Author: Thomas Keefe (Page 5 of 7)

Please help Gerard Braud, a professional communicator who has suffered from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, but wishes to help others by communicating on-site. As he just stated to me when I called him at an emergency center, “We have a million people who cannot get the information they need. We need to do something ingenious here.”

Gerard is ready to plant himself where he can focus on crisis communication and information sharing in the areas where everyone else is busy dealing with the aftermath of the hurricane. We need to get him in, and so pass this information along so that someone helps him!

Gerard has two ways to be contacted now: 1) text message at 504-908-8188, and 2) temporary email (his regular site is down) at gb****@sp********.com

Here is what he wrote on the official blog of the International Association of Business Communicators (which you are encouraged to pass along to other bloggers):

(Aug. 30, 2005, 8:47 am)
HELP. Please, please, please help. This is Gerard Braud. I have evacuated safely from New Orleans, but now I am trying to return home to offer my services as a communicator. Specifically I an trying to get to Covington, Louisiana to help in St. Tammany Parish. The problem is, there is no way to get information to anyone in an official capacity who can get me in to help. I need an official police or emergency vehicle to get from Destin, Florida to Covington, Louisiana. Only official vehicles are allowed on the interstate.

As with most disasters, everyone is busy handling the crisis and no one is communicating. I have a broadcast camera and computer editing in my car. If I can get in, I can drive back out to places with power to get this information out to citizens who need it. ONE MILLION people are trying to get official information and there is NO SOURCE FOR IT. One Million people will be HOMELESS for week and don’t know it yet. I have the tools and the know how. I just need a way in.

If you know anyone, ANYONE, who can help, we need you desperately. I need someone at the Federal FEMA level who can cut through red tape and show interest in my offer to help lift some of the communications burden.

I am currently camped out at an Emergency Operations Center in Florida, where they are trying to help me facilitate my offer.

If you see this posting, please contact me at 504-908-8188 (text message) or gb****@sp********.com.

My e-mail is not working. I will look for your postings here.

Because the TV networks are showing the same footage over and over, and only a few dramatic interviews, my goal is to gather official information that I can bring back out to TV and Radio Stations, as well as websites, so other evacuations have real info. Official government websites are down because the servers are only based locally and there is no power–there are no phone lines.

We need to think outside the box. I need brain power and the networking capability of this global organization for us to do something BIG.

When I recently posted on the topic of ethics, I didn’t know that the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) was about to publish an article on the topic in its publication, Communication World (CW). Research findings included in the September-October CW article were even more surprising–and disturbing.

Last year, the IABC Research Foundation funded a study of ethics and communication, conducted by researchers at the University of Houston (Texas) School of Communications. The team was led by professor Shannon Bowen, who stated in the study proposal,

“Recent corporate scandals, such as Enron, have heightened the urgency of re-evaluating the ethics of business communication.”

Based on the response of 1,800 communicators to an online survey, the urgency is to actually teach communicators about ethical communication practices. Only 20 percent of the survey respondents had completed at least one course on ethics, and only one-third stated that their employer provided training or study opportunities in ethics! Not surprisingly, the CW article author, Gloria S. Walker, ABC, FRSA, summarizes that the majority of communicators “may not be well prepared to handle situations that arise in their day-to-day work.”

Walker then states that, in addition to the codes of ethics that many companies and associations like the IABC promote, communicators need guidance. She asks,

“Where can practitioners find this guidance? That is the issue we must begin to address.”

Begin to address? We should never have stopped addressing ethical behavior in schools and in associations like IABC. But before we blame society and our educational system for once again failing our youth, consider the possibility that our fellow practitioners are letting themselves–and their profession–down by not caring enough about the subject to determine their own solid moral compasses.

Wow, am I grateful that my family instilled basic ethical standards in me that later were reinforced in legal and ethics courses in journalism courses. Although I’ve made some dumb choices over the years, I’ve rarely had to ask someone else for guidance. I usually let my “conscience be my guide,” and that works pretty well. But it does help to have a coworker or other colleague who can help hold us accountable for our decisions.

Given the IABC Research Foundation survey results, that solution isn’t applicable to the majority of communicators today. That is very bad news.

A New York Times editorial today titled, “Measuring the Blogosphere,” provides recent estimates by Technorati, a Web site that indexes blogs, on the number of existing blogs. The statistics quoted in the editorial are enlightening, but even more so are the following two points:

But blogs are often just a way of making oneself appear on the Internet…

Every day the blogosphere captures a little more of the strange immediacy of the life that is passing before us.

I created this blog primarily to try this new communication channel. As the NY Times editorial points out, however, I also was motivated by the opportunity to become more visible on the Internet, and to journal some of the daily experiences that the Times refers to as “the strange immediacy of the life that is passing before us.”

An IABC colleague asked me earlier today how I find time to write these posts. The recent infrequency of new posts here probably indicates that I haven’t found much time. But I am also contributing to the IABC Cafe blog, and am actually trying to earn my pay in my day job.

I also try to write something that brings value to you as a reader. If I fail to do that, I fail to make this blog more than a modified “vanity page.” That would be blah, blah, blah!

Professional communicators stress the importance of sharing as much information as possible with employees–it makes them feel more engaged, empowered and builds organizational trust. Abbott Laboratories recently showed just how damaging the alternative can be.

On July 13, the North Chicago, Ill.-based health care products maker shed about 5 percent of its Lake County, Ill. workforce to boost profit margins that recently were below Wall Street expectations. Keep in mind that Abbott posted a 38 percent gain in second-quarter profits Wednesday, Wall Street wanted more.

How Abbott responded can be a case study for botched corporate communications. It’s time to revise Abbott’s portion of the book, “Good to Great,” with the subtitle, “Great to Stupid.” Here are observations made by two long-term Abbott employees–one who was there on “Black Wednesday,” and the other who returned from vacation just after.

I came to work that day and opened the outer door to enter my building. A man was walking toward me, carrying a box, so I held the door for him. He didn’t say anything to me, but I didn’t think much about it. Until I saw a lady behind him, also carrying a box. It became a parade of people, each carrying a box. It was then that I put two and two together, realizing why there was extra security in the parking lot.

These people–most of them long-term employees–were told to give up their badges, that they were terminated effective immediately, and that they could fill that one box with their personal items and leave!

The reactions of the people as they walked by me were different. Some looked resigned to it–I don’t know if that was how they felt inside. Others clearly had been crying, and looked scared.

Another Abbott employee who returned just after Black Wednesday, was incredulous when he heard about the lack of communication and compassion during the process. He spoke to many people in the days to follow, as colleagues continued to check on whether he was one of the survivors.

People said that the only thing they were told was, “Don’t go to any meetings and stay by the phone at your cube.” That was so that they could find you if you were on the list. One person I know, a single mom with twins, was called at home and told that she had to come in so that she could be terminated.

The managers who did the terminations had been told to read from a script and to not deviate from it. So the process was very cold. At 3 pm, managers called their remaining people together and told them it was over. One meeting turned into a grip session, and the manager said, ‘This isn’t your father’s Abbott.’

Obviously. That calculated process of moving quickly and providing scripted information is advice that appeals to legal-minded people. Don’t take a chance that you will say something that will let someone sue. Don’t get into emotional conflicts.

That is crap, if you care about your employees. The people who worked for decades at Abbott and then were escorted out like criminals, and the people who worked for decades at Abbott and watched their friends escorted out like criminals now have one common enemy: Abbott. The anger and betrayal they are feeling will not be glossed over by next quarter’s analyst reports. The rumor mill–always in fine form at Abbott–will be actively engaged; Abbott employees will not be. Don’t expect productivity to soar anytime soon at Abbott.

And how did Abbott’s stock price (the bottom-line reason for this heavy-handed event) fare afterward? Shares in Abbott dropped $2.06, or 4.1 percent, to close at $47.65 Wednesday on the New York Stock Exchange, one day after they closed at $49.99 to match a three-year high. That probably caused Abbott’s board and management to lose more sleep than did their handling of employee terminations.

Earlier today, an IABC colleague suggested that I explain what I do as an “IT communications analyst.” That explanation wasn’t relevant to the original blog entry on the IABC Cafe, but does give me something to write about here.

When I applied for the job, I thought that IT communications sounded interesting, and that it must be very specialized. I thought I was the only person in the world solely committed to IT communications. That misperception was clarified after I decided to renew my membership in the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC), following a few years as a lapsed member. Battle scars from a tough job market had convinced me that I needed to strengthen my professional network.

When I rejoined IABC and attended some Chicago Chapter events, I began to meet other people who were fully, or partially, engaged in supporting communications within IT departments at their respective firms. What a revelation!

I hope that they will contribute comments to this blog entry over time, so that you can hear several voices on the topic. We play different roles within the companies we serve. One parallel responsibility is that we plan, produce and measure the results of communications that improve information flows within IT departments, and between IT and other parts of the business.

What do we do? Here’s an example of the need, as expressed by a manager when I was interviewing for my current position:

IT people are good at designing and building systems. We’re just not very good at telling people about it. We are great at figuring out ways to generate and gather data, but we don’t know how to provide that data to the other parts of the business in a way that makes sense to them. I say that we are “data rich,” but “information poor.”

IT departments have been under scrutiny for several years now to show the “value” that they bring to the company. No one questioned spending millions of dollars on IT projects in the late 1990s because we were concerned about the world ending with Y2k, if we weren’t prepared. No one in IT really had to explain what the money was spent on, other than it prevented the Y2k bug from destroying the company.

But when the economy headed south in the first few years of this century, companies needed to tighten the corporate belt, and IT was put under the microscope. IT leaders soon realized the importance of being able to articulate their vision and accomplishments to their superiors and the corporate bean counters. Enter IT communicators.

In my case, I developed a strategic communication plan that tied IT initiatives to corporate strategies. I also helped to build a communication infrastructure at the office where I’m located, including a prototype IT Intranet, where employees can quickly find templates and guidelines to help them to communicate more efficiently and effectively.

I don’t have specific IT training or knowledge. That actually has come in handy, as I’ve stopped the spread of jargon and worked with people to explain things in language that non-geeks understand.

Recently, my CIO left the company. I provided strategic advice on how to communicate the event within the company, and how to prevent an escalation of internal anxiety. I worked with the company leadership to plan an all-employee meeting along with Q&As. This was accomplished between the time that I and my peers heard that the CIO was leaving (9 am) and when the all-employee meeting began (2:30 pm).

Not different from other communicators. I just get to see all of the cool, new toys.

I sent an email to Russell Grossman (IABC conference presenter and blogger) to check on him following the terrorist bombings in London. He agreed to let me post his reply to let everyone know that he is ok.

From: Russell Grossman
Sent: Friday, July 08, 2005 2:07 AM
To: Keefe, Tom
Subject: London Transport Emergency

Tom, thanks for the thought.

Was a very busy day as we brought our full emergency plan and comms into operation. We continued into the night. As people are so dependent on the Tube in London we had to provide help for thousands of staff stranded at work. Also for people on rota getting in etc.

But we have practised this a number of times in drills every 6 months since 9-11 – we’ve been expecting something like this to happen for a bit. Thankfully it’s not ‘dirty’ bombs. That’s the real worrier.

The 38 dead and many more injured is terrible, of course but every time this sort of thing happens more lingering is the fear of using the system period kicks in with many people.

My daughter was caught on a stuck tube yesterday but she’s OK thankfully but now more wary of using the system.

Russell

The pen or the sword? Choices, choices, choices.

At the same time that 1,300 communicators gathered last week at the Hilton Hotel in Washington, DC for the 2005 IABC International Convention, attendees at another conference nearby were targeting another topic: firepower.

Yes, I missed the opportunity to attend “Firepower 2005: Guns, Rockets, Missiles, Ammo,” just because I lean more toward the pen than the sword. I learned about the Firepower conference when my flight home was delayed a day. I stayed at a Doubletree hotel near the airport, and spotted the Firepower literature on a table. I nearly cried when I realized what I had missed!

– A birds-eye view of the Armed Forces strategic and ballistic Missile Defense programs
-An understanding of the role of weapons systems in future battlefield supremacy
-How the U.S. Armed Forces is evolving into a joint tactical fighting force
-Compelling case studies of some of DoD’s premiere weapons programs

Any program that includes sessions on both high-power electromagnetic radiators (nonlethal directed energy weapons) AND 155mm Howitzers has to be a party!

I was a little worried about the quote from Colin Powell, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that appeared on the cover of the conference brochure:

Our strategy to go after the Army is very, very simple. First we are going to cut it off, and then we’re going to kill it.

Hmm…which Army did he mean? Is he a former Navy guy?

Jeremy Pepper did a fine job summaring a speech by Hewlett-Packard CEO Mark Hurd, delivered on Wednesday to the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) members present at the 2005 IABC International Conference in Washington, DC. You can read Jeremy’s summary, “Listening To Hurd,” on the IABC blog.

I added the following additional information, along with other comments.

Hurd spent a little time discussing his irritation that Sarbanes-Oxley and other regulation have forced CEOs in publicly traded companies to communicate information of a “material nature” (i.e., that could affect a company’s stock price)–such as top staffing changes–to the stockholders and Wall Street analysts before company employees. That’s because if the information leaks from within the corporation, it could result in penalties and liability.

One solution that Hurd mentioned is that he immediately walks from his analyst conference call meetings to an employee broadcast to relay the same information to employees. When he meets with employees, Hurd prefers a flipchart over a PowerPoint presentation. Explaining his low-tech preference for flipcharts, Hurd said he wants to answer employees’ questions, rather than push his viewpoints and opinions at them. Showing a PowerPoint presentation can send the message that, “I don’t know your question, but here’s the answer,” he said.

He also stated that when he came to H-P, he pushed his staff to rely on themselves, rather than consultants. He told his senior staff, “I pay you to have an opinion.” Those staff members need to “be crisp” in their presentations. Rather than watching 50-60 slides, he prefers a 1-page summary supplemented by a staffer’s verbal presentation. “You tell me the story because then I learn how you think,” he said.

Hurd expects to see corporations continue to invest in the Asian market, because corporations have a great amount of available cash to spend. H-P, for example, has $16 billion in available cash, with no debt, he said. As corporations look to invest, they need to be mindful of trade imbalances, he added, specifically mentioning China.

During Hurd’s Q&A following his speech at the IABC Conference, I told him about the discussion underway regarding the role of CEO communication versus supervisor communication, and asked for his view on what works in his organization. This is a fairly accurate quote from him.

“I don’t think that a CEO can replace the relationship of employees and their front-line supervisors,” Hurd said. “But the CEO can provide a context relative to the whole company, to try to create clarity around the mission.”

He later provided a supporting comment while answering a separate question when he said, “When I promote, demote, recognize and reward people, I tell 30,000 people what I value.” That is the essence of the CEO’s influence.

IABC International Conference 2005

The 2005 International Conference of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) provided a forum for discussion of a critical issue for business: how to communicate effectively with employees.

The most rousing presentation of the IABC conference set off some of the most passionate discussions about effective employee communication. On Tuesday, TJ Larkin, a consultant and researcher in internal communications, discussed the topic, “Intranet, Paper or Face-to-Face: What Each Channel Does Best.”

More than a decade ago, Larkin caused a stir among corporations with his best-selling book, “Communicating Change: Winning Employee Support for New Business Goals.” Larkin’s book advocated focusing attention on employees’ direct supervisors to ensure that key messages would be supported by employees. He quoted research indicating that employees place the most trust in their direct supervisors when they want the “real facts.”

Based on discussions following Larkin’s latest presentation to the IABC, he is still causing a stir–and, according to two well-known and respected communications consultants, is still off-track.

Following Larkin’s IABC presentation, I posted an effusive blog entry that accurately reported the audience’s reaction to the presentation: a standing ovation. IABC Fellow Shel Holtz, ABC, posted his own detailed “deconstruction” of Larkin’s findings on his blog. In Shel’s deconstruction, he mentioned a point made against Larkin’s book premise by Angela Sinickas, ABC, a well-respected consultant, presenter and authority on the topic of communication measurement.

As luck would have it, today I had the opportunity to ask the opinion of a well-known CEO, Mark Hurd of Hewlett-Packard. Hurd answered questions following his speech upon receiving the IABC’s 2005 EXCEL Award, the highest award given by IABC to a non-member. Later, I ran into Angela at the airport, and she graciously provided some insight as well.

I’ll cover Hurd’s speech more thoroughly on the IABC Cafe Press Corps blog in coming days, but I want to relay his answer to the question of employee communication here.

I told Hurd about the discussion underway regarding the role of CEO communication versus supervisor communication, and asked for his view on what works in his organization. This is a fairly accurate quote from him.

“I don’t think that a CEO can replace the relationship of employees and their front-line supervisors,” Hurd said. “But the CEO can provide a context relative to the whole company, to try to create clarity around the mission.” He later provided a supporting comment while answering a separate question when he said, “When I promote, demote, recognize and reward people, I tell 30,000 people what I value.” That is the essence of the CEO’s influence.

When I asked Angela later at the airport about her opinion of Larkin’s work, she pointed out a couple of “fallacious arguments” in Larkin’s presentation. “He is a good speaker, who carries an audience along on a wave of sound bites,” she said. “They may sound good, but they may not be factual.”

Some points mentioned by Angela:

• Larkin mentioned that “he has never seen any studies correlating CEO communications with employee trust.” Angela has “seen many” that show a close correlation between CEO communication and employee trust in the CEO and organization.
• Angela gave an example of one manufacturing client where measurements showed that the most trusted individual by employees was the plant manager. In fact, many supervisors within that company were new. “They were an employee’s coworker the year before,” she said. “Just because they were promoted, now the employee would want to hear what they think? I don’t think so.”

It’s the age-old point, Angela added: You have to pick the right communication vehicle for the audience and the message.

IABC International Conference 2005

Is Tony Blair an underrated global leader? I felt like I received a well-deserved slap of reality this morning as I heard the perpective of a close Blair advisor. But after speaking later with some fellow communication professionals, I’m not so sure.

I certainly felt the shallowness of my US-centric political knowledge as I listened to an address by Lord Philip Gould, a leading European strategist in politics and public affairs, and long-time advisor to Prime Minister Blair. Gould addressed 1,500+ professional communicators at the 2005 International Conference of the International Association of Business Communicators.

The war in Iraq and global issues of debt relief and the environment get regular press coverage in the U.S. But I’ve read that coverage as an American, who sees the U.S. leading the charge, with other nations playing supportive roles. I know that Blair, at great political risk, has been a staunch supporter of the decision to overthrough the Iraqi dictatorial government. I haven’t followed his efforts regarding the environment and debt reduction for nations.

As Lord Gould presented his talk titled, “The Leadership Lessons of Tony Blair,” my appreciation of the prime minister increased. Gould stated that he was presenting lessons learned from Blair’s approach to leadership. Don’t ask me to list them all, because he talked too quickly. I really needed a PowerPoint slide! (Put that bat down, James Carville.)

I know that Lord Gould mentioned:

• Substance (Have something to say)
• Character (Make tough decisions and keep going through criticism)
• Flexibility (Don’t fight pointless battles–give-and-take as appropriate)

He also mentioned Strategy (Strategic Vision) and Purpose, but I don’t know whether they were lessons learned, or portions of the three earlier bullets. All of these leadership points were linked by Gould to examples of how Blair has positively impacted the government and people of Britain.

But I don’t know whether to believe Lord Gould’s perspective on leadership, or his assertion that Blair’s leadership style is the root of excitement brewing over his pending headship of the Group of Eight nations, set to meet next week in Britain.

Blair “fits comfortably into the world as it is, but is committed to changing it,” Gould said. A couple of IABC members seated at the table with me said afterward that Blair didn’t lead the charge on debt relief and the environment–he was reacting to a groundswell of support within the UK on those topics.

So just like the keynote speakers from the previous evening, Mary Matalin and James Carville, I was left with doubts as to which portions of the talk were fact, and which were spin.
IABC International Conference 2005