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September 25, 2007

What's in a word?

Every organization has its own vocabulary: words that have taken on special meaning based on intentions and shared experiences.

“Quality,” for example, may be the concept that saved the company from ruin—or the superficial campaign that ate a lot of time and accomplished nothing.

Think of other words in common usage at your organization that are not only ingrained in people's consciousness, they're also shorthand for a whole lot of history and meaning—words like:

Innovation
Customer
Leadership
Growth
Integrity
Execution
Colleague

Here's the reason I bring this up: Once these words have thoroughly infiltrated the minds of your employees, you can't decide on a whim to change their meaning. Let's say, for example, that you work in an organization that is conservative, bureaucratic and risk-averse. You are trying to promote creativity and collaboration, so you decide to call your program “Innovation,” hoping that it will inspire people to think outside the box. But every time employees see the word “innovation,” they get anxious, because they associate it with behavior that gets people's hands slapped.

In other words, using the word that carries so much emotional baggage has the opposite effect than what you intended: Rather than engaging employees, it makes them want to run as fast as they can in the other direction.

Or, even in a less extreme example, the misuse of words may cause employees to think that something doesn't apply to them. If, for example, “customer service” is the name of a certain department, people in accounting naturally think that it's not their job. So introducing a new priority called “Customer Service” is going to cause confusion.

Can you, over time and with a lot of concentrated effort, ever change the meaning of a word in your organization? Sure, but it's an uphill battle. Before you volunteer to try to push that big boulder, consider whether using a different word might be faster, easier and smarter.

Posted by davisandco at 01:07 PM | Comments (1)

September 12, 2007

Complete is the enemy of clear

I’m working on a change communication program where we keep encountering the same obstacle: Because the client team is so enthusiastic about the initiatives they’re supporting, they want to communicate absolutely every detail every time to every audience.

As a result, although our first drafts are succinct and to the point, by the time the clients end up adding “all the stuff you left out,” e-mails are 1,200 words, web pages go on for five screens, PowerPoint presentations swell to 45 or 50 slides.

I’m not exaggerating. And this isn’t an isolated incident. All too often, well-intended people think it’s necessary to include all the facts, chronicle each step of the process, list every team member, and otherwise junk up a perfectly good message.

The outcome? You know: Employees delete without reading. People’s eyes glaze over during PowerPoint presentations. Nobody understands, much less remembers afterwards, what the communication is supposed to be about.

I needed help, so I did what any self-respecting Liberal Arts major would do: I turned to Voltaire. (You remember, the French Enlightenment writer and philosopher.) I was looking for the great quote, “Perfect is the enemy of good,” because it was close to conveying what I wanted to say: If you try to put everything in, you’ll get less than you need—and it won’t be effective.

But the quote didn’t quite hit the mark, so I adapted it: “Complete is the enemy of clear.”

And then, as I was scrolling through the extensive Voltaire quotation collection on Wikipedia , I found something even better: “The secret of being a bore is to tell everything.”

That captured the situation perfectly. Now I just have to find a diplomatic way to share it with the clients.

Posted by Alison Davis at 03:10 PM

September 05, 2007

What’s the mood of your middle managers?

If you’re working on introducing a new initiative or program, chances are good that you plan to rely on middle managers to communicate with their teams. That’s certainly a best practice—studies have consistently shown the importance of middle managers interpreting information—but it’s also risky.

Why? Because middle managers are increasingly overburdened, under-resourced and just plain cranky. My colleague Kristi Droppers (our resident expert on manager communication) just sent me an excellent USA Today article on the mood of middle managers. I recommend you not only read the article, but also use it as the basis for an analysis of your own middle managers.

According to USA Today writer Stephanie Armour, “middle-management jobs are fast falling out of favor as the brass ring loses its allure. Instead, the jobs are being seen as handcuffs that require long hours with scant reward—a onetime career goal now being shunned in large part by the newer generation of workers now entering the workforce.”

Here are some fascinating facts to back up this premise:

What’s the problem? Too much work and not enough recognition. Too little flexibility and too much pressure. And a sense that all that time spent in meetings—70% of which is considered unproductive—is a waste of time and talent.

Do you know how people in your company feel about being a manager? You need to make it a priority to find out—and use this information to make smart decisions about involving managers in your efforts.

Posted by Alison Davis at 02:12 PM