Zealise Blog

The Core of Effective Communication

Effective communication is a life-skill and certainly a core competency for any leader. Whether you are trying to change the culture of your organisation, transform its business entirely or simply battling to cope with the constant change that is an integral part of everyday business life, good communication skills are vital. If you cannot communicate effectively you don’t have a snowball in hell’s chance of succeeding.

Unfortunately, communication is a two way process. Thus it is not something you can do on your own. No matter how good at it you are, you depend on someone else. And the thing is, the other person does not feel exactly the way you do about the situation. And, organisationally at least, effective communication means getting someone else to feel the same way you do.

Why?

Survival, Sustainability & Employee Engagement

Would you say that employee engagement is essential for organisational survival?

Possibly not. After all, if reports and surveys are to be believed, very few organisations today have the levels of engagement that they can be proud of. And yet …

A report in the January 13 business section of the UK Sunday Times questioning the ability to revive the fortunes of the 129 year old institution that is Marks & Spencer, tells a sad story. It describes conversations with two named employees. The first apparently states, “The ready meal section is great and the dips are perfect for a dinner party.” However, when asked about the clothes (the historic foundation of the retailer’s business) she says, “I’ve never been upstairs. I’ve never asked a friend where her top is from and heard ‘M&S’. And you wouldn’t want to admit it if it was.”  Her friend agreed. “The last clothing I bought was a pair of bed socks for my dad. My mum is 50 – too young to be getting clothes from here.”

Wow! With comments like that from the company’s own employees, you really do have to worry for its future, don’t you?  But is it the employees’ fault or management’s?

When marines cry!

It seems unheard of to make a US marine cry – especially in public. So to achieve this through something that can only be described as poor customer service is really remarkable. Yet apparently Delta Airlines managed it.  

To their credit Delta in a prompt response have promised to “make it right.” However, how do you “make right” such personal humiliation?  

Of course Delta claims that, “This incident doesn’t reflect the care with which Delta people serve our customers every day,” and that, “We strive to exceed expectations with every customer.” That is likely true but, unfortunately, this incident happened. So, even if it is a lamentable one-off, it is evidence that there is a lack of organisational integrity and that such good intentions do not always translate into the appropriate action in the work place.  

Backward thinking. Don't you make the same mistake!

Yesterday Sainsbury announced the replacing of their “Customer Service and Colleague Director” with “HR Director.” Perhaps it is only to saving printing costs and make business cards easier to read, and it may be a case of a rose by any other name smelling as sweet, but somehow I could not help feeling that it was a retrograde step.

And that is not just because the term HR is more frequently being disparaged because it should be about people and not resources. The term “Customer Services and Colleague Director” may be a little unwieldy but at least it highlights the key fact that good customer service is dependent on people. As such it considerably more appropriate, progressive and forward thinking. Indeed, I cannot help asking myself if it partly explains Sainsbury’s resurgence in the industry and the company’s climb back towards the top spot after falling to fourth.    

As the picture shows, you cannot move from an idea to successful implementation without action. And action requires human intervention. Business is conducted through organisations to fulfil a defined purpose (a specific idea) which makes it impossible without people. Thus the idea of pulling colleagues together to provide customer service, while stating the obvious, seems far more appropriate and wide-reaching than “HR Director.”  

If Sainsbury’s now consider the term to be too clumsy perhaps they could have rather thought of something different: something more succinct that retained the progressive thinking that had gone into that other title. If it had been up to me I might have suggested something along the lines of “Communication Director.”

After all, effective human collaboration demands good communication, and by pooling PR, marketing, customer service and people all together under one umbrella called communications, you would be able to ensure the organisational integrity and teamwork that would flow from a single, cohesive corporate message that would ensure everyone sings from the same song sheet. Apart from anything else, it would help ensure that people are properly represented in the C-suite and embed employee voice and greater employee engagement.      

Sounds like a good idea to me. What do you think?

How popular are you?

How would you react to the headline, “Leadership is not a popularity contest”? Your immediate reaction would possibly be the same as mine: “Of course it isn’t!” The very concept seems ludicrous.

Yet why is that?

Stop and think about it for a moment. Have you, as a business owner or manager, perhaps been caught up in the conventional wisdom that buys into the philosophy that, “It’s tough at the top”? The problem with this is that you, albeit unconsciously, start to see yourself as a class apart – distinct and different from all your fellow employees. And that is not a healthy state of affairs, because it sabotages any sense of an organisational team, obliterates organisational integrity, and extinguishes employee engagement.

When you think about it a little more you will realise that it is the word “contest” that causes the problem, because it encourages the sense of challenge and competition. After all, the word “popular” comes from the Latin “popularis” which in turn comes from “populus” which is the root of the English word ‘people’ and is included in words like population. In reality you cannot be a leader without followers – without people – and therefore, by definition, a leader has to be popular.

In fact the concept of an unpopular leader is a complete oxymoron! Anyone in a position of ‘power’ or authority, but who isn’t liked or respected by the people over whom they have such influence, is not a true leader. At best they are empowered by rank.

Of course that doesn’t apply to you. It doesn’t, does it?

Perhaps not, but what are you doing to ensure that you have followers? It may not be a contest, but the more people you have following you – the more popular you are – the more effective you are as a leader. So, whether you like it or not, your leadership shows!
 

Being the Best

What kind of business manager or owner are you?

No doubt you want to be the best.

Of course – in this instance – being ‘the best’ does not mean being Number 1 or Top Dog. The key word here is actually ‘be’ - something you cannot avoid doing. ‘Best’ is simply a category of being. Thus it is something that anyone can aspire to – and attain. And you wouldn’t aspire to anything less, would you? You wouldn’t be who you are or where you are if you didn’t.

But how do you go about becoming the best?

Well, you cannot possibly go wrong if you adopt this approach. “As a business owner I have an obligation to create an environment where every person in our company grows as a human being and develops more of their potential so they can truly become all God meant them to become.” (Bob Proctor.)

You see, whether you are an owner or manager, you are responsible for other people and the quality of the work they produce. Consequently it seems to me to be a no-brainer that the more you enable people to grow and develop more of their full potential as human beings, the more successful they will be and consequently the more successful you will be. This is the ultimate win/win recipe.   

Of course the corollary is that if you don’t adopt this approach you will never achieve everything that is possible. Ironically, that means you will never fulfil your own potential either.

It is simple. To be the best you have to bring out the best of your people. But of course, you are already doing that. Aren’t you?

Managing change? Beware the preposition!

I have just returned from Johannesburg where I had the privilege and pleasure of attending and addressing the Association of Change Management Professionals (ACMP) Africa region conference. My thanks to Anna-lise, Marion and all the rest of the committee for all their hard work in putting on yet another successful conference, as well as their kindness, warmth and hospitality.  

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to attend all the sessions, but I certainly heard a number of worthwhile speakers and a lot of interesting ideas and I am grateful for the lessons learned. However, I remain concerned that there is still an over-arching theme that change is something that you do to people rather than with people.

Perhaps it is just me and I am being hyper-sensitive to something that is very dear to me, but so much of the discussion revolved around what you do to manage people more effectively to instigate and implement change.  Of course this is entirely understandable when, by definition, change management deals with the people side of change. Yet there is a danger in this too because, in reality, all management is about overseeing change effectively – particularly in this day and age when change is ubiquitous.

It is, of course, this all-pervasiveness of change that has made “change management” such an important term in the business lexicon. And there is nothing wrong with that. In fact it is essential. The issue is that its very nature means that you as a business leader have to rely more on people for your success. And that is something you cannot do if you persist with the old attitudes towards managing and continue to see people as a resource that will do what you tell them simply because you told them.

Unsurprisingly change is an integral part of change. And so you have to recognise that, when dealing with change, you also need to change the way you manage. After all, organisational change is nothing more than the behavioural change of a collective of individuals.  Thus you need to recognise that organisational change takes place one person at a time! Consequently you can only effect it when individuals embrace the need to change themselves and encourage their colleagues to do the same. When you work with them to do this you will be far more likely to succeed than if you persist with traditional “command and control” approaches and methods that try to impose change on people. Commanding may compel compliance, but it will not elicit employee engagement and effective change demands engagement.

So to deliver successful change in your organisation you need a more personal approach and to be very alert to what preposition you associate with, and attach to, it.

Sociable Business? Do you have a choice?

Do you keep coming across the terms social business or sociable business?

They certainly seem to be more and more frequent. But do you also find them slightly jarring?  

After all, business is ultimately about people providing a product or service to other people who want or need what you are offering. It is useful and it is beneficial to both parties. In my book that makes business a social service and thus, by definition, makes all business sociable.

Consequently, the better you deal with the various human interactions of your business, the better your business will perform. It’s hardly rocket science. So, whatever, the “proper” definition of the term sociable business or whatever it conjures up in your mind, you should never allow yourself to be sidetracked from this basic fundamental. It is the key to everything you do in your business and to its ultimate success – and yours.

When you understand this, the question “How sociable is my business?” takes on a whole new meaning and creates a whole new dynamic and sense of purpose. Just ask yourself, and see the difference it could make. 

A Different Perspective on Employment

Do you ever stop to think about why you are working?

Or who you are working for?

For most of us work is something we have to do. We have no choice. It is essential for our survival and so is unavoidable and inescapable.

But what about your employer – the person or organisation you work for? There perhaps you have more choice. So, if you have no choice about the need to work, but you do have a choice as to whom you work for, what does your place of work say about you? Or, to put it more directly, who do you really work for?

The fact is that each and every one of us ultimately works for ourselves. Irrespective of the name of the organisation, who you boss is, or who pays your wage, your work is how you spend a large part of your waking life. And it is your life and no-one else’s. So it is part of your self-expression and when you boil it down to the lowest level, there is no getting away from it: you are ultimately working for yourself.

Think about that for a moment. Then ask yourself how this changes your attitude to your work. After all, if you are not enjoying your work or maximising your personal potential, you are effectively wasting your life, aren’t you? And since to the best of our knowledge we only get one, and that one is pretty short, it seems a pity to waste it, doesn’t it?

So you see, it’s not about work-life balance – it’s about work-life integrity.

Now change hats. Think of yourself as the employer. How do you view your people? Do you see them as a “resource” and there to do only what you tell them? Or do you see them as people who, like you, are also trying to make the most of their short lives? If so, what are you doing to help them?

The good news is that, whatever you do, you will create greater work-life integrity for both your people and you. This will inevitably transform performance all round. And that makes it worth thinking about, doesn’t it?

An Essential Element for Employee Engagement

Are you really surprised?

Sometimes it seems that we research things where we should – certainly if we are worth our salt – already know the answers. Perhaps this is necessary to reassure us and give us the confidence that we are on the right road. Certainly the results of the latest global survey by Blessing White, highlighting trust in senior leadership as an important factor in employee engagement appear to fall into this category. After all, would you really expect people to be totally engaged if they felt the senior leaders were a bunch of ... (you fill in the blank!)

And certainly the conclusion that "Trust the boss" implies is that senior management “deliver engagement.” But is that the correct conclusion?

The “disconnect” showed only 36% of engaged employees trusted their line managers, compared with 75% percent of the total sample population. This is very surprising, not just because the percentage that trusted senior management remained almost constant for both groups at around 50%, but because traditionally HR have led you believe that dissatisfaction with one’s immediate manager is the primary cause of:

• Employee disengagement; and hence, ultimately,
• Employee turnover.

Yet here you have more engaged than disengaged people who distrust their line manager – and all while the overall trust in senior management shows insignificant difference. So clearly there is something here that warrants your deeper consideration.

The conclusion that trust in senior management is important may be valid, but do you think it warrants the degree of promotion that it’s given? After all, only 30% of people are engaged anyway. And even for those employees “under half trusted their senior leader!”

Makes you think, doesn’t it?

So if it is not the employee’s immediate manager that elicits engagement – and it clearly isn’t – and it isn’t trust in senior management – which may be a factor, but clearly not as significant as the report suggests, then what does?

Are you barking up the wrong tree in your endeavours to win “the talent war” or “the hearts and minds” of your employees? What if engagement is intrinsic? Certainly, that is what I have always believed. It is what the name Zealise is intended to convey and what the solutions we promote and champion offer you - the means to inspire your people to fulfil their own potential. Isn’t that the recipe for true engagement?