Cowbird - the next big thing? Selfishly hopefully not.

Over the Easter break been indulging in Cowbird, maybe the most interesting site I've found this year  Human stories from humans powered by benevolent technology.

At the moment the site has some great quality, and personally would not like it to be diluted too much, so maybe not good to mention. So my advice is to stick to Pinterest  to tell your story. Not really but had to try.

Just like I don't mention my fave place for coffee, or my holiday destination, so I can get a seat or a room.

It's a great spring board for your own creativity, some smart photography and stories that push the limits sometimes

Enjoy but don't tell too many of your friends

Employee engagement - A lesson from 100 year ago

You know how sometimes the most obvious things are looking you in the face? I've been looking for examples of employee engagement stories. The bad stuff, and I mean really bad, cringeworthy examples of ill conceived communications, the well intentioned ideas that backfired or the complete and utter miscalculation of some of the bosses, we have all probably come across at some point. You know exactly what I am talking about. And, of course, to get a bit of balance, the stories about the truly amazing stuff too.

And then I remembered..... how could I forget? 

I am a direct product of one of the greatest employee engagement stories of all time. The story that created one of the world's largest companies and boxes full of household name brands that have become intertwined with virtually everybody's life. If you having been thinking that employee engagment is about just being being a bit more  cuddly, or that it  might be a 'nice thing' to put a few bits of gym kit in the basement for your staff, o rmaybe put in a shower, I am here to tell you that you really don't know the half or it. 

I am a child of a village called Port Sunlight, created over 100 years ago to look after the workers for the Lever Brothers soap factory, by one of the greatest social philanthopists the commercial and industrial world has ever see. It is still there, in all its pristineness, just a twenty minute drive from the Pier Head in Liverpool. A magical, inspiring place of space and calm that sets the benchmark for how to treat and nuture your talent; your employees. 


Growing up in the village a bit like going through the wardrobe to Narnia It was just a perfect place to grow up but, more than that,  it raised my expectations and lifted my eyes to new horizons and, maybe most of all provided me along with the humanitarian lessons, that a staff’s welfare isn't just a nice thing to do and think about, but has a bottom line effect that can help create, and this is not to any degree hyperbole, an empire. The Unilever Group now includes the ultra brands of the likes of Lynx and Ben & Jerry’s and employs hundreds of thousands across the Globe. All because of palm oil and one man's vision of how to add value to it.

Today the village is still very much as it was. Although there are naturally more cars it still is remarkably peaceful. The wide vistas, pavements and green spaces are all still their, manicured and coiffured. The buildings, columns, walls and the numerous nods to a world history of architectural styles are devoid of any graffitti, anywhere. At the centre of the village, the hub holding the glorious spikes of its structure together, is the stunning war memorial, one of the most glorious and moving examples of the art form built anywhere.  

The outdoor swimming pool, heated to almost tropical delights by the factory, in which thousands of us Sunlight children learnt to swim, is now a garden centre. But pretty well everything else is still there as it was when it was built 120 years ago - although the slopes we rode our bikes up and down and the statues and fountains we climbed over, seem a lot smaller these days.

There are hundreds of stories that feature the founder, William Hesketh Lever and his wife Elizabeth, and what they did on a day-to-day basis for the welfare of their staff, but I think one story epitomises what they may have felt about what was the right thing to do.

Imagine it is the early 1900's. The factory has blossomed since its opening in 1887, and new demand means they are opening their first factory overseas in Brussels, so what does Lever do?

He shuts the factory and the village for a weekend. He takes 2000, yes that's 2000 of them, on a trip. That's pretty well everyone in the village. They are used to the paid for annual trips to indulge in the delights of Blackpool, the garden parties in their own home, the birthday presents for every child, often delivered by Elizabeth herself. This time, they are given an adventure few would ever dream of. The employees are all given colour coded tickets to board specially hired colour coded trains, (you could do that in those days), to take them to the English Channel, then by ferry to Ostend, where this small victorian army is collected up by more painted trains. On their arrival in Brussels that are wined and dined at a string of restaurants across the city and then given a tour in a fleet of 300 wagons and landaus before the opening ceremony that evening. The village's own 40 piece orchestra play to entertain them.

This was in 1900. Can you imagine challenges of this logistical feat? They did have the help of another famous company, that is still going strong, one Thomas Cook, but even so? Can you imagine asking your board to write that cheque? And why did he do it?

It was I believe pretty simple really - he realised that, 100 years before we ‘invented’ the concept of work life balance, 60 years before the UK’s welfare state and free health care, 100 years before the creation of the EU and maximum working week directives, that the single most important factor in creating a happy and willingly cooperative and productive workforce was to build within it a sense of belonging.  And he also was always mindful that you cannot build anything with people who do not care and that his own personal wealth arose from their labours.

This wasn't just a one off either. Change is not a single event. The list of events and goes on and on. I have scores of stories about the ideas and initiatives, of his innovation and sometimes down right cunning; how he introduced a maximum 36 week for  all female staff - this was in the 1890’s for heavens sake - free medical treatment in their own hospital, workers education programmes, it just goes on and on. Although undoubtedly driven by pure benevolence, he wasn’t just being Father Christmas, it was also had a pragmatic bottom in too. Something he was very, very aware of. 

He makes you feel a tad of ashamed with our miserly efforts, and IC managers worrying ourselves to death about whether the intranet works.

History is often a useful reference, but don't we we all need a 'root's story anyway?


Please feel to post your example of the good or bad internal communications or employee engagement   below,  anonymously if you like or give is us link to something, or just share.

30 Email tips for Innovation Amplification

Love it or curse it, email provides either the super-lubricating oil or the over boiled jam in the gears of any organisation, depending on the skill of the writers and the culture of the organisation. How the hell did we manage to communicate before Outlook, or put a man on the moon, or organise Live Aid? The fact is we did and, some would say, communicate a whole lot better in the process. Certainly we wasted far less time, and had less 'noise' to deal with.

Following are 30 tips which will reduce the time we all spend wrapped up in our mail mess and hopefully gives us more time for productive and creative thinking and... er...work:

Email tips

1. Use subject lines and titles that mean something, precisely. It gives people a clue about what they have to do with it. And helps retrieving information from the fossil record of their in-box at some late date.

2. Switch off email incoming warnings. There is nothing that important that can't wait an hour or so. If it is mission critical then use telephone! They still work.

3. If you really have to write a long email put a 'contents' at the top and tell people what’s in the rest. And what they need to do, if anything.If nothing then tell them that too.

4. Think! Do I have another way of distributing this information; Intranet, Blog, or bless us, by getting off our behinds and walking over to the individual or using the phone. Word of mouth - that works too.

5. One sentence paragraphs are fine, absolutely.

6. Use Headings.

7. Use Bullet points.

8. Put the main information you want to convey at the top of the message. And work down in descending importance - Mission critical to, why am I actually writing this at all?

9. Ask continually 'Why am I writing this at all'.

10. Write warmly, not like a robot, which is a bit jerky and boring.

11. Bring your personality to work.

12. Remember the Three Tee’s

Clarity - Brevity - Personality.

13. Make sure the links you may put in actually work.

14. Don’t attach whole documents, just paste the relevant bits into the message. A 20 page PDF that you have to read through just to get to the with one relevant paragraph is worse than useless?

15. Use the spill chacker.

16. Don’t use texteese unless it’s for a colleague (you actually know)

17. Don’t send ‘thank you’ replies.

18. Don’t abuse the priority buttons.

19. One subject per email… or find another way of doing it.

20. Always bear in mind that you are, in general, asking somebody to put your email on their to-do list and they may be up to their eyeballs in their own to-do’s. Virtually every email is a sales letter to get somebody to do something, even if it is just to read the damn thing.

21. Wait 5 hours before replying to emails that wrankle. DO NOT hit the reply button immediately. Email is the fastest way to unintentionally upset people known to man. 80% of communication is non-verbal and it is very easy not to see or appreciate the smile or irony behind the phrase somebody may think was very clever when they wrote it. And if they are being a bit tart,.......... then a short pause helps everyone to cool down a bit.

22. If you can’t reply fully immediately tell them when you can and then do it. Under promise over deliver.

23. Your colleague is a customer too. Teatr them as if they were your best customer.

24. 90% of emails are persuading somebody to do something.

25. 80 % of emails travel less than 50 meters. Why not get off your ...... and go to see them and have a chat. Guess what? That works too. Probably better and it certainly helps for the next time you need some help.

26. Emails are not 'buck passers' or 'insurance policies'.

27. Think, before you CC, do the c-ceed really, really need to see this.

28. Use CC only when absolutely necessary. If they aren’t the prime recipient why are you CC’ing them at all?

29. Use the Intranet more. If you can’t, then fix it quickly. Spending £50K on a great intranet will save at least in less than a month in productivity for any organisation of over 100 people - FACT!

30. Try using other technology. Twitter, SMS, anything that works; If you don't know how then get a technology coach

Communication is the fuel for innovation - it shouldn't be the brake

Better than Free

Better Than Free
[Translations: Chinese, French, Italian, Japanese]

I was directed to this blog by a friend of mine and i agree with her that this probably one of the modst inciteful posts I've ever read on the market, trends expectations and comunciations stickiness that we must use in internal and external audience engagement.

Kevin Kelly is just one astute dude. Wish I had written it.

The internet is a copy machine. At its most foundational level, it copies every action, every character, every thought we make while we ride upon it. In order to send a message from one corner of the internet to another, the protocols of communication demand that the whole message be copied along the way several times. IT companies make a lot of money selling equipment that facilitates this ceaseless copying. Every bit of data ever produced on any computer is copied somewhere. The digital economy is thus run on a river of copies. Unlike the mass-produced reproductions of the machine age, these copies are not just cheap, they are free.

Our digital communication network has been engineered so that copies flow with as little friction as possible. Indeed, copies flow so freely we could think of the internet as a super-distribution system, where once a copy is introduced it will continue to flow through the network forever, much like electricity in a superconductive wire. We see evidence of this in real life. Once anything that can be copied is brought into contact with internet, it will be copied, and those copies never leave. Even a dog knows you can't erase something once it's flowed on the internet.



This super-distribution system has become the foundation of our economy and wealth. The instant reduplication of data, ideas, and media underpins all the major economic sectors in our economy, particularly those involved with exports -- that is, those industries where the US has a competitive advantage. Our wealth sits upon a very large device that copies promiscuously and constantly.

Yet the previous round of wealth in this economy was built on selling precious copies, so the free flow of free copies tends to undermine the established order. If reproductions of our best efforts are free, how can we keep going? To put it simply, how does one make money selling free copies?

I have an answer. The simplest way I can put it is thus:

When copies are super abundant, they become worthless.
When copies are super abundant, stuff which can't be copied becomes scarce and valuable.

When copies are free, you need to sell things which can not be copied.

Well, what can't be copied?

There are a number of qualities that can't be copied. Consider "trust." Trust cannot be copied. You can't purchase it. Trust must be earned, over time. It cannot be downloaded. Or faked. Or counterfeited (at least for long). If everything else is equal, you'll always prefer to deal with someone you can trust. So trust is an intangible that has increasing value in a copy saturated world.

There are a number of other qualities similar to trust that are difficult to copy, and thus become valuable in this network economy. I think the best way to examine them is not from the eye of the producer, manufacturer, or creator, but from the eye of the user. We can start with a simple user question: why would we ever pay for anything that we could get for free? When anyone buys a version of something they could get for free, what are they purchasing?

From my study of the network economy I see roughly eight categories of intangible value that we buy when we pay for something that could be free.

In a real sense, these are eight things that are better than free. Eight uncopyable values. I call them "generatives." A generative value is a quality or attribute that must be generated, grown, cultivated, nurtured. A generative thing can not be copied, cloned, faked, replicated, counterfeited, or reproduced. It is generated uniquely, in place, over time. In the digital arena, generative qualities add value to free copies, and therefore are something that can be sold.

Eight Generatives Better Than Free

Immediacy -- Sooner or later you can find a free copy of whatever you want, but getting a copy delivered to your inbox the moment it is released -- or even better, produced -- by its creators is a generative asset. Many people go to movie theaters to see films on the opening night, where they will pay a hefty price to see a film that later will be available for free, or almost free, via rental or download. Hardcover books command a premium for their immediacy, disguised as a harder cover. First in line often commands an extra price for the same good. As a sellable quality, immediacy has many levels, including access to beta versions. Fans are brought into the generative process itself. Beta versions are often de-valued because they are incomplete, but they also possess generative qualities that can be sold. Immediacy is a relative term, which is why it is generative. It has to fit with the product and the audience. A blog has a different sense of time than a movie, or a car. But immediacy can be found in any media.

Personalization -- A generic version of a concert recording may be free, but if you want a copy that has been tweaked to sound perfect in your particular living room -- as if it were preformed in your room -- you may be willing to pay a lot. The free copy of a book can be custom edited by the publishers to reflect your own previous reading background. A free movie you buy may be cut to reflect the rating you desire (no violence, dirty language okay). Aspirin is free, but aspirin tailored to your DNA is very expensive. As many have noted, personalization requires an ongoing conversation between the creator and consumer, artist and fan, producer and user. It is deeply generative because it is iterative and time consuming. You can't copy the personalization that a relationship represents. Marketers call that "stickiness" because it means both sides of the relationship are stuck (invested) in this generative asset, and will be reluctant to switch and start over.

Interpretation -- As the old joke goes: software, free. The manual, $10,000. But it's no joke. A couple of high profile companies, like Red Hat, Apache, and others make their living doing exactly that. They provide paid support for free software. The copy of code, being mere bits, is free -- and becomes valuable to you only through the support and guidance. I suspect a lot of genetic information will go this route. Right now getting your copy of your DNA is very expensive, but soon it won't be. In fact, soon pharmaceutical companies will PAY you to get your genes sequence. So the copy of your sequence will be free, but the interpretation of what it means, what you can do about it, and how to use it -- the manual for your genes so to speak -- will be expensive.

Authenticity -- You might be able to grab a key software application for free, but even if you don't need a manual, you might like to be sure it is bug free, reliable, and warranted. You'll pay for authenticity. There are nearly an infinite number of variations of the Grateful Dead jams around; buying an authentic version from the band itself will ensure you get the one you wanted. Or that it was indeed actually performed by the Dead. Artists have dealt with this problem for a long time. Graphic reproductions such as photographs and lithographs often come with the artist's stamp of authenticity -- a signature -- to raise the price of the copy. Digital watermarks and other signature technology will not work as copy-protection schemes (copies are super-conducting liquids, remember?) but they can serve up the generative quality of authenticity for those who care.

Accessibility -- Ownership often sucks. You have to keep your things tidy, up-to-date, and in the case of digital material, backed up. And in this mobile world, you have to carry it along with you. Many people, me included, will be happy to have others tend our "possessions" by subscribing to them. We'll pay Acme Digital Warehouse to serve us any musical tune in the world, when and where we want it, as well as any movie, photo (ours or other photographers). Ditto for books and blogs. Acme backs everything up, pays the creators, and delivers us our desires. We can sip it from our phones, PDAs, laptops, big screens from where-ever. The fact that most of this material will be available free, if we want to tend it, back it up, keep adding to it, and organize it, will be less and less appealing as time goes on.

Embodiment -- At its core the digital copy is without a body. You can take a free copy of a work and throw it on a screen. But perhaps you'd like to see it in hi-res on a huge screen? Maybe in 3D? PDFs are fine, but sometimes it is delicious to have the same words printed on bright white cottony paper, bound in leather. Feels so good. What about dwelling in your favorite (free) game with 35 others in the same room? There is no end to greater embodiment. Sure, the hi-res of today -- which may draw ticket holders to a big theater -- may migrate to your home theater tomorrow, but there will always be new insanely great display technology that consumers won't have. Laser projection, holographic display, the holodeck itself! And nothing gets embodied as much as music in a live performance, with real bodies. The music is free; the bodily performance expensive. This formula is quickly becoming a common one for not only musicians, but even authors. The book is free; the bodily talk is expensive.

Patronage -- It is my belief that audiences WANT to pay creators. Fans like to reward artists, musicians, authors and the like with the tokens of their appreciation, because it allows them to connect. But they will only pay if it is very easy to do, a reasonable amount, and they feel certain the money will directly benefit the creators. Radiohead's recent high-profile experiment in letting fans pay them whatever they wished for a free copy is an excellent illustration of the power of patronage. The elusive, intangible connection that flows between appreciative fans and the artist is worth something. In Radiohead's case it was about $5 per download. There are many other examples of the audience paying simply because it feels good.

Findability -- Where as the previous generative qualities reside within creative digital works, findability is an asset that occurs at a higher level in the aggregate of many works. A zero price does not help direct attention to a work, and in fact may sometimes hinder it. But no matter what its price, a work has no value unless it is seen; unfound masterpieces are worthless. When there are millions of books, millions of songs, millions of films, millions of applications, millions of everything requesting our attention -- and most of it free -- being found is valuable.

The giant aggregators such as Amazon and Netflix make their living in part by helping the audience find works they love. They bring out the good news of the "long tail" phenomenon, which we all know, connects niche audiences with niche productions. But sadly, the long tail is only good news for the giant aggregators, and larger mid-level aggregators such as publishers, studios, and labels. The "long tail" is only lukewarm news to creators themselves. But since findability can really only happen at the systems level, creators need aggregators. This is why publishers, studios, and labels (PSL)will never disappear. They are not needed for distribution of the copies (the internet machine does that). Rather the PSL are needed for the distribution of the users' attention back to the works. From an ocean of possibilities the PSL find, nurture and refine the work of creators that they believe fans will connect with. Other intermediates such as critics and reviewers also channel attention. Fans rely on this multi-level apparatus of findability to discover the works of worth out of the zillions produced. There is money to be made (indirectly for the creatives) by finding talent. For many years the paper publication TV Guide made more money than all of the 3 major TV networks it "guided" combined. The magazine guided and pointed viewers to the good stuff on the tube that week. Stuff, it is worth noting, that was free to the viewers. There is little doubt that besides the mega-aggregators, in the world of the free many PDLs will make money selling findability -- in addition to the other generative qualities.

These eight qualities require a new skill set. Success in the free-copy world is not derived from the skills of distribution since the Great Copy Machine in the Sky takes care of that. Nor are legal skills surrounding Intellectual Property and Copyright very useful anymore. Nor are the skills of hoarding and scarcity. Rather, these new eight generatives demand an understanding of how abundance breeds a sharing mindset, how generosity is a business model, how vital it has become to cultivate and nurture qualities that can't be replicated with a click of the mouse.

In short, the money in this networked economy does not follow the path of the copies. Rather it follows the path of attention, and attention has its own circuits.

Careful readers will note one conspicuous absence so far. I have said nothing about advertising. Ads are widely regarded as the solution, almost the ONLY solution, to the paradox of the free. Most of the suggested solutions I've seen for overcoming the free involve some measure of advertising. I think ads are only one of the paths that attention takes, and in the long-run, they will only be part of the new ways money is made selling the free.

But that's another story.

Beneath the frothy layer of advertising, these eight generatives will supply the value to ubiquitous free copies, and make them worth advertising for. These generatives apply to all digital copies, but also to any kind of copy where the marginal cost of that copy approaches zero. (See my essay on Technology Wants to Be Free.) Even material industries are finding that the costs of duplication near zero, so they too will behave like digital copies. Maps just crossed that threshold. Genetics is about to. Gadgets and small appliances (like cell phones) are sliding that way. Pharmaceuticals are already there, but they don't want anyone to know. It costs nothing to make a pill. We pay for Authenticity and Immediacy in drugs. Someday we'll pay for Personalization.

Maintaining generatives is a lot harder than duplicating copies in a factory. There is still a lot to learn. A lot to figure out. Write to me if you do.

Posted on January 31, 2008 at 6:21 PM
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Blogging About

I’m having a great time right now, putting together the final chapter on my book, and the workshop that goes with it, which looks at communication strategies and tools for innovation amplification in an organisation. What I call Speed Duck Herding.

It has a little bit of everything. Basically, I walk readers through a four-step system for improving their internal communications generally but specifically for ideation and new knowledge. The same ideas work for any communication goal if I’m honest, but as it is supposedly about creating and promoting innovation I thought we best focus on that.

1. Research. This is the essential but sometimes tedious part of finding out what people probably already know or suspect and would normally pay a huge consultant's fee just to have a sanity check. What you get back is ' nobody in the warehouse has a clue what the sale departments are doing'. ( Sales don't know what they are doing anyway so no surprises there) That sort of stuff: we do introduce the concept of simplifying it using a Map of Engagement™ and lines in the sand.

2. Planning. The even more tedious part which lays out what we are going to do although it is basically is the same for each programme, just the copy and paste and change the name of the project. It is that generic. I can actually write it in a paragraph but most people seem to think that they need 50 pages of analysis and justification for any document to be worth anything. They don't feel as if they are getting their money's worth unless there are at least five appendixes. Common sense is as common as a politician’s apology.

3. Implementation. Now this is the fun part, where we talk about the development of the stories and beautiful questions, the ways to get them out there into the social software and all the social media, intranets and all the fun stuff that really floats my boat.

4. How are we doing then? The necessary stuff about measurement- to look at gaps, impact and essentially gives the bullets for the gun that gets the budget from the board for the next phase.

I’ve passed this new the chapter on to a few colleagues for their input. I had thought that the implementation and soclal media part would be of most interest, but I'm surprised at how hungry people are for information on the 1, 2 and 4 processes.

And, as usual with my writings, I'm learning as much as I am teaching. For example, one of my network was telling me about what is happening in their company were they have a policy where any employee can blog . . linked to their intranet, (clever people) .and about 30 % of them are bloggophiles which is a pretty remarkable take up. They use them to share information, swap ideas, get the word out about something, anything. From baby news, holiday and car sharing to asking and looking for specific solutions. All sorts of reasons.

But their bosses are using it in a different way I hadn’t heard of before. They are a multi site operation; have 200+ retail outlets and are using a variation of the 'management by walking about principle'- a really effective tool started in the 80’s and used with great effect by managers with imagination. Definitely so in this case, as rather than burning petrol, they are popping on with the odd comment, to employee's blog sites. They read the comments, and see what people are saying and add to the discussion. Just a brilliant use of social networking to get a real dialogue going throughout an organisation that bypasses the upward and sideways filters that so often get in the way of the real story.

The process has been gaining momentum on the back of just one story of it working in practice. One casual employee, a student who just worked a few hours a week, posted on their shop blog site a low level complaint that the stock was not being labeled clearly enough and the codes were all over the place. Wouldn’t it be easier to put a photograph of the content on the outside?

Operations director talked to their suppliers about labeling, and just asked the question, was it actually doable? And it was so. Now it is being phased in across their suppliers as part of prequalification. This saves them hours of frustration, clipboards, climbing up and down ladders to read code at 10 pt size from ten feet. It makes the retail managers jobs a whole lot easier more fun and requires less training. Its is so easy to misread a 12 figure code number so they are adding images to their ERP system and stock control and ordering system. You do it for your client on your web site, why not for your own colleagues? Of course the IT department had a kitten fit about bandwidth- No Surprises there then) Derrrr. . God knows how much money time and effort it saves them but importantly it shows how sometimes the obvious can be overlooked. The scary part is that this idea that would have been missed. The Saturday girl comes up with the beautiful answer.

Now I remember one CEO who used to complain to me that 'his door was always open' but no-one ever came through it and I was trying to explain, tactfully, that the door works the other way too. He has legs. His staff, no matter how affable he thinks he is are just plain scared. That is how it works. The beauty of blogging about is that with just a few minutes every day any manager get a feel for the mood, problems and general well being of her of his ecosystem. Identify problems and eliminate some of those worst practices that have a disproportionate effect on company morale. You can’t be everywhere but the benefit of employee blogging gives the opportunity to at least have the opportunity to absorb and understand in a way that zillions of reports and PowerPoint files and spreadsheets just cannot do. And most importantly to provide a continuous feedback and constant noise rather than an annual engagement survey which is basically a historic document as soon as you receive it. But you have to start somewhere.

Of course, it will only work if employees are allowed to blog in the first place . . . so it probably won’t catch on anytime soon.

But I’m going to have to add another bloody chapter now, just in case it does.

Lets kill marketing

The word 'Marketing' often gets a bad rap. It is seriously contaminated by intrusive telesales, junk mail, spam, and advertising that seems to fill every waking and sleeping second.

Internal marketing, which if IC professionals are really honest is what we really do, is even more tarnished and viewed with skepticism. Focus groups, quality circles or yet another management gimic - it is often difficult to separate out the genuine from the lip service however polished it may be. Marketing means Manipulation for most of the population. So why not reposition marketing in your head and everyone who comes into your space? Here are a few suggestions

It’s not marketing.
It’s STRATEGIC SHARING.

It’s not marketing.
It’s TRANSFERRING EMOTION.

It’s not marketing.
It’s TELLING A STORY.

It's not marketing.
It's BEING YOUR AUTHENTIC SELF

It’s not marketing.
It’s STICKING YOURSELF OUT THERE.

Facing the face to face communication challenge.

Employee engagement Part 2
Extract from Defrag your business

Change management's biggest challenge is inertia. I’m not telling you anything that isn’t blindingly obvious here. I can’t count the number of times I have wanted to run from a meeting room screaming “why don’t they get it?’ But we always have to remember it is a fair and human position. They haven’t heard or really probably listened to your story yet. Or, more likely we just haven’t told it well enough. We are all guilty of making assumptions, it is just part of the human condition for the majority of us and is heavily weighted by the simple fact that bad news has far more speed and penetration in transmission than good news. And it will come from lots of different directions. One of Steven Wright’s, my favourite comedian, questions is ‘What is the speed of dark?’ I can tell him that its it is twice the speed of light.

The key skill in any face to face communications in my opinion is in employing techniques to challenge, as gently as possible, the assumptions people have made.

This is hugely important in coaching the news deliverers, the steps in the cascade and vital in any internal communication or change mangement process.

Over the years my colleagues and I developed what we call our ‘Ass’ breaking questions. What do I mean?
Well, before we start though bear in mind that:

Some people make assumptions.
Some people speak without thinking.
Some people are full of BS.
Some people are nothing but talk.
Some people use invalidated, vague, baseless arguments to prove their points.

We have to use techniques to challenge them - to identify the hidden assumptions and avoid mindless acceptance.

You do this for two reasons:

1. YOU gain clarity on their motives, intentions and beliefs.

And probably more importantly

2. THEY gain an opportunity to restate, reform and rethink their ideas. In other words you give them an opportnity to find a dignified way out.


Here are seven examples of common situations and dialogues where you can use them, some are painfully obvious:

THEM: “I can’t do that!”
YOU: “Why not?” or “Says who?”

THEM: “I never thought I’d say this, but…”
YOU: “Why did you never think you’d say that?”

THEM: “Well, they say that…”
YOU: “Who’s ‘they’?”

THEM: “So, is this your full time job?”
YOU: “Yes. Why do you ask?”

THEM: “I’ve been calling you all week and I’d really like to get together to talk about a business opportunity!”
YOU: “What is your positive motivation for wanting to meet with me?”

THEM: “I heard/read it was terrible…”
YOU: “Who’d you hear that from?” or “Where’d you read that?”

THEM: “I dunno, this seems pretty expensive?”
YOU: “Compared to what?”

Here are a few others you may want to think about using; Some require a little more skill in presenting as you can imagine.

1. Is that always the case?
2. How do you measure that?
3. How did you arrive at that?
4. So?
5. Why do you believe that?
6. What do you plan to do with this feedback
7. Why?
8. What’s (really) bothering you?
9. What’s your point?
10. When did you decide this?
11. What would happen if you didn’t?
12. What’s your proof?
13. How do you know that’s true?
14. Where’s the evidence?
15. Are you sure that’s true?
16. What stops you??
17. Can you prove it?
18. Why did I receive this email?
19. Why do you think that happened?
20. Why is that so important to you?
21. Why was I put on this list?

All these questions, if the delivery is right:

Catches their attention.
Causes them to stop and think.
Causes them to clarify their remarks.
Causes the REAL motives and beliefs to surface.
Causes you to better understand where they’re coming from.

The delivery is all important. Framing these in anything that remotely suggests an aggressive or condescending manner will have the opposite effect.

The point is that we should always

Challenge irrational thoughts.
Challenge programmed knowledge.
Challenge people's positions.

It helps both parties. Vocalising an argument is the best way any individual can fully come to grips with almost any situation and reach that state of acceptance, the warm fuzzy feeling, which needs to precede their buy in to your idea.

Let me ask you, if you have any other 'Ass breakers' then please post them here. I’m running out of questions with one of my current clients. For them the sky is pink and the sea is made of custard and that is view the CEO and it filters across the whole of the organisation. If he is reading this listening he knows who he is. Sometimes, even with all these little skills and tricks and experience you just have to shake your head and walk into the sunset.

Copyright Rainmaker 2008