that will have to hold back because of any number of multiple choice reasons - culture, infrastructure, budget to name a few.

As an internal communicator, how does that make me feel? Do I see it becoming a deciding factor in any future career decisions – of course! Along with the more obvious factors, I think it’s certain that future recruits will want access to the same communication tools that they’ve been brought up with (and any other parent of teenagers, who are simultaneously texting, IM-ing, emailing and webcam-ing would tend to agree, I think!).

And just as in dealing with any truculent teenager, if you’ve had the good fortune (and believe me, it can be fun!), I just can’t see much success with “telling” employees that they can’t use that technology on “no email Fridays” and on Tuesday mornings because it’s “quiet time” … would love to hear from anyone at Intel on this – does it really work in practice?

Back to that article – based on findings from a Basex think tank report, 28% of an office worker’s day is spent dealing with email and other messages. Few would disagree that email can have an invasive impact on productivity but it’s never that “black or white” or about “good” or “bad” email – I have to assume that a proportion of the 28% is made up of “grey” transactional email, such as contract and document exchange, which would take days by snail mail. Don’t get me wrong, as someone bombarded on a daily basis and drowning in emails, I totally support all efforts to get the right balance in place, so we can appreciate email exchange as the major advance in communication it was and still is … after all, we didn’t even have email when I started in Switzerland – unimaginable to me now! What did we do? It’s certainly made me pause for thought and reach for the many guidelines on email etiquette I’ve compiled over the years – once again, it’s all about behaviour and having the right basics in place.

Looking forward to exchanging more ideas on the subject – but don’t email me on Tuesday mornings – I’ll be having my quiet time!

Rosie

From Russia with ... A Slight Delay

Greetings from Moscow, everyone!

My name is Jeffery McMillan and I will be your Black Belt Dojo guest blogger for the month of June. As you can see, things are off to a pretty late start — so before I continue here in the dojo it's fifty virtual push-ups from me.

There, that feels better.

I received my internal communications black belt from Liam and Sue back in March of this year. (Regular readers of this blog may recall some gossip about two guys who had to pay the jargon-busting penalty at the end of Module 2 with a speech on pole dancing and accompanying demonstration. Well, I am the one who kept his trousers on.)

An IC Assistant Manager in the Moscow Office of PwC Russia, I have actually been in internal communications for less than a year. There are few straight paths to internal communications, it seems. My own particular path has taken some odd turns at times — a Korean TV show, a Master's in Sociology at the Russian Peoples' Friendship University, a year of translating tax bulletins and editing audit reports — and so I am thrilled to have ended up here in IC.

Here's an example of why (and the reason my tenure as guest blogger is getting started a week late).

Last Monday the Global CEO of PwC flew in to Russia to visit key clients and partners in Moscow and also to attend the St Petersburg Economic Forum. Just before he arrived in the country, an hour was freed up for internal communications in his week-long itinerary. We were given 48 hours to arrange a film crew, set up a filming location, assemble a panel of 10-15 "regular employees" ready to speak confidently with our Global CEO on pre-approved topics in fluent English under bright lights in front of two cameras, and put together a short film to be shown at our upcoming all-staff meeting. Stressful? Yes. But once we got rolling it was really quite magical.

Call me starstruck, but I found it amazing to be given access to the Global CEO — a man at the head of an organisation employing 140,000 people in 149 countries — after only having  worked here in the firm for less than two years.

For me this underlined the importance that is placed on IC at PwC. It also brought home some of my favourite lessons from the Black Belt course. Liam mentioned that as communicators we do not really have any power in our organisations, but we do have influence. It is important to recognise the difference. The second lesson was an interesting technique that Liam recommended for building up that influence: schedule regular meetings with the top managers and be seen to be coming and going from their offices (regardless of whether the meetings have involved little more than small talk). The final lesson is that once you have established influence, you can only use it once. After that, people will figure out ways of getting around you.

This is beginning to sound a little abstract. Let me bring things back down to the mat with a few questions for you, colleagues. What are your thoughts on (and experiences of) the wielding of influence by internal communicators? Where should internal communications position itself in relation to management and staff? Where is the line between deciding how to word a policy and deciding what the policy should be? Have you ever ended up on the wrong side of that line?

Forgive me if these questions sound a bit naive. As I have said, I am quite new at this, and I am exactly half of my IC network here in Russia (so far). I am really looking forward to chatting with you and getting to know you in the month ahead.

Last word for today is a big hello to Liam, Sue and my fellow black belt trainees from February and March. For a short trip down memory lane, follow this link:

http://jefferymcmillan.com/blackbelt

Jeffery

The end is near...

Well, my month is almost up as the guest blogger here on the Black Belt Dojo and it’s been emotional. The battle to save our employee magazine comes to a head today; I have a meeting with our CEO at 3pm. Thanks to everyone who contacted me to offer help in building my case; your assistance has been invaluable. When I know the outcome, I will add a comment to this post updating you all.

I am on leave for three weeks from the end of the day today and for the first time in a long time, I really feel like I need this break. It has been a tough month in IC for easyJet. Do you ever get the feeling that you are dodging the crosshairs of the CEO and sometimes, you are just not quick enough to get out of the way?

If Sue and Liam ever ask you to be the guest blogger here, seize the chance with both hands. During this last month, I have received emails from IC professionals from around the world, been asked to feature in a magazine as a guest columnist and even been headhunted (sadly the job is well out of my league for now…but my head is twice its normal size).

If you want to stay in touch, or make initial contact feel free to give me a poke(!) or add me as a friend on Facebook using taffysteve@hotmail.com to find me.

In a Jerry Springer stylee, I will leave you with a final thought:

When asked what they want to be when they grow up, not many children will say “I want to work in Internal Communications”. Most of the communicators I know say that they ended up in the role ‘by accident’. However, there is a universal connection that seems to run through all IC professionals the world over; we care about what we do. We know the value we can add to an organisation and we know the difference effective communications can make. Now, if only we could get others to see it…

Take care of yourself…and each other.

Steve

Avoiding the pit of management speak (whilst knowing the company lexicon)

What happens to people in business today that makes them think that using the term “Singing from the same hymn sheet” is ever acceptable in any way?

Nothing, and I mean nothing gets my blood boiling quite like management speak. My colleagues at easyJet know this and for my ‘Secret Santa’ gift last Christmas, I was given a book by Graham Edmonds called ‘Bullshit Bingo’. The concept is simple enough; just take one of the bingo cards from the book into a meeting with you (so much more fun if you have a friend doing it too) and mark off any of the expressions that you hear during the meeting. Once you have a line of marked off squares, yell at top voice “Bingo!” whilst holding your card aloft. (I won’t be held responsible for any P45s issued as a result of playing.)

So what gems should you be looking out for? Take a look at this list (in no way exhaustive) and see which ones you hear in your daily working environment:

• The genie is out of the bottle
• Let’s talk about this offline/off piste
• A rising tide that lifts all boats
• Going forward
• Get our ducks in a line
• Thinking outside the box
• Working in silos
• Dovetailing
• Different levels of honesty (a personal favourite)
• Low hanging fruit
• Listen loudly

Needless to say, I could go on and I hope that some of you will share your favourites in the comments section.

Can we get by in business without being sucked in to the use of this dubious language? Of course we can. There is a chasm of difference between knowing the lexicon of our specific business to using these BS phrases to make ourselves sound so dreadfully important. Knowing how to use the former will help you to enhance the reputation of your communications department whilst the latter could be seen by some as a desperate need to look important whilst not achieving very much at all.

On that note, I am going to interface with my core business leaders to do a gap analysis on my knowledge base.

Steve

Look at it another way

This morning I showed the Black Belt group this video. It's actually an advertisement for an Argentinian political candidate, but it's also a thought-provoking example of how something can look entirely different, when viewed from two different perspectives.

I first learnt about it thanks to someone on the recent Change comms Masterclass. They had used it with their exec. team to help them see the importance of looking at things from the employee perspective, not assuming that their view of the world was shared by everyone else.

See what you think.

Sue

TLAs

That's three letter acronyms to you. We love them, don't we? I've got used to not being able to understand what people are talking about some of the time in my in-house line manager workshops.

It starts with the introductions  ("I'm Paul, and I'm the HORM for the CDT section of the AMR") and goes from there. By the time I've gone around a room of 20 people and they've all introduced themselves in similar terms, people are usually laughing at themselves a fair bit.  But back in the office, they wouldn't really notice it.

TLAs are often useful shorthand, although sometimes I raise my eyebrows at people's compulsion to use them at every conceivable opportunity, often when there's no need. And as someone who is often walking into a totally new company to run a workshop, I get a feel for what it must be like to be a new person. I could either spend the entire time asking questions, or accept that I won't know what people are talking about and let it go over my head.

Some TLAs are quite amusing. What are your favourites?  Back in my Royal Mail days our senior leadership team in Personnal (as HR was back in those days, you know!) was rather unfortunately called the Personnel Management Team.  At Barclays I remember having a fit of giggles in a meeting when I was talking through a comms plan and said "then we need to get the HORSes talking to the ARMs.' (Heads of Regional Sales, Area Retail Managers). 

Anyone want to offer any personal favourites?

Of course, in an entirely different category is text speak. Sort of TLAs ('two/three letter abbreviations', maybe?) of a totally different kind, but just as alien to those who don't speak it.   And loved by Generation Yers. (This post from Les Potter made me laugh - look at the number 1 reason why his students don't blog). Although help is at hand - I just found a website that actually translates text speak into plain English. Excellent.

Of course, the danger of TLAs is that they can cause blocks and misunderstandings. Take the case of one of my much-loved NTL team (yes Wendy, it's you!) who was convinced one of our employees had a bit of a crush on her because of the affectionate emails he kept sending.  Eventually she got around to asking in our team meeting, "LOL does stand for 'lots of love', doesn't it?'

lol! (take it whichever way you like - hey, it's Valentine's day!)

Sue

Throwing the baby out with the bathwater

It's quite a bug bear of mine that, as a profession, we often seem to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Activities are deemed good/bad, in/out - a bit like those lists you get in women's magazines about 'what's hot and what's not.'  Some examples would be:

• IN - strategy                         OUT - tactics
• IN - engagement                    OUT - raising awareness, giving
                                                     information
• IN - consultancy & coaching     OUT - crafting and drafting

Nothing against those things on the left. I'm all for them. But we have this nasty habit of  assuming that because one thing is 'in', the other thing has to be 'out. There is no in between. 

I think I'm a reasonably competent communicator (no corporate plugging intended) but I still find myself questioning whether the solutions I'm recommending are too 'tactical'. Or feeling guilty because I happen to like writing. Or wondering whether people will look down their noses at a conference if I'm not speaking about scenarios that could genuinely be termed examples of engagement.

Then I give myself a good slap and remind myself not to fall into the 'either/or, in/out' trap, because the things on BOTH sides are important.

• Tactics for the sake of tactics ('we have a newsletter because it's al ways been there') - thumbs down.  But strategy on its own goes nowhere. Strategy sets the direction and should drive - surprise - what tactics to use. Tactics are how strategy gets brought to life.
• Consultancy and coaching - yep, great, all for it. But crafting and drafting too - one of the most important skills valued by CEOs in Melcrum's recent research into what CEOs want from their internal comms people. Their companies have complex strategies, they want people to understand them, they need comms people with good messaging, crafting and drafting skills to make them simple, memorable and understandable.
• Engagement. Yes, if you want people to change attitudes and behaviours, you need to choose tactics from the top of the escalator which involve people. If you just need them to understand something, having a conversation with them will probably work fine. If you just need to raise awareness about something, telling them is OK. Honestly. And sometimes, 'just telling people' something - well - can be incredibly difficult and takes skill and persistence. Ask anyone who communicates with dispersed employee groups who hardly ever get together face to face, have no access to a computer and never stop anywhere for long enough to read anything.

Just wanted to put my two penneth in on this one.

Sue

PS I had to smile at the message that came up from istockphoto.com when I bought the baby photo:  "Purchase small child." !

 

Managing upwards

How well do you get on with your boss?

I had a familiar conversation a-la-'my-boss-is-a-PR-person-that-just-doesn't-get-IC-and-is-driving-me-nuts' with someone last week, hence the question.

I've always been tough on my bosses. It took me a very long time to realise I was being TOO tough. Fundamentally, I expected my managers to be better than me. To know everything I did and be able to do everything I could - only more, and bigger, and better. Given that I set impossible standards for myself, the standards I set for them were sky high, especially as most of them did have PR background and were never going to be IC experts - that's why they employed me.

It took me until my last in house job to realise just how impossible those standards were, and to stop fuming inwardly at the things managers didn't get about internal comms and start looking instead for the things they were good at and respecting them for those.  My last boss was phenomenally good at building relationships. When I asked him how he did it, he looked a bit perplexed because he did it naturally, but eventually said he looked for an outside work interest/topic he had in common with them and formed a bond that way.

It's amazing how much easier and less frustrating things got when I stopped stressing about what was missing and started looking at the good things. I learnt a lot more, and I developed a lot more respect and understanding for my boss. I also reflected about what I gained through having a manager without an IC background - a lot more autonomy, freedom and access to the senior team. And if there was learning I needed that I couldn't get from him, fine - I went and got it somewhere else.

Looking back, I really wish I'd learned the lesson earlier about not expecting my manager to be superman and looking for what I could value instead. I just thought I'd pass that one on, in case it saves someone else a few years of totally fruitless frustration. (I should point out that most of my managers have been really great people and I promise I haven't spent all my time inwardly moaning about them!)

Sue

PS I discovered today that the Swedish equivalent of pancake day is to eat something called Semla, a totally calorific doughy object filled with marzipan and absolutely laden with cream. Obviously I had to try one - adopt local cultures and all that, and anyway, it's a good work up to cutting out chocolate for lent - yes, really!!

One-of-those-days?

I am told-I-should-put-this-non-comms-related-escapade-on-the-blog-so...

Ever-had-one-of-those-days?...I-am-having-one-of-those-WEEKS!

Sunday-pm...en-route-to-Birmingham-airport-for-flight-to-Dublin-and-had-puncture-on-M6...Late-to-airport-late-to-Dublin-missed-having-dinner-with-Blackbelter-and-wondrous-blogger-Jeroen(the-odds-on-us-both-being-in-Dublin-on-the-same-day-at-the-same-time-were-probably-a-million-to-one-and-will-never-happen-again!).

So.Am-in-hotel-room-working,and-notice(don't-laugh-ok!)-I-have-piece-of-chocolate-stuck-under-space-bar-on-laptop...so-for-some-stupid-reason-think-it-would-be-a-good-idea-to-use-a-metal-nail-file-to-faff-about-under-keys-and-get-it-out...BAD-idea...manage-to-dislodge-contact-and-space-bar-will-no-longer-work...no-more-work-for-me.

Fortunately-was-in-Dublin-to-run-a-workshop-for-which-you-don't-need-spacebars...!

So.Yesterday-I-waste-a-day-sorting-out-new-tyre-and-buying-attachable-keyboard.(Nice-man-in-PC-world-attempts-to-mend-my-space-bar-by-sticking-contact-on-with-sellotape!!!Doesn't-quite-work!).Buy-wireless-keyboard-but-technical-abilities-are-such-that-can't-make-it-work.Go-back-and-buy-ordinary-wired-one-instead.Sorted.Tyre-on-car.Keyboard-for-laptop.Marvellous.

This-morning-set-off-for-Cranfield-to-Black-Belt-course.Half-way-up-M1-what-happens?ANOTHER-flat-tyre!Not-a-single-one-in-two-years-and-two-in-a-week!Stress-a-lot-but-tell-Liam-to-stretch-out-the-introduction-and-just-manage-to-walk-in-in-time-to-run-my-first-session...Then-come-out-in-break-to-get-laptop-and-keyboard-and-find...was-in-such-a-rush-to-get-out-of-car-that-have-slammed-boot-lid-on-USB-connection-for-new-keyboard!...Is-totally-mangled!-So-now-here-I-am-again-with-mangled-keyboard-and-laptop-with-no-spaces....(now-you-know-why-there-are-dashes-in-between-all-my-words!)

Aaaargh!(And-I-haven't-even-bored-you-with-the-taxi-driver-that-got-lost-on-way-to-Dublin-workshop,laptop-that-wouldn't-talk-to-projector,memory-stick-that-had-a-virus-on-it....)

Wonder-if-I-can-start-this-week-again...have-I-made-your-week-suddenly-feel-SO-much-better-than-you-thought-it-was..?!

Sue

Getting deep and meaningful

At this time of year I tend to ponder the meaning of life, the universe and everything.

In particular, as I look back on 2007 and ahead to 2008, I'll be asking myself whether I'm making enough of a difference. Having the chance to make a difference to people, whether it's IC folk, leaders or employees, is why I do what I do.  So I'll look how well I'm measuring up to my values and whether there are things I should change.

Stopping to remind myself what this is all about always refocuses me and makes me that bit better and sharper. During this year I've been jolted into taking stock a few times - both for inspirational reasons and for a sad one.

In February, my grandfather died. A few days later, my IT systems collapsed too. I lost everything on my laptop - documents, email, contacts, calendar - and then my web domain packed up. Sometimes life has a way of totally stopping you in your tracks. I bumbled about in quite a mess (practically and emotionally) for a while. I remember picking up my grandad's belongings from the nursing home and thinking to myself 'so this is what it comes to. What am I making of life while I have it?' I also thought about how I would remember him, and how I would want people people to remember me. 

On a more positive note ...

I've been inspired by other people to question myself. For one, I've had the pleasure of dining out with Bill Quirke twice this year. He is still the person I admire and respect most in this industry. I would love to be as insightful, and to have his skill at connecting with a room of people, making the complex simple and bringing concepts to life. Whenever I spend time with Bill I end up thinking "how can I be better?"

For another, I'm going to embarrass someone now, but Paul Diggins of TMobile, when you talked at dinner about why you do your job and the difference you want to make, I thought "you are SO in the right job. That's the level of passion I want to feel about mine, too. Do I?"

And finally, I refer you to Mr Les Potter. This year, I discovered his blog. Through it, I have come to understand how much of himself he puts into his work and how much he loves what he does.  Students of mass communication at Towson University, you have one amazing professor. He inspires the heck out of me.

So ...

...in between collapsing in a relieved heap as you switch off your work PC for the last time and starting it up again either reinvigorated or depressed in January, take a chance to take stock. It's easy to go through the motions. Work can turn into an endless round of meetings and churning stuff out, and sometimes you lose sight of why you're doing it in the first place. We spend so much of our lives working. Might as well make it meaningful for you, and for all those people in your organisations you connect with.

Have a really lovely festive break. See you in 2008.

Sue