Do you have music playing while reading this? How is your choice of music affecting how you feel right now? Are you feeling relaxed and want to read something light? Are you moved to dance to the music? Do you read/work faster when you listen to music with a faster tempo? Are you someone who sings along to the music (and know every lyric)? Are songs with lyrics distracting when you need to do work (and you play only instrumentals during those times) or is your concentration the same with any type of music?
Think of an organization’s culture as a virtual soundtrack of the work environment. It’s always playing in the background in a continuous loop (whether you’re actively listening to it or not, whether you’re unconsciously mouthing the words or not, whether you’re stirred to action). It sends subliminal and direct messages to all those within hearing range (remember that hearing and listening are not the same). That’s why the culture you choose and nurture is so important to the ultimate success of your business.
All the questions I asked at the beginning have a counterpart in the work environment. Do your company’s oral communications as well as leadership behaviors set the tone that will yield the results you want? Are your employees energized and itching to get out of their seats and take action? Does your company’s performance go up when you introduce technology that is meant to ‘speed up’ productivity? Are you creating distractions that prevent people from doing their best for your company?
As with all business decisions, you have to start with the end in mind. What is the most important thing your business needs to accomplish? What needs to happen to make it so? What beliefs, actions, values, and traditions (culture) will help your company to achieve your goals? Is your culture working for you? If not, what needs to change?
Your company’s culture holds a lot of power. Listen to what it’s saying. If it’s getting your organization to dance, that's great. Otherwise, it may be time to switch to a different soundtrack so you can use your unique organizational culture to gain a competitive advantage.
Stephanie Leibowitz, MA, Anthropologist At Work
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
The Power of Storytelling
We all love stories. From the time we come into the world, people tell us stories. As we grow older, we read stories and we tell our own stories. Some stories are personal, others professional (bios), and sometimes we tell stories for others – business or volunteer for nonprofit).
Why are stories so powerful? Stories have power because they:
· Give voice to our dreams and hopes.
· Tap into our emotions.
· Express creative thought.
· Pass on knowledge that comes from experience.
· Create and nurture collective memory.
· Tell where we’ve been (legacy) and where we are going (envisioned future).
Why do we tell stories (purpose)? We tell stories to:
· Educate (transfer knowledge and traditions).
· Communicate/uphold social and cultural customs, social structure, expectations of behavior.
· Create and reinforce social and cultural bonds (among social, economic, other groups).
· Explain the world (belief systems).
· Entertain.
Sometimes a story has multiple purposes. These stories can have the greatest power because there are many, layered meanings that reinforce each other and give deeper value to the messages.
For societies that did not (and some surviving ones that still do not) have a written language, storytelling – what anthropologists refer to as oral tradition – was the only way to communicate information critical to basic survival and explain the world. There’s even specialization in the storytelling. Some stories were known and could be told by all the society’s elders. Then there were stories that were meant to convey special knowledge and were told by particular individuals in whom this special knowledge resided by virtue of their roles, such as a ritual/spiritual leader or healer.
Even though our society has written language and sophisticated technology to communicate with more people, more quickly and in different geographical places simultaneously, the purposes behind the stories remain the same. The stories are there to help us make sense of the world and our place in it, and to share it with those who, by necessity or invitation, are in our circle.
What are the more important things you need your stories to say about your company / organization?
Stephanie Leibowitz, MA, Anthropologist At Work
Why are stories so powerful? Stories have power because they:
· Give voice to our dreams and hopes.
· Tap into our emotions.
· Express creative thought.
· Pass on knowledge that comes from experience.
· Create and nurture collective memory.
· Tell where we’ve been (legacy) and where we are going (envisioned future).
Why do we tell stories (purpose)? We tell stories to:
· Educate (transfer knowledge and traditions).
· Communicate/uphold social and cultural customs, social structure, expectations of behavior.
· Create and reinforce social and cultural bonds (among social, economic, other groups).
· Explain the world (belief systems).
· Entertain.
Sometimes a story has multiple purposes. These stories can have the greatest power because there are many, layered meanings that reinforce each other and give deeper value to the messages.
For societies that did not (and some surviving ones that still do not) have a written language, storytelling – what anthropologists refer to as oral tradition – was the only way to communicate information critical to basic survival and explain the world. There’s even specialization in the storytelling. Some stories were known and could be told by all the society’s elders. Then there were stories that were meant to convey special knowledge and were told by particular individuals in whom this special knowledge resided by virtue of their roles, such as a ritual/spiritual leader or healer.
Even though our society has written language and sophisticated technology to communicate with more people, more quickly and in different geographical places simultaneously, the purposes behind the stories remain the same. The stories are there to help us make sense of the world and our place in it, and to share it with those who, by necessity or invitation, are in our circle.
What are the more important things you need your stories to say about your company / organization?
Stephanie Leibowitz, MA, Anthropologist At Work
Lost in Translation: Tips for Ensuring Your Audience Understands Your Message
When we travel to another country and do not know the local language or have only rudimentary foreign language skills, we expect that some of what we say may not be understood by the other party (the native speaker). We are prepared for potential misunderstandings and may even see these exchanges as a source of humorous anecdotes with which to amuse our friends, families, and colleagues upon our return to familiar ground (literally and figuratively).
However, it’s no laughing matter if your prospects/clients, colleagues and employees, strategic partners, or other important stakeholders and constituencies don’t fully understand or misunderstand what you want and need them to know. This is particularly critical in today’s multicultural work environments and global marketplace. A dictionary will give a word’s definition (and a Thesaurus will give you synonyms), but your ability to communicate successfully also depends on the nuances to word usage that can mean the difference between getting your point understood and creating a communication blunder with tangible negative consequences. We sometimes mistakenly assume that two parties who ‘speak the same language’ – that is both parties are native speakers of the same language, such as English – receive the same message when they hear/read the same word(s). Experience shows that if you ask your management team, staff, and clients to define familiar terms such as leadership, value, planning, strategic, communication, and performance, you will get responses that vary greatly, not in the literal sense, but in the interpretive sense. Context and perspective act as translation filters and these filters determine whether our intention has been communicated in addition to any facts.
Here are a few tips to ensure that your intended messages are received:
· Understand your audience’s perspective on the topic. This helps you identify what part of what you want to communicate will be perceived as most important / of interest, the level of detail you will be expected to provide, and what you want the recipient to do with the information (read and file for future reference vs. take specific action).
· Understand the cultures of your external audience’s organizations. This gives you clues about preferred communication styles as well as how they speak about their organizations. You want to mirror that.
· Know your audience’s preferred vehicle for receiving communication as well as what you have determined to be the most effective one (defined as more people understand your message, less or no need for repeat communication and clarifications).
· Clearly communicate what you mean when you use a specific term or phrase. For example, when you tell others that the goal is “effective communication” or “sound financial performance”, it is up to you to define what behaviors demonstrate this, quantitative and/or qualitative examples of what these look and sound like.
· Speak/write using simple words. Avoid jargon, abbreviations, and acronyms. The same acronyms/abbreviations can mean very different things to different groups. I’m sure you’ve conducted an internet search on an acronym only to find many results that are not the one you expected.
Remember to start by asking “Why is it important that I communicate this particular content to this specific audience?” When you communicate with purpose and clarity, your audience won’t need a translator.
Stephanie Leibowitz, MA, Anthropologist At Work
However, it’s no laughing matter if your prospects/clients, colleagues and employees, strategic partners, or other important stakeholders and constituencies don’t fully understand or misunderstand what you want and need them to know. This is particularly critical in today’s multicultural work environments and global marketplace. A dictionary will give a word’s definition (and a Thesaurus will give you synonyms), but your ability to communicate successfully also depends on the nuances to word usage that can mean the difference between getting your point understood and creating a communication blunder with tangible negative consequences. We sometimes mistakenly assume that two parties who ‘speak the same language’ – that is both parties are native speakers of the same language, such as English – receive the same message when they hear/read the same word(s). Experience shows that if you ask your management team, staff, and clients to define familiar terms such as leadership, value, planning, strategic, communication, and performance, you will get responses that vary greatly, not in the literal sense, but in the interpretive sense. Context and perspective act as translation filters and these filters determine whether our intention has been communicated in addition to any facts.
Here are a few tips to ensure that your intended messages are received:
· Understand your audience’s perspective on the topic. This helps you identify what part of what you want to communicate will be perceived as most important / of interest, the level of detail you will be expected to provide, and what you want the recipient to do with the information (read and file for future reference vs. take specific action).
· Understand the cultures of your external audience’s organizations. This gives you clues about preferred communication styles as well as how they speak about their organizations. You want to mirror that.
· Know your audience’s preferred vehicle for receiving communication as well as what you have determined to be the most effective one (defined as more people understand your message, less or no need for repeat communication and clarifications).
· Clearly communicate what you mean when you use a specific term or phrase. For example, when you tell others that the goal is “effective communication” or “sound financial performance”, it is up to you to define what behaviors demonstrate this, quantitative and/or qualitative examples of what these look and sound like.
· Speak/write using simple words. Avoid jargon, abbreviations, and acronyms. The same acronyms/abbreviations can mean very different things to different groups. I’m sure you’ve conducted an internet search on an acronym only to find many results that are not the one you expected.
Remember to start by asking “Why is it important that I communicate this particular content to this specific audience?” When you communicate with purpose and clarity, your audience won’t need a translator.
Stephanie Leibowitz, MA, Anthropologist At Work
Friday, June 5, 2009
The Speed of Communication: Is Faster Always Better?
The article, “Road Warrior” by Joshua Hammer in the June 2009 Smithsonian, describes the efforts of a French amateur archaeologist who is working to preserve a neglected 2,000-year old Roman highway in southern France. What does this have to do with communication and culture (in other words, why am I talking about it on my blog)?
Beyond the engineering expertise of their construction, the carefully planned and maintained Roman highways played a vital role in governance, the economy, socio-cultural exchange, and the spread of ideas. While the roads were developed to improve overland travel for troops and public couriers, the Roman highway system also helped speed the movement of goods, ideas, customs and languages among culturally diverse populations, fostering the incorporation of these new elements into the way of life. In those times, communication with the citizenry was challenging, to say the least. When a message had to be relayed across thousands of miles through a process that took months (or years depending on the distance) and depended on multiple communicators, the original party was, naturally, concerned about whether the message would be received, and how much of the message would be received as intended. When water cooler conversations (the real kind, not virtual) served as an important yet informal communication vehicle within companies, gossip and rumor spread more quickly (and probably with more enthusiasm) than accurate information. Fast forward to today’s high-speed communication world in which there is a tendency to equate speed with accuracy and to equate frequency of citation (via online or other outlets) of specific content with validity/authority. Some now place a greater value on being first to communicate something, rather than the accuracy of the content. They count on the ability to ‘correct’ miscommunication later, but as we all know, that’s a dangerous assumption that can have serious, negative consequences on a business’ reputation and ultimate performance.
Bottom line: Even though technology enables you to simultaneously send the same written (or spoken) words to multiple individuals, you still need to ask the essential question: Did you understand what I meant to tell you? It’s only through dialogue that you can measure your communication’s success.
What does your business do to ensure its messages are understood across the miles (down the hall, down the road, across the globe, or in virtual space)?
Stephanie Leibowitz, MA, Anthropologist At Work
Beyond the engineering expertise of their construction, the carefully planned and maintained Roman highways played a vital role in governance, the economy, socio-cultural exchange, and the spread of ideas. While the roads were developed to improve overland travel for troops and public couriers, the Roman highway system also helped speed the movement of goods, ideas, customs and languages among culturally diverse populations, fostering the incorporation of these new elements into the way of life. In those times, communication with the citizenry was challenging, to say the least. When a message had to be relayed across thousands of miles through a process that took months (or years depending on the distance) and depended on multiple communicators, the original party was, naturally, concerned about whether the message would be received, and how much of the message would be received as intended. When water cooler conversations (the real kind, not virtual) served as an important yet informal communication vehicle within companies, gossip and rumor spread more quickly (and probably with more enthusiasm) than accurate information. Fast forward to today’s high-speed communication world in which there is a tendency to equate speed with accuracy and to equate frequency of citation (via online or other outlets) of specific content with validity/authority. Some now place a greater value on being first to communicate something, rather than the accuracy of the content. They count on the ability to ‘correct’ miscommunication later, but as we all know, that’s a dangerous assumption that can have serious, negative consequences on a business’ reputation and ultimate performance.
Bottom line: Even though technology enables you to simultaneously send the same written (or spoken) words to multiple individuals, you still need to ask the essential question: Did you understand what I meant to tell you? It’s only through dialogue that you can measure your communication’s success.
What does your business do to ensure its messages are understood across the miles (down the hall, down the road, across the globe, or in virtual space)?
Stephanie Leibowitz, MA, Anthropologist At Work
Tapping the Power of Marketing Word Association
We’re all familiar with word association exercises. One person says a word and then the other party replies with the first word that enters her/his mind. The immediacy of the response is essential to what the exercise is meant to uncover ……an unconscious or unvoiced reaction, memory, or emotion. In marketing, you want customers and prospects to have an immediate, positive reaction (and emotion) when experiencing your brand (through any or all of the five senses) so that it creates a lasting positive experiential memory.
As part of a university course that I teach on Marketing and Communications, I conduct a variation of a word association exercise in the first session as a way to elicit communication styles of the students, learn about their perspectives on the subject, and set a reference point for class discussions. Each time I facilitate the exercise, I am struck by the observation that the students’ associated word responses not only reflect the underpinnings of the subject matter but also share the first letter of the word pair. The most common ‘word association’ responses have been as follows:
Marketing: memorable, message, momentum, mission, media, meaningful, mirror (or match), muscle (as in having substance), method (an approach), multicultural, measurement.
Communications: customized, culture, comprehension, context, conviction, consistency, completeness, channel, creative, clarity, compelling, content.
What words and/or images come to the minds of your customers and prospects when they see your company’s name or otherwise experience your brand? How do these responses match your intended word association/message? Send me your word associations.
Stephanie Leibowitz, MA, Anthropologist At Work
As part of a university course that I teach on Marketing and Communications, I conduct a variation of a word association exercise in the first session as a way to elicit communication styles of the students, learn about their perspectives on the subject, and set a reference point for class discussions. Each time I facilitate the exercise, I am struck by the observation that the students’ associated word responses not only reflect the underpinnings of the subject matter but also share the first letter of the word pair. The most common ‘word association’ responses have been as follows:
Marketing: memorable, message, momentum, mission, media, meaningful, mirror (or match), muscle (as in having substance), method (an approach), multicultural, measurement.
Communications: customized, culture, comprehension, context, conviction, consistency, completeness, channel, creative, clarity, compelling, content.
What words and/or images come to the minds of your customers and prospects when they see your company’s name or otherwise experience your brand? How do these responses match your intended word association/message? Send me your word associations.
Stephanie Leibowitz, MA, Anthropologist At Work
A Case of Mistaken Identity?
Have you ever seen a competitor’s print ad, brochure, or heard its salesperson pitch and wondered, “How can they say that, that’s my company’s line (image/positioning)”? When conversing with a prospect or someone in your social network, have you been asked “Aren’t you the people who [insert product or tag line]”? You respond “No, that’s our competitor. We……,” only to be the recipient of the follow-up slap “Oh, it’s hard to tell the difference, you seem so much alike.” After you recover your cool, do you just shrug it off and go back to business as usual? If you do, you’re missing a great opportunity to use this nugget to better differentiate your company.
While there have been a few cases of companies purposely using their branding to cause consumer confusion (or at least create uncertainty), cases of branding ‘mistaken identity’ are more often the result of companies operating in a default mode. With the shrinking global marketplace (and shrinking revenue pie), it’s up to you to build a powerful brand that is clear in its messages, intent and recognition by customers and prospects. It’s critical that your company’s brand, which includes its visual representation, messages, actions, needs to simultaneously accomplish two goals: convey what’s different about what your company can do for the customer, and communicate it consistently and clearly.
To protect its share of the market and grow, a company must be diligent about its brand and marketing strategies. It means that companies must actively engage in the systematic collection and analysis of data about its customers and prospects, competitors, and the socio-economic, political, and cultural environments in which it operates so that the brand remains relevant and valued.
What is your vote for companies with the best branding and why?
Stephanie Leibowitz, MA, Anthropologist At Work
While there have been a few cases of companies purposely using their branding to cause consumer confusion (or at least create uncertainty), cases of branding ‘mistaken identity’ are more often the result of companies operating in a default mode. With the shrinking global marketplace (and shrinking revenue pie), it’s up to you to build a powerful brand that is clear in its messages, intent and recognition by customers and prospects. It’s critical that your company’s brand, which includes its visual representation, messages, actions, needs to simultaneously accomplish two goals: convey what’s different about what your company can do for the customer, and communicate it consistently and clearly.
To protect its share of the market and grow, a company must be diligent about its brand and marketing strategies. It means that companies must actively engage in the systematic collection and analysis of data about its customers and prospects, competitors, and the socio-economic, political, and cultural environments in which it operates so that the brand remains relevant and valued.
What is your vote for companies with the best branding and why?
Stephanie Leibowitz, MA, Anthropologist At Work
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Flex Your Communication Muscles
When it comes to our physical bodies, muscles atrophy when they are not used. Even relatively short periods of lessened muscle activity and movement, as when a leg is immobilized after a break, can affect muscle tone and length, flexibility, agility, and stamina. That’s why physical therapy, which helps muscle stretch, strengthen, and regain ‘muscle memory’ and helps joints regain/retain range of motion, is so often an adjunct to treatment for muscular–skeletal conditions.
This metaphor is useful for business. Unless an organization regularly engages in active, informative communication with employees and customers – in other words, flexes its communication muscles -- it will lose its flexibility to adjust to unpredictable conditions, the agility to bounce back from otherwise temporary setbacks, long-term stamina to retain and/or grow market share, and the ability to effectively use its collective ‘memory’ (aka collective business knowledge and history) as a foundation for moving forward.
In realistic terms, how important is it to flex your communication muscles?
Open communication, open minds, open for business. Some of the best ideas for solving problems or leapfrogging the competition come from employees. The best solutions derive from exchanging and sharing ideas. It’s the spark that ignites innovation and prevents the company from becoming stagnant.
More is more. While the economy may lead you to tighten the purse strings and voice “less is more”, when it comes to communication, the opposite is true. The more you communicate with employees and customers/prospects, the more market intelligence you have to run your business. Employees are your front line and they know what it takes, on a daily basis to deliver on your brand promise. Ask customers about their expectations and their satisfaction with your service/product and you’ll receive valuable information that you can use to redesign your service/product, gain referrals, or expand into new market niches. And, with today’s technology, communicating more doesn’t have to cost more.
Role model the communication behavior you want for your corporate culture. Leaders who primarily (or solely) directly communicate with the management team should not expect employees to be forthcoming in their communications. The actions of leadership (i.e., corporate behavior) send more powerful messages than any employee handbook or memo. If you want your employees to communicate meaningful information on a regular basis with management (including you) and customers, then you have to show them how it’s done well and why it’s essential to the business’ long-term success.
So, flex your communication muscles and gain a competitive advantage. No heavy lifting required.
By Stephanie Leibowitz, MA - Anthropologist At Work
This metaphor is useful for business. Unless an organization regularly engages in active, informative communication with employees and customers – in other words, flexes its communication muscles -- it will lose its flexibility to adjust to unpredictable conditions, the agility to bounce back from otherwise temporary setbacks, long-term stamina to retain and/or grow market share, and the ability to effectively use its collective ‘memory’ (aka collective business knowledge and history) as a foundation for moving forward.
In realistic terms, how important is it to flex your communication muscles?
Open communication, open minds, open for business. Some of the best ideas for solving problems or leapfrogging the competition come from employees. The best solutions derive from exchanging and sharing ideas. It’s the spark that ignites innovation and prevents the company from becoming stagnant.
More is more. While the economy may lead you to tighten the purse strings and voice “less is more”, when it comes to communication, the opposite is true. The more you communicate with employees and customers/prospects, the more market intelligence you have to run your business. Employees are your front line and they know what it takes, on a daily basis to deliver on your brand promise. Ask customers about their expectations and their satisfaction with your service/product and you’ll receive valuable information that you can use to redesign your service/product, gain referrals, or expand into new market niches. And, with today’s technology, communicating more doesn’t have to cost more.
Role model the communication behavior you want for your corporate culture. Leaders who primarily (or solely) directly communicate with the management team should not expect employees to be forthcoming in their communications. The actions of leadership (i.e., corporate behavior) send more powerful messages than any employee handbook or memo. If you want your employees to communicate meaningful information on a regular basis with management (including you) and customers, then you have to show them how it’s done well and why it’s essential to the business’ long-term success.
So, flex your communication muscles and gain a competitive advantage. No heavy lifting required.
By Stephanie Leibowitz, MA - Anthropologist At Work
Friday, April 17, 2009
Before You Say "I Do", Assess Your Compatability Quotient
Cultural compatibility can make or break the ultimate success of a merger or acquisition. If you’re contemplating (or in the midst of) such a transaction, then you know how daunting a process it is. There’s so much on the line. The financial investment and commitments. Your company’s reputation. Management changes. Customer and supplier reactions. Employee implications. As you sift through the analyses and recommendations of the accountants, attorneys, and possibly independent business brokers, you also need to pay attention to the compatibility quotient. There’s financial due diligence, and then there’s “cultural due diligence”.
There are very real costs associated with mergers between businesses that are not a good cultural fit. The combined business can fail as a result of decision-making based on false assumptions, contradictory practices or policies, or the build up of internal defensive walls that block the cooperation and free flow of information vital to success. You need to stay on top of your game during the transitional period, which can extend over a couple of years for larger organizations. Know that your competition will use the situation as an opportunity to woo away existing clients and spook your prospects. It’s a strategy from an old playbook. Propose that another company’s reorganization will be a distraction and therefore that company won’t deliver attentive, quality service. Customer defection is a real possible consequence if you can’t demonstrate a truly unified front, cohesiveness in market behaviors and consistency in operations. With a low cultural quotient, you run the risk of spending too much time, energy and resources on fitting a square peg into a round hole and not enough time on retaining existing customers and getting new ones. Great differences in business culture will demoralize and sap motivation from your best employees, spread negativity and self-defeating beliefs throughout the organization, and ultimately leave the resulting business without sound financial footing and without a strong brand identity.
Even when companies have similar business cultures, there are still some differences that you will need to address. The keys here are mutual respect for each other’s culture and identification of common ground.
Companies that want to avoid such pitfalls need to enlist an independent party to conduct a cultural assessment, and then create and implement a plan for incorporating the assessment’s findings into a well-orchestrated integration plan (or a decision not to proceed).
A cultural assessment and integration plan should take into account, at a minimum, the following organizational culture variables:
Behaviors - the degree of informality/formality, decision-making maps, processes and hierarchies, and the definition (and requirements) of work (job descriptions, employee qualifications).
Communication - style (formal/informal), degree of openness, language, frequency and vehicles for information sharing.
Beliefs - common vision and goals, beliefs about what success is, and standards of ethical and acceptable behavior.
Business structure - the organization of work through teams and individual contributors, department/division responsibilities, accountabilities and interactions;
Business performance - performance criteria and measures, employee performance management programs, and compensation (including incentives and bonus plans).
If you’ve already inked the deal and find your business is exhibiting signs of ‘culture clash’, there are steps you can take to minimize these, keep the organization focused on the business plan, and lay the foundation for the 3 C’s to merger and acquisition success – communication, collaboration, and community.
Stephanie Leibowitz, MA, Anthropologist At Work
There are very real costs associated with mergers between businesses that are not a good cultural fit. The combined business can fail as a result of decision-making based on false assumptions, contradictory practices or policies, or the build up of internal defensive walls that block the cooperation and free flow of information vital to success. You need to stay on top of your game during the transitional period, which can extend over a couple of years for larger organizations. Know that your competition will use the situation as an opportunity to woo away existing clients and spook your prospects. It’s a strategy from an old playbook. Propose that another company’s reorganization will be a distraction and therefore that company won’t deliver attentive, quality service. Customer defection is a real possible consequence if you can’t demonstrate a truly unified front, cohesiveness in market behaviors and consistency in operations. With a low cultural quotient, you run the risk of spending too much time, energy and resources on fitting a square peg into a round hole and not enough time on retaining existing customers and getting new ones. Great differences in business culture will demoralize and sap motivation from your best employees, spread negativity and self-defeating beliefs throughout the organization, and ultimately leave the resulting business without sound financial footing and without a strong brand identity.
Even when companies have similar business cultures, there are still some differences that you will need to address. The keys here are mutual respect for each other’s culture and identification of common ground.
Companies that want to avoid such pitfalls need to enlist an independent party to conduct a cultural assessment, and then create and implement a plan for incorporating the assessment’s findings into a well-orchestrated integration plan (or a decision not to proceed).
A cultural assessment and integration plan should take into account, at a minimum, the following organizational culture variables:
Behaviors - the degree of informality/formality, decision-making maps, processes and hierarchies, and the definition (and requirements) of work (job descriptions, employee qualifications).
Communication - style (formal/informal), degree of openness, language, frequency and vehicles for information sharing.
Beliefs - common vision and goals, beliefs about what success is, and standards of ethical and acceptable behavior.
Business structure - the organization of work through teams and individual contributors, department/division responsibilities, accountabilities and interactions;
Business performance - performance criteria and measures, employee performance management programs, and compensation (including incentives and bonus plans).
If you’ve already inked the deal and find your business is exhibiting signs of ‘culture clash’, there are steps you can take to minimize these, keep the organization focused on the business plan, and lay the foundation for the 3 C’s to merger and acquisition success – communication, collaboration, and community.
Stephanie Leibowitz, MA, Anthropologist At Work
Branding Success From the Inside Out
Why does a company need to be concerned about branding inside the organization? After all, isn’t branding supposed to be about how prospects and customers view your business?
Consider this. Won’t your customers have a better experience with your brand (aka your business) if your employees treat the customers exactly how you want, accurately answer all customer questions and quickly resolve problems, and communicate how important each and every customer is to you? Of course they will!
So, what is internal branding? It is a strategy that establishes and strengthens your competitive positioning from within. Your internal branding objectives are to connect employees, board members (and volunteers if you are a nonprofit) to your brand; cultivate a passionate, highly engaged workforce; create a seamless, differentiated experience for your target audiences; and maintain your edge in the market (at a minimum) or surpass your competition (if you can).
Internal branding can yield dramatic results. When employees respond in ways that your target audiences expect, they reward you with business. Also, consistent, professional behavior is perceived as competence, particularly when there’s an expectation about a level of technical expertise. Haven’t you ever had an interaction with a business (electronics store, a bank, a billing department, health insurance company, navigating and completing an on-line transaction through a web-only business), and found yourself thinking “They obviously don’t know what they’re doing?” If you want repeat business, you better be sure that you can deliver on consistency. That's what's known as delivering on the brand promise.
Last, and certainly not least, information remains one of a company’s most valuable assets (after its employees) for achieving a competitive edge. Information comes from many sources and in many forms -- formalized market research, comments from customers, and feedback from employees (what’s working, what’s not, how you can do it better). Once you have the information, then you have to evaluate it and decide what it means (identification of trends, problems, and opportunities). The more you inform your employees, the more your employees know how they can help your customers, prospects, and business partners. That’s how you generate repeat business and great referrals. It’s your direct line from the inside out.
So, work to make your brand have a vibrant life inside your organization on a daily basis. There’s a developing body of evidence that delivering engaged internal brand communications can impact your bottom line in a dramatic, positive way. According to that same Watson Wyatt study mentioned in the earlier posting, significant improvement in communication effectiveness is associated with a 29.5% increase in a company’s market value.
Start today by tapping into your business culture for successful internal branding:
· Synchronize brand personality, value and organizational culture.
· Get employees behind the brand through actions that demonstrate “one company, one vision, one brand.”
· Reinforce and repeatedly explain the brand values and behaviors you want and need for business resilience and sustainability.
Stephanie Leibowitz, MA, Anthropologist At Work
Consider this. Won’t your customers have a better experience with your brand (aka your business) if your employees treat the customers exactly how you want, accurately answer all customer questions and quickly resolve problems, and communicate how important each and every customer is to you? Of course they will!
So, what is internal branding? It is a strategy that establishes and strengthens your competitive positioning from within. Your internal branding objectives are to connect employees, board members (and volunteers if you are a nonprofit) to your brand; cultivate a passionate, highly engaged workforce; create a seamless, differentiated experience for your target audiences; and maintain your edge in the market (at a minimum) or surpass your competition (if you can).
Internal branding can yield dramatic results. When employees respond in ways that your target audiences expect, they reward you with business. Also, consistent, professional behavior is perceived as competence, particularly when there’s an expectation about a level of technical expertise. Haven’t you ever had an interaction with a business (electronics store, a bank, a billing department, health insurance company, navigating and completing an on-line transaction through a web-only business), and found yourself thinking “They obviously don’t know what they’re doing?” If you want repeat business, you better be sure that you can deliver on consistency. That's what's known as delivering on the brand promise.
Last, and certainly not least, information remains one of a company’s most valuable assets (after its employees) for achieving a competitive edge. Information comes from many sources and in many forms -- formalized market research, comments from customers, and feedback from employees (what’s working, what’s not, how you can do it better). Once you have the information, then you have to evaluate it and decide what it means (identification of trends, problems, and opportunities). The more you inform your employees, the more your employees know how they can help your customers, prospects, and business partners. That’s how you generate repeat business and great referrals. It’s your direct line from the inside out.
So, work to make your brand have a vibrant life inside your organization on a daily basis. There’s a developing body of evidence that delivering engaged internal brand communications can impact your bottom line in a dramatic, positive way. According to that same Watson Wyatt study mentioned in the earlier posting, significant improvement in communication effectiveness is associated with a 29.5% increase in a company’s market value.
Start today by tapping into your business culture for successful internal branding:
· Synchronize brand personality, value and organizational culture.
· Get employees behind the brand through actions that demonstrate “one company, one vision, one brand.”
· Reinforce and repeatedly explain the brand values and behaviors you want and need for business resilience and sustainability.
Stephanie Leibowitz, MA, Anthropologist At Work
Brand Identity and Culture: Who Are You To The World?
If you ask most people what is a brand, they will point to a logo or tagline. But brand identity is far more than a visual or a phrase. A brand is shorthand for what your company represents in terms of its services / products (such as innovation, quality, variety, lower cost), the organization’s values (donates to nonprofits), how it conducts business (strict ethical codes, how it treats its employees), and how it treats its customers (friendly, rapid response, problem resolution). In other words, your brand identity reflects your company’s culture – attitudes, beliefs, behaviors – what people can expect to experience. When customers experience what they expect from your business, that’s what we mean by ‘delivering on the brand promise.”
What do you want your brand to convey about your business? Just as importantly, do you know what prospects, customers, colleagues, industry/trade organizations think about your brand (images, words, beliefs, feelings)? Companies with successful brands ask these questions again and again; then they act consistently to reinforce the brand identity they have created. What are you doing to communicate and reinforce your brand?
Brand identity is about the ‘total experience’. When your brand is evident in every aspect of your business and touch point – service/operations, physical facilities (if you have one), employee behaviors, transactions / purchasing, collateral, presentations and proposals, contract deliverables, telephone (etiquette and on-hold/closing messages), web content and interactivity, electronic communication (e-blasts, e-newsletter, e-mail) – you show that your actions have intent, and good intent at that (and by inference are not accidental). Your goal should be branding that seamlessly extends from within your organization to your prospects, customers, referral sources, and strategic partners. That’s how you build and maintain awareness, credibility and a reputation that others emulate; it’s how you set the foundation for long-term brand value.
Stephanie Leibowitz, Anthropologist At Work
What do you want your brand to convey about your business? Just as importantly, do you know what prospects, customers, colleagues, industry/trade organizations think about your brand (images, words, beliefs, feelings)? Companies with successful brands ask these questions again and again; then they act consistently to reinforce the brand identity they have created. What are you doing to communicate and reinforce your brand?
Brand identity is about the ‘total experience’. When your brand is evident in every aspect of your business and touch point – service/operations, physical facilities (if you have one), employee behaviors, transactions / purchasing, collateral, presentations and proposals, contract deliverables, telephone (etiquette and on-hold/closing messages), web content and interactivity, electronic communication (e-blasts, e-newsletter, e-mail) – you show that your actions have intent, and good intent at that (and by inference are not accidental). Your goal should be branding that seamlessly extends from within your organization to your prospects, customers, referral sources, and strategic partners. That’s how you build and maintain awareness, credibility and a reputation that others emulate; it’s how you set the foundation for long-term brand value.
Stephanie Leibowitz, Anthropologist At Work
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Company Culture is Your Key to Business Resilience
If you are a human resource or other operations manager, your goal is to maximize opportunities for achieving appropriate matches between your company's business needs and job candidate qualifications (as well as those of current employees). A company that takes active steps to identify, assess, articulate, cultivate and communicate a culture that supports its business performance goals has tremendous power to build resilience for long-term success. Communication of your culture (and its critical role in your ultimate success) in all aspects of employee engagement - recruitment, hiring, orientation/training, job responsibilities and accountabilities, and performance management - helps to reinforce positive behaviors and create a collective mindset for collaborative work around common goals and objectives.
As an anthropologist, I view companies as individual ‘societies’, each with a distinct culture, an ‘organizational glue’ that binds its members through shared vision, knowledge and experiences. The culture defines how a business sees itself and others, its relationship to others (customers, prospects, strategic partners), and how a company conducts its activities on a day-to-day basis. If someone asked you to describe your company’s culture, what would you say? What images come to mind? What does it feel like to work there? What words would you use? These are not questions for idle contemplation. The answers have serious implications for employee recruitment and retention, brand identity and marketing, and daily operations.
A company identifies and communicates what it expects – financial and operational results, as well as the employee behaviors and attitudes necessary to achieve those results - within the context of its unique business culture. The same behaviors in different companies may yield different results. Employee recruitment is a huge upfront investment of time and resources. High turnover drains productivity, diverts resources, and can be a distraction from a company’s business plan.
Stephanie Leibowitz, MA, Anthropologist At Work
As an anthropologist, I view companies as individual ‘societies’, each with a distinct culture, an ‘organizational glue’ that binds its members through shared vision, knowledge and experiences. The culture defines how a business sees itself and others, its relationship to others (customers, prospects, strategic partners), and how a company conducts its activities on a day-to-day basis. If someone asked you to describe your company’s culture, what would you say? What images come to mind? What does it feel like to work there? What words would you use? These are not questions for idle contemplation. The answers have serious implications for employee recruitment and retention, brand identity and marketing, and daily operations.
A company identifies and communicates what it expects – financial and operational results, as well as the employee behaviors and attitudes necessary to achieve those results - within the context of its unique business culture. The same behaviors in different companies may yield different results. Employee recruitment is a huge upfront investment of time and resources. High turnover drains productivity, diverts resources, and can be a distraction from a company’s business plan.
Stephanie Leibowitz, MA, Anthropologist At Work
The Value of the Long View
It’s tempting to focus on the here and now because things change so quickly. However, one should not lose sight of the need to strike a balance between a timely response to events and the need to plan and be ready for the future. Consider this. When driving, you look at the road immediately in front of you to check for obstacles and the surface’s condition (such as mud, rocks, ice, potholes), and you look ahead, so you can know how close you are to your destination, if there are alternate routes that would be better, and what other drivers are doing. If you were to check only the road for the immediate 25 to 50 feet, you’d probably get into trouble. Same if you only focused on the view down the block. Navigating the twists and turns of business requires the same ability to simultaneously take the short and long views.
With so much on the line today, there is an expectation that management lead with actions that will get a company through an immediate challenge or crisis and lay a strong foundation for business agility that will result in long-term profitability. It’s not enough to get through today, this week, or this month, because you’re not sure what may be around the corner. Financial predictability may be elusive, but one thing is certain. Temporary measures will give you temporary results at best. Long-term measures and plans will yield long-term success.
A well-developed, strategically executed communication plan (distinct from sporadic and uncoordinated communication) can go a long way to helping you successfully achieve your operational and financial objectives. When there’s a seamless, branded and culturally-relevant experience for employees and customers, the benefits extend to the entire business enterprise (and your customers).
Stephanie Leibowitz, MA, Anthropologist At Work
With so much on the line today, there is an expectation that management lead with actions that will get a company through an immediate challenge or crisis and lay a strong foundation for business agility that will result in long-term profitability. It’s not enough to get through today, this week, or this month, because you’re not sure what may be around the corner. Financial predictability may be elusive, but one thing is certain. Temporary measures will give you temporary results at best. Long-term measures and plans will yield long-term success.
A well-developed, strategically executed communication plan (distinct from sporadic and uncoordinated communication) can go a long way to helping you successfully achieve your operational and financial objectives. When there’s a seamless, branded and culturally-relevant experience for employees and customers, the benefits extend to the entire business enterprise (and your customers).
Stephanie Leibowitz, MA, Anthropologist At Work
Boost Company Performance With Effective Communication
Stories abound about the challenges businesses face in this current economic downturn. The talk in newsrooms and board rooms is about urgency, the need to make changes by pulling together to create long-term stability and success. And yet, on a daily basis, many companies have adopted behaviors that send the opposite message. When faced with news that is negative, companies tend to hit the ‘mute’ button, while management runs for cover in the bunkers, with the hope that things will blow over soon and get back to ‘normal’. Of course, communicating information about declining profitability, potential (or planned) layoffs and other austerity measures, is difficult. But at a time like this, communicating with your employees is even more critical. In fact, your business depends on it.
How do companies know if their customers are receiving the messages they intend? How do employees know if they are performing in ways that result in success for their companies? How do different functions (departments) within a company know if they are working toward the same goals and objectives and not duplicating effort? The answer of course is communication and it is essential to long-term profitability and sustainability.
In its long-term study of the relationship between internal communication and company performance, Watson Wyatt concluded that companies with highly effective employee communications outperform companies that don’t*.
So, what can you do to keep your employees informed, engaged, and focused on your business, so that you’re ready to leap forward on the economic upswing? Plenty.
Here are some best practice tips for keeping the information flowing at your business:
Information is power. And when you share information, it’s even more powerful (contrary to the old idea of hording information). Your employees are a terrific source for ideas on how to better serve customers, become more efficient, and stay ahead of your competition. The more your employees know about the business challenges and their role in overcoming these, the better positioned they are to help you work toward solutions.
Communicate often. There’s nothing worse that an employee finding out about a company’s changes (such as reorganizations, mergers, other) from an external party, such as a customer. When this happens, your company appears sloppy, leaves customers wondering what’s really happening, and results in your employees with a feeling that they are shut out and not worthy of your trust. Barring regulatory requirements, share as much as you can. People will fill in the blanks with their own stories if you do not put your story out there, and you don’t want employees acting on false information.
Be consistent in your communications. Whatever you do communicate, be sure that you are consistent in language and messages. When you contradict yourself, the information is less credible. Companies get why they have to communicate in a consistent way with customers (marketing), yet forget that the same principle applies to their operations. When employees receive clear, consistent information and messages, they better perform their responsibilities and better represent you to your customers and everyone else.
Communicate through multiple vehicles. Some forms of communication are active, others passive. Holding ‘town hall’ meetings and other discussion forums, conference calls and staff meetings are active communications. E-mails, memos, intranet postings are passive communication. The type and complexity of information affects which vehicles are most appropriate. Last, people have different learning and information processing styles. When you use multiple communication vehicles, you reach more people and increase retention of information. More importantly,when you use active communication, you foster engagement and interest.
Tell the truth. This sounds simple enough, yet can be difficult to practice. Again, not all information about a company must be shared with every employee. If you share what you can in a way that demonstrates integrity and respects your employees’ intelligence, you will be rewarded with your employees’ trust and energy to move the business forward.
Stephanie Leibowitz, MA, Anthropologist At Work
*Secrets of Top Performers: How Companies with Highly Effective Employee Communications Differentiate Themselves. The Methodology Behind the 2007-2008 Communication ROI Study™, by Richard Luss and Steven Nyce, January 11, 2008.
How do companies know if their customers are receiving the messages they intend? How do employees know if they are performing in ways that result in success for their companies? How do different functions (departments) within a company know if they are working toward the same goals and objectives and not duplicating effort? The answer of course is communication and it is essential to long-term profitability and sustainability.
In its long-term study of the relationship between internal communication and company performance, Watson Wyatt concluded that companies with highly effective employee communications outperform companies that don’t*.
So, what can you do to keep your employees informed, engaged, and focused on your business, so that you’re ready to leap forward on the economic upswing? Plenty.
Here are some best practice tips for keeping the information flowing at your business:
Information is power. And when you share information, it’s even more powerful (contrary to the old idea of hording information). Your employees are a terrific source for ideas on how to better serve customers, become more efficient, and stay ahead of your competition. The more your employees know about the business challenges and their role in overcoming these, the better positioned they are to help you work toward solutions.
Communicate often. There’s nothing worse that an employee finding out about a company’s changes (such as reorganizations, mergers, other) from an external party, such as a customer. When this happens, your company appears sloppy, leaves customers wondering what’s really happening, and results in your employees with a feeling that they are shut out and not worthy of your trust. Barring regulatory requirements, share as much as you can. People will fill in the blanks with their own stories if you do not put your story out there, and you don’t want employees acting on false information.
Be consistent in your communications. Whatever you do communicate, be sure that you are consistent in language and messages. When you contradict yourself, the information is less credible. Companies get why they have to communicate in a consistent way with customers (marketing), yet forget that the same principle applies to their operations. When employees receive clear, consistent information and messages, they better perform their responsibilities and better represent you to your customers and everyone else.
Communicate through multiple vehicles. Some forms of communication are active, others passive. Holding ‘town hall’ meetings and other discussion forums, conference calls and staff meetings are active communications. E-mails, memos, intranet postings are passive communication. The type and complexity of information affects which vehicles are most appropriate. Last, people have different learning and information processing styles. When you use multiple communication vehicles, you reach more people and increase retention of information. More importantly,when you use active communication, you foster engagement and interest.
Tell the truth. This sounds simple enough, yet can be difficult to practice. Again, not all information about a company must be shared with every employee. If you share what you can in a way that demonstrates integrity and respects your employees’ intelligence, you will be rewarded with your employees’ trust and energy to move the business forward.
Stephanie Leibowitz, MA, Anthropologist At Work
*Secrets of Top Performers: How Companies with Highly Effective Employee Communications Differentiate Themselves. The Methodology Behind the 2007-2008 Communication ROI Study™, by Richard Luss and Steven Nyce, January 11, 2008.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Welcome to My Blog
I started this blog as a forum for discussing the application of communication best practices for achieving desired business results, both quantitative and qualitative. As a business anthropologist, I am particularly interested in the relationship between business culture, communication, and the resulting business performance.
I look forward to sharing ideas in this learning community.
I look forward to sharing ideas in this learning community.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
