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September 27, 2006

E-mail from a trusted source?

Today I received an e-mail from Scot Ullrich. And another from Gregory, from Mark and from someone billed as “Your.”

Since I don’t know any of these people, I deleted the e-mails without reading them. And that reminded me that a key criteria for whether e-mail users open/read their messages is the sender’s address. Obviously, when someone you know well sends you a message, you’re likely to read it. When someone you know only slightly sends you an e-mail, you might read it right away, might save it for later, or might never read it. And when you get an e-mail from an unknown source, the odds are high that the message will go unread.

None of this is news, but here’s the part that might surprise you: Employees in your company don’t necessarily know the names of executives and functional leaders. They probably know the CEO, and the name of the person leading their division or function, but after that, all those names become a blur.

This was demonstrated a couple of years ago, when a client of ours that was facing adversity, wanted to share financial information with employees. In an effort to retain high performing leaders, the company was offering financial incentives for those leaders to stay with the organization. Since this was material information, it had to be disclosed publicly, and company management wanted to do the right thing and communicate why the decision had been made, and what it meant to employees.

Here’s where good intentions went awry. The decision was made to send an e-mail from the SVP of Human Resources (let’s call him “Scot Ullrich”) to all employees. Only trouble was, about a third of employees deleted the message without reading it. Why? Some just had an itchy “delete” trigger finger, but a follow-up inquiry revealed that many other employees had no idea who Scot was. He didn’t have any visibility within the organization. So his name meant nothing to employees.

Please consider this as you’re planning your e-mail program. Remember that just because you and your colleagues in headquarters know all the leaders (because of what you do every day), employees simply don’t know the faces or the names. So think about whether the message sent is from a trusted (or even recognizable) sender.

Posted by Alison Davis at 05:43 PM

September 13, 2006

Is one-sided communication causing disengagement?

Ever have a relationship that was seriously unbalanced, in that it was all about the other person? For instance, I used to know a guy who was first a client, and then we became friends. He was smart, talented, fun to be with—but completely narcissistic.

We’d meet for lunch or dinner, and he’d talk about his career. His wife. His kids. His music collection, a book he’d read. A movie he’d seen. And on and on and on until my head would spin. (And not just because I kept ordering drinks; I was dizzy from the effort of trying to get a word in edgewise.)

I was reminded of this friend last week when I was asked to review six months worth of a company’s employee communication, in order to prepare for a planning session. Since I was looking at it all in one sitting, it was easy for me to see how one-sided the stuff was. Created from the point of view of management, it barely acknowledged that employees existed, much less honored their perspective. Nowhere could I glimpse even the notion that this communication was focused on the needs of the employee “customer.” It was all about the “me, me, me” of the corporation.

This made me feel tired and a little sad, the same way I used to feel after seeing my former friend. He seemed to like being with me, but he didn’t seem actually interested in me. After a while, I began to feel the whole reason he spent time with me was because I was a good audience. I was like Narcissus' pool—the mirror he gazed in to admire his own reflection.

This realization was depressing, and after a while, I drifted away from my friend. Here’s the hard question: If your communication is one-sided (top-down, not focused on the needs or concerns of employees), is it having the same kind of demoralizing effect on employees that my former friend did on me? If so, is communication causing employees to become disengaged?

Posted by Alison Davis at 09:14 AM