A Big Conversation is designed to help bring strategy to life by involving everybody in discussions about what the strategy means for me. The success of the process depends upon the quality of the conversations people have. Visuals are used to prompt these but it is the conversation that matters.

This puts a big emphasis on the role of conversation leaders – usually line managers often supported by HR and Communication business partners. In order to “break the ice” during development sessions we often ask people to discuss what a good conversation looks like; some can use words, others only pictures – see the results below:

The exercise demonstrates to people how the visual is more memorable, emotive and triggers more involvement and engagement within the group.

We also talk about “bad conversations” and the impact they have. Individual stories differ but common themes are how demotivating, manipulative, disempowering, devaluing and intimidating these can feel – hardly the basis for effective engagement!

So while conversations can be a much more effective way to build awareness and understanding of business strategy than PowerPoint presentations, video or other one-way approaches, there are risks. Conversations enable people to get involved in discussing the pros and cons of different approaches, to think through the relevance of strategy to them and to build a stronger line of sight between their jobs and the “bigger picture.” But they backfire if they are poorly managed.

So what makes a good conversation? According to participants in our client project it needs to:

  • Be authentic, open to all and honest – the difference between a Big Conversation and a strategy presentation is that people get to interrogate the strategy up close because the conversation focuses on what this means to me, my team, my customers etc. People will have different views that need to be aired and heard. It is the process of the challenges and the discussion that helps bring the strategy to life. Participants need to be present and speak their minds
  • Involve listening – good conversations are two-way not only because people air different views but also because they build on each other’s ideas. Good conversations are not debates (e.g. adversarial House of Commons type exchanges), they are discussions in which people listen, maybe disagree, but also aim to build on each others ideas
  • Share common goals – in order to build on each others ideas people need to share goals. They may disagree about how to achieve them but a Big Picture helps provide context including common aims and objectives and, often, a shared vision
  • Be efficient – people need to get to the point! This means the conversation needs a clear focus and outcomes (e.g. the purpose of this conversation is to think about customer relationships and if the strategy suggests these need to change)
  • Have energy and be fun – good conversations involve a lighter touch, laughter and insights; people learn from each other and have some fun in the process.

Steve Chapman and I will be exploring more about what makes a good conversation at the CIPR’s 12th Annual Internal Communication Conference that takes place on 25th September 2013 at the Kia Oval in South London. There is a surge in interest in the use of narrative, storytelling and visual tools to help communicate strategy. When done well, the results can be exceptional, with large increases in awareness, understanding and engagement. But if done poorly, people can feel patronised and manipulated and the whole process can be counter-productive. This workshop will be a highly interactive experience that illustrates the difference between trying to impose a narrative on people and creating the environment that helps them discover it for themselves.

 

I have a pet hate – it is referring to middle managers as the “permafrost”, the communication blockers and other similar terms.My reaction is that the derogatory language fails to recognize the challenges of being in the middle and that it is a simplistic generalization.

However, leaders often feel that enthusiasm, innovation and “can do” spirit is too often evident at the top and bottom of their organisations, but not in the middle.Even worse, that the middle layer seems to squash the best intentions of more junior people.

It is tough being in the middle.You get the heat from the top in terms of performance expectations and demands, and you get the resistance and pushback from below.Often, in the middle, you have better visibility of political and strategic issues that may be difficult to share with your teams and may require great diplomacy to navigate through with leadership.It is a tough job.

It is sometimes easier to close down debate and discussion than it is to expose your teams to the ambiguity that exists in any large organization.Your people want answers to questions like

  • “What do we want – profitability or growth”
  • “If we really care about customers why are we restricting choice?”
  • “Why are we sacrificing long-term health for short-term gains?”
  • “What is more important – the whole business or just our function/business unit?”

The answers to tensions like this are not straightforward, and middle managers do not have them.So some might say best to avoid them than to debate them, best to keep your head down, focus on the expectations your manager has of you and deliver on that.

But I think that is a mistake and it is borne from the assumption that as a manager you have to have all the answers.You do not.Closing down conversation is highly demotivating as it implicitly devalues the importance of people’s views, reduces clarity about what the organization is trying to achieve, suggests that teams cannot input to delivery of the company’s goals and makes people assume that the answers are out there but not available to them.

It is far better to encourage the team to talk about some of these types of tensions, to work with them on both sides of the arguments and to engage with them in the tough conversations that all leadership teams need to work through.If managers adopt these conversation leadership behaviours they win the respect of both the people who work for them, for the honesty and respect they show their teams, and the leadership for demonstrating that they can create engaging cultures within their part of the organization.

 

 

I have just come back from the inaugural ODN Europe conference at which about 150 Organisation Development professionals from around Europe met at Prospero House in London for two days of learning and networking. A huge “well done” to Kate Cowie and her colleagues for pulling this off. It was a great two days. I learned lots from people like Steve Chapman, Paul Taylor and Sarah Lewis and it was good to catch up with old friends from the NTL Institute.

I wanted to share two particular stand-out memories. One was Mee-Yan Cheung Judge’s key note presentation on day one. She asked us to reflect on why we had got to where we have in our careers, what had driven us to this point and the future we wanted to create for ourselves. As always with Mee-Yan she showed such passion and courage with her stories of taking on the establishment in her responses to those questions that she brought the enquiry to life. Good questions to reflect on.

The second was Patricia Shaw who talked for an hour about the difference between real organisaitons and the models we create to try to explain and shape them. She used the analogy of cut and artificial flowers and how in an instant we can tell the difference between the thing that once had life and that which never did. Our models are like the artificial flower lacking the spirit or essence that makes real conversation and interaction with each other the special thing it is. So in trying to stimulate Big Conversations we have to seek the precious dialogue we want to create and avoid manufacturing a spurious and cheap imitation of the magic that real living conversations can bring into people’s lives at work.

Now as I write about this I am struck at how hard it is to capture the magic of the conversations we had at our tables prompted by both these wonderful speakers.

Have you noticed how many people are talking about the importance of conversation in organisations today?

It came up again at an IABC event last week. Kevin Murray, who wrote ‘The Language of Leaders’, talked about the need for leaders to inspire not through speeches and “podium moments” but through intimate conversations.

I think that given the pace of change, uncertainty, complexity and the transparency that all organisations face today, we have to start using ongoing conversations as ways of engaging people.

We need tools like Big Pictures, strategy maps, learning maps, online discussion forums, facilitated events and conferences. And we need to develop conversational leadership within organisations.

So what does that look like? I think it means leaders and managers who have clarity around vision and who get up on a regular basis and walk the office or blog (internally) frequently – making it a point to talk about current events in the context of the broader strategy.

It could be regular team sessions or meetings at which the team leader reminds people of the key strategy drivers and how the team supports them. It might be ‘Listen In’ sessions where leaders and front-line people are invited and encouraged to talk about the business from their perspectives. Good conversations need empathy and open minds; it could involve training managers to welcome divergent views and help their teams to come to a convergent perspective. It also means knowing when to consult (“we have a problem without an obvious solution…”) and when not to (“we have a crisis and you need to act in this way – fast!”).

Conversational leadership means recognizing the value of conversation as an engagement approach, which means that we have to sacrifice some control in order to lead more effectively.

“An organisation’s results are determined through webs of human commitments, born in webs of human conversations.” – Fernando Flores

I love this quote because it says to me that the kinds of organisations we create and the way they perform are based on the conversations we have at work. During these conversations we debate issues, agree courses of action, make promises, commitments, agree to deadlines and so on.

Leaders can shape the conversations by talking about what’s going on around the business and what’s coming up. To gain commitment they need to lead conversations that share opportunities and issues and invite people to contribute to the responses.

But one leader or one leadership team cannot do this with everyone. We need to find ways to create these conversations throughout the business. So every manager is able to converse about opportunities and issues relevant to the team, and link these conversations with company-wide issues and initiatives across department silos.

Organisations that foster a conversation culture can expect a more engaged workforce that has the confidence to highlight concerns and opportunities. People understand and respond to conversation in a way they don’t to balanced scorecards and performance targets.

This is because conversations reflect our reality; real life isn’t about a formal sit-down, PowerPoint presentations and metrics analysis. Real life and real work is about the promises we tacitly make in conversation, and the decisions we explicitly commit to. Promises are made through conversation – it’s as simple, and as powerful, as that.

We are taught at school to think logically, in linear steps; if A then B. We are encouraged to look for problems, to conduct ‘root-cause analysis’ of failings and problems. To analyse and learn from past patterns and to provide clear explanations of what went wrong, and then to suggest the steps required to fix the problem and mitigate against similar issues in future.

But sometimes this does not work.

It does not work because today’s problems are becoming increasingly complex, confusing and unexpected. Sometimes we need to create solutions for problems that are ill-defined. Sometimes, if we want to make leaps in our industry, we need to innovate to create progress.

Innovation might start with a problem, but may well start with an insight, the identification of an opportunity.

Open conversations can help develop these opportunities. Good questions, and even ‘stupid’ questions can lead people to a deeper understanding of issues, and better resolutions.

Leaders don’t have to know all the details to ask open questions:

  • “What would happen if we made it to work as badly as it possibly could?”
  • “How would you tackle this if it wasn’t time sensitive?”
  • “If we could start all over again, what would you build instead?”
  • Leading good conversations means asking more of people by asking the questions that can help create new ways of thinking. To focus on issues, try variants of the following:
  • “What do you imagine our Operating Executive thinks is the most valuable skill you have?”
  • “How would the engineering team approach this?”
  • “Before we faced this challenge, what was different about our company / your team?”
  • “If we were really successful, what would we see going on around here?”
  • To search for and test solutions:
  • “What do you imagine your colleagues need to hear to believe in this solution?”
  • “If we explained this new way forward to team leaders across the company, what might they latch on to as a concern?”
  • “What one piece of advice would you give to make sure this happens the way we’ve envisaged?”

 

 

Those charged with employee engagement and internal communication might readily agree that communication is the lifeblood of a company, but senior managers are more concerned with strategy, performance and results.

Strategic intentions are no longer annually reviewed plans, but flexible approaches to turbulent markets and rapidly changing growth areas. Strategy needs to shape the direction of the company, and respond to changing requirements. A challenge for leaders is communicating the developing strategy in a way that’s meaningful to the diverse groups of people that make up the company.

What this means is that strategy needs translating on the ground in teams and workgroups. The Communications team can help not with campaigns but by creating the opportunities for leaders and managers to make more use of the most basic unit of business collaboration – the conversation.

I was struck by this in the Harvard Business Review recently:

“In company after company, the patterns and processes by which people communicate with each other are unmistakably in flux. The old ‘corporate communication’ is giving way to a model that we call ‘organizational conversation’. That shift is, for many people, a disorienting process. But it also offers a great leadership opportunity.”

– Boris Groysberg and Michael Slind, Harvard Business Review.

This shift to richer, more direct communication isn’t about technology, although many companies are finding benefits by shaping internal communities using digital workplace tools. Rather, it’s about directors demonstrating that they appreciate the value of those who execute the strategy and create success on a daily basis. This demonstration requires two-way dialogue; what we usually call a conversation.

Conversations may be about leaders having an open door policy, but it’s not always about two individuals talking to each other. Conversational leadership is about the Big Conversation – “How does what we do help deliver on the strategy; and if it does not what are we going to do about it?”

The right channels and settings can help leaders talk directly with communities, and have those internal communities respond. Leaders need narratives that communicate the purpose and reason for the strategy, and strategic changes. It’s the local dialogue that creates understanding; it’s not top-down anymore, it is co-created at the coalface.

Narratives (stories that make sense) can be passed on by people at every level within the company, and spark the conversations that lead to understanding. People need to be involved to understand the story, and embed the strategy in a way that’s meaningful to their role.

Via the intranet, in person, around the table, on the all-hands call, at the town hall – conversations and a narrative based approach to explanations will help cement strategies in people’s day-to-day behaviours, not just in the Board room.

 

 

“The Big Conversation” has won both the 2012 IABC Gold Quill Award– it is the second time in three years that Couravel, with Hilary Scarlett, has won this.

We have also just learned that the work has won the IABC EMErald Award of Excellence – making it one of the top pieces of work in Europe, and that it has been shortlisted for an HR Excellence Award by Human Resources Magazine. What is more important than all these awards is that this work played a major role supporting TUI during tough trading conditions. We helped a wide range of people in very different roles understand the business strategy and how they delivered it. Click here for a detailed case study which tells a compelling story about the link between this engagement of TUI’s people and the company’s performance.

We have done work extensively in the public sector over the last few years although I do not think we will be doing much over the next two.

One of the biggest challenges will be asking managers whose jobs are at risk to lead teams who also face uncertainty, all in a climate where clear cut decisions about stay or go will be made more difficult in many organisations because the public sector finds redundancydeals prohibitively expensive.

It is going to be painful, slow and messy. We have learned a few lessons with our clients about managing this kind of process over the last few years. 10 tips that may be helpful are:

People need to understand that they have to take control over their lives. No one will rescue them. They need help in putting plans together that increase their sense of control

Support people by helping them through key career decisions, revitalising their CVs and interviewing skills (use outplacement specialists not managers)

Build networks so people can help each other

Equip managers with simple models to help them understand how people (themselves included) go through change

Collect numerous stories about practical things other teams do to manage change from job hunting through to marking endings to cutting red tape and developing each other’s skills

Create opportunities to vent about how they are feeling

Create video diaries from colleagues who have been through difficult change explaining the lessons they think they learned looking back, and what they would do differently

Increase leadership visibility but be sensible about it; don’t overdo it but don’t duck the difficult questions – be seen to take them on even if the answers are not there

Explain how the process works and be prepared to explore it in detail – do not be unprepared for these questions

Keep reminding people of the reasons for the changes.

 

During a recent conversation with an old friend who used to work at BP I was struck by something he said about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

“The people I feel really sorry for are the employees. I can imagine how they are feeling – they will be devastated and right in the front line of public anger and outrage.”

I had not thought about this before. With news pictures of struggling birds, ruined coastlines and destroyed businesses, you tend not to focus on the engagement of the employees of the company that is perceived to have caused the problem.

My friend was not downplaying the impact of the tragedy on fishermen, residents, visitors and wildlife. His point however was that thousands of people working for BP across the world – people who care about their company, the environment and their reputation – face an overnight transformation in how others see them, and maybe how they see their company.

One of the hidden costs in this tragedy will be the morale and motivation of these BP people, and alongside all the other costs the company faces one suspects a large increase in employee turnover is inevitable.

There is not much research that has been done in this field. Conclusions of what has been done are not surprising. It suggests:

  • Employees experience trauma and stress as a result of organisational disasters
  • There is little public sympathy or recognition of this
  • Employers who retain their people tend to display more compassion and put in place support programmes for their people
  • The practical nature of this support can be time off, counselling, improved communication to respond to high information needs generated at times of uncertainty
  • Climates with strong internal teamwork and where people have reacted to crisis situations together before fare much better

So in the aftermath of perhaps the worst environmental disaster we should not lose sight of the victims of the incident within the company and perhaps ask ourselves:

  • Have we developed the crisis plans we may need (remember the Time Magazine CEO Survey in which 89% agreed that “A crisis is as certain as death and taxes.”)
  • Do those plans mitigate some of the employee costs that may be associated with the aftermath of a severe shock?
  • What internal communication and support may our people need alongside our plans to support customers and other affected stakeholders?