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mandy.thatcher@melcrum.comJanuary 17, 2008
Dear Source Reader
In a recent Melcrum survey, 81% of communicators selected "Communicating the business strategy" as one of their top priorities. But from experience we know that strategy is one of the toughest messages to communicate well.
In Melcrum's report on How to communicate business strategy to employees, the experts suggest that before you even get to the articulation stage, there's a number of steps to work through. Here's a checklist from the report to guide you.
Make sure:
- You have a clear understanding of the strategy and what it is designed to achieve – ideally a member of the communication team should be part of the strategy development process so they understand the background, thinking and rationale behind the choices made.
- You have agreement on how terms are defined and the language you are using. Paul Sanchez from Mercer Communication Consulting points out that much of the language associated with strategy is “used and abused.” Make sure you know exactly how terms are being used and that the leadership team is aligned.
- You are confident that the strategy will stand up to scrutiny – you have a duty to challenge and interrogate the strategy, because that’s exactly what employees will do – and if it doesn’t stand up for you, it won’t for them either.
- You have an ongoing dialogue with leaders on how best to communicate the strategy – this is important because the language needs to work for them and it is part of them shaping and taking ownership for sharing the strategy more widely. If the leadership team simply hands the strategy over to “communication” to communicate, the strategy will fail.
- You have a clear and agreed timescale/process for developing the strategy story – crafting a successful strategy communication takes time and doesn’t happen overnight. Just agreeing the core messages can take six to eight weeks. And that’s before you’ve designed the communication process and support materials.
- You understand what the people implications are of the strategy – that is, what people need to stop, start or continue doing to ensure success. This will help shape the messages as well as influence the approach you take to communicating.
- The principles for communicating the strategy are clear – is this, for example, meant to be an engaging activity or simply to provide clear direction?
Of course, some of these are not easy to achieve in many organizations. Lack of proper process, lack of time and planning, organizational politics and leadership availability/capability/attitude are just some of the things that can get in the way of best practice.
See you next week!
P.S. The Internal Communication Blackbelt "Strategy & Planning" Masterclass is just around the corner! Find out more and book your place now.
Nielsen names top 10 intranets in 2008
The Internal Comms Hub, January 11, 2008
Surprise inclusions for round-up of the year's best intranet sites: Intranet sites from government agencies in Australia and New Zealand have been recognized in the 2008 Nielsen Intranet awards.
UK companies fail staff during change
The Internal Comms Hub, January 14, 2008
Employee research specialist, ORC International, has recently announced that UK firms are failing their staff when it comes to organizational change. The findings, published in the company's report "Putting it in Perspective", released at the beginning of this month, are based on benchmarking data from over 300 employee surveys and focus on employee engagement during change.
Top reads to improve your communication
The Melcrum Blog, January 16, 2008
Employee communication specialist, Lee Smith, has put together a great must-read list of books for communicators via Amazon listmania, featuring books by a lot of the well-known communication "suspects".
Quick ways to influence your leaders
David Grossman, Melcrum's Leadership Newsletter, January 8, 2007
Everything you need to get done is through people. Our role as communicators is to counsel leaders to enable them to drive employees to action. To help our leaders be their best, we must be at our best, and that means continuing to elevate our abilities as strategic communication counselors.
Leadership communication – the AstraZeneca way
Strategic Communication Management, December/January issue, 2008
Faced with major and sustained change, the Research & Development organization of pharmaceutical giant, AstraZeneca, decided to coach, equip and support its leadership teams to engage employees in what was happening.
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