The Source for Communicators

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September 19th, 2007 Communicating "tough love" at Sun Microsystems

Staying connected to customers is vital but can be difficult for those removed from the coalface. In the latest Melcrum Podcast Terry McKenzie, senior director global employee communications at Sun Microsystems, describes how mixed feedback from customers at a recent leadership event was shared with both senior leaders and 35,000 employees in a powerful way.

The customers' standpoint
The event was a semi-annual conference attended by almost 200 Sun VPs from around the world. A handful of customers were invited to talk about their experiences with the organization.

"It was 'tough love' for our VPs because we heard from the customers' standpoint the things we were doing right and the things we were doing wrong" says McKenzie. "But to be able to hear it first hand and ask questions was a very, very powerful experience for our audience."

To share the experience the entire conference was made available to the company's 1,200 directors as a webcast after the event. In addition, online forums were set up to discuss issues further. "With each talk there was a forum thread attached and the questions that we asked were: Does what this person say resonate with you? Does it make sense? Comment on how well you think Sun is addressing the issues. We got a lot of great feedback" says McKenzie.

Connecting employees
The videos were also posted for employees to see – with a positive response. "What we're hearing from employees is that it's amazing communication. It really helped them to connect with some of the issues that we as a company need to address, as well as encouraging some of the things we're doing right.

"It put 35,000 people in contact with a customer perspective in a very powerful, personal way, and then through social media we gave people an opportunity to comment back."

Importantly, says McKenzie, the issues raised are also being fed into the company's goal-setting process for the year ahead.

Listen to the full interview with Terry McKenzie on the latest Melcrum Podcast (begins at 07:06).

See you next week.

Mandy Thatcher
Editor
mandy.thatcher@melcrum.com

P.S. This week's Melcrum Podcast also includes an interview with Matt O'Neill, senior partner at Cordovan Digital, who organized the first ever gathering of London-based members of Melcrum's Communicators' Network.