Employee Advocates for Employee Communications

Image via WikipediaOne of the oft-ignored aspect of employee engagement is employee communication. Organizations just don't treat it as priority. I asked this question on my facebook page - and three people have answered yes to the question I posed so far.
So why is that the case?
Primarily it is because employee communication is not thought of as a discipline by HR professionals as external communications is thought of by the Marketing professionals. Most HR communications are restricted to garishly colored emails with 20 size font letters. Or managers are expected to do the bulk of the communications to their supervisors - and we know how that goes.
The question needs to be rethought - and organizations need to look at their employees as an internal community they need to "converse with" and not to "talk/sell to".
So here's my free advice to organizations on how to better "communicate with employees"

1. Listen. Give tools to your employees to make them heard. Use ideation platforms, question and answers, wikis, internal blogs for employees to connect with each other. Figure out what has their attention and time.
2. Acknowledge. When someone contributes a great idea - borrow it and give him/her credit. Make that employee an owner of that idea and support him/her to implement it. The same away acknowledge the employees who contribute answers and contribute to building the knowledge base.
3. Understand. With the data generated in the first two steps organizations can figure out (using Thomas Gladwell's Tipping point lingo) who are the mavens, connectors and salesmen. This would be possible using Social Network Analysis tools.
4. Engage. Using the data from the above step organizations should figure out the highly engaged employees who are mavens, connectors and salesmen and empower them as internal advocates (using the methodology of social influence marketing) 

The thought behind this method of employee communication is that influential employees would be trusted and co-creating a message along with them would be a better way to communicate than just using posters and emails that are likely to be ignored by employees.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Thoughts on Social HR (gautamblogs.com)
• Survey: Email, Intranets Top Employer, Employee Communication (webpronews.com)
• How to Connect With Your Employees Using Social Media, Email and Some Common Sense (socialtimes.com)

How can firms leverage social technologies for Recruiting

A presentation I put together

Leveraging the Social Web and Building Talent Communities

View more presentations from Gautam Ghosh.

Are Brands People too?

Manu posts (as usual) a very thought provoking post on whether brands have a Dunbar number. As he wonders:

if there was a Dunbar number for brands, dictated by the number of people  the brand can connect with- internally as well as externally? There are two things I read recently which added to the thought. One was the idea of the Intention Economy (via Surekha) which “grows around buyers” and is “about markets, not marketing”, and which is builts beyond transactions alone – conversations, reputation, authority, respect all of which are earned by the sellers and buyers.

I agree with Manu's thought here, but with some caveats :-)

The reality is that Dunbar's number is a cognitive feature of people. It shows me the limit of people I can have meaningful relationships with. These are relationships in the true sense of the world, not the "social media" sense of the world.

Even though brands (people on behalf) may engage with people on social networks, and built relationships - these are around the transactions of content, collaboration, conversations.

There is however one exceptional group for whom a brand can have high engagement levels and would be around Dunbar's number. These are the evangelists/advocates of a brand - who are at the pinnacle of the ladder of engagement wrt the brand.

The Cost of Teleconferencing

Recently I was talking to a friend who heads Marketing for a Financial firm. She asked me "So how much time do you spend in telecons?"

I was surprised and said that I hardly did so. I use the phone primarily to text or to only set up appointments. The actual conversation is almost all of the time face to face.

The reason is that face to face conversation is the richest mode to exchanging information. And while I am a big evangelist of virtual communities and social networking and communication, for some kind of interactions, like building a rapport with a client there is no substitute for direct face to face communication.

So this friend tells me "I am on a telecon with my boss in Singapore first thing in the morning and I end the day with a call with our US office - the call starts at 7 pm and ends around 8.30 pm!"

She goes on "And sometimes during the day, we have to have video conference with other efolks in India, so we go from our office in Colaba (where we don't have videoconferencing facility) to Andheri (where we do). However due to bandwidth problems only five people can be on the video-con. So everytime the 6th person tries to join - one of the people in the conversation actually is pushed out!"

"You know, I think this consensus driven - lets-all-arrive-at-an-agreement mindset is to blame for so many telecons in official work! My husband and I have two different landlines at home for our respective conference calls. I just wish we didn't get invited to all these useless telecons and videocons - and people made their decisions and informed us."

As a guy who believes in collaboration and that people should have a say in the decisions that affect them and their work, this comment took me by surprise. However, it stands to reason if overdone - this approach intrudes and encroaches into a person's family time - she would react this way.

What do you think? How can organizations help people to be collaborative and yet not inflect these issues?

Life coaching online? I don't think so

I don't know what to think of this. TechCrunch reports about a startup that helps people become life coaches to their friends. I just hope people don't fall for this charade. It's good to talk things over with a friend. But don't mistake it for a coaching session.

But Noomii says that while these professional Life Coaches are certainly worthwhile, anyone can be a Life Coach with a little help.

To begin using the site, you first have to find a friend that you’d like to coach (and who’s willing to coach you). Once you’re paired up, you both fill out a survey that gauges which parts of your like you’re happy with, as well as the goals that you’d like to achieve (you can set sub-goals for each of these goals). Then the site presents these goals in an intutive panel with checkboxes next to each goal.

The idea is that because both partners can see the others’ goals, you’ll feel more motivated to get things done. The site also recommends meetings once a week in person or online to discuss how much progress has been made and what needs to be done. It seems like a good idea, provided you pick a good friend to pair off with, though I could see it straining a relationship if one person refused to keep up with their goals.

Think Before you speak

I heard a story yesterday. It was about someone - let's call him N.

N was an employee of one of India's top software organizations. He had joined them straight out of college and been an outstanding performer. Rising up from the Sales function he quickly moved to Delivery and then shifted to a new business unit.

He had been for 6 years in the system when he was recognised as a potential future leader and sent to head Delivery for the new business in a country where the company was setting up operations. Soon the business in taht country grew by leaps and bounds - and the CEO of the firm - let's call him P - came visiting.

Over the course of a press conference when someone asked P about terrorism and its causes - he gave a reply that suggested that some people were predisposed to terrorism. Unfortunately N was a member of the community that R talked about.

He was devastated that the CEO of the company where he works held such views - so much so that he talked with the country head that he would resign as he could not bear to continue working for such a company. The country manager tried to convince him to stay - he even talked to P (who had by then returned to India) and P even tried saying things like "I didn't mean it like that"

But the damage had been done.

N resigned and returned home to India, without even having another another job offer. However in 4 months he had joined an MNC in India in an equivalent role.

So the lesson for leaders is two fold

• Think before you talk about really controversial issues. They will be construed as the company's views, not just as your views, and
• It's not really what you mean - but what people infer that really matters. 

TheHiringTool offer for Employers and Placement Consultants

This offer is by the new recruitment site the HiringTool for Indian Employers and Indian third party recruiters only.
The site already has 200 consultants and 23 clients on board.. and they inform me that they also had 2 placements within 10 days of the job being posted.

The promo they exclusively for the readers of this blog are:

Placement consultants - http://www.thehiringtool.com/ signup for beta using referral code gautamc to get 10 unique opportunities to work with marquee clients and make money

To qualify you should be a registered placement agency engaged in the  business of contingency fulltime placements

Employers- http://www.thehiringtool.com/ sign up using referral code gautame to post 5 jobs, it does not cost you anything to post jobs, after you fill the job through one of their 200 partners pay the fee you set for the right candidate.

To qualify you should be a recruitment stakeholder with a immediate funded full-time opportunity

Umm, well I guess that means being a reader of this blog can actually help you save - and make money? Who'd have ever thought that !

Heh.

Blogging for Consultants

Looks like there is some sort of Consulting and Blogging meme going around. Guerilla Consultant has a well thought out argument what kind of consultant should be looking at blogging:

Blogging is the perfect Guerrilla Marketing tactic. You can reach a large audience quickly, and repeatedly. The cost of blogging is low, and the technology is simple to use. It's an excellent way to stay in touch with your existing clients and help prospective clients get to know you. 

With all that going for it as a marketing tool, shouldn't every consultant be blogging?

The marketing tools that work best are those that you can execute most effectively. If you get tongue-tied in front of an audience, it doesn't make sense for public speaking to be the centerpiece of your marketing program. That just leads to foot dragging, and the results aren't likely to be stellar either. 

The same point applies to blogs. Do you like to write--a lot? If you don't enjoy writing regularly, or you aren't very good at it, you may want to hold off on that blog. 

The technical aspects of blogging may be a no-brainer, but content drives the success of a blog. Can you feed your blog with content that your clients really want to read? Finding relevant content takes time. Even if you have plenty to say, you still have to draft, edit, and publish, all of which are time-consuming. 

You often hear bloggers say that blogs invite informal writing, and that typos and grammatical errors just come with the territory. Maybe that's okay for Max the Golden Retriever, but it's the kiss of death if you are marketing a high-end professional services business. Be sure you have the skills, time, and patience to write valuable stuff on a regular basis.

That's right folks. If the buyer of your services is out there searching on the internet (and who's not?) having a blog, specially if you like writing is great. But GC didn't get it fully right. For consultants who look great on camera, and those who can speak well have options too. Embedding videos and podcasting.

Blogs are just a tool. Embrace the tool to suit your strength. Build links with other consultants and pagerank will follow. Once PageRank comes, authority follows. 

However if you think your clients don't search for services that you offer on the internet you can possibly hold of from blogging.

Can you be sure that your client's junior who has been asked to compile a list of potential consultants does not, however?

Flattery will get you anywhere

Ooh ! This mail makes me feel so wanted

What's the bet that I am just one of many thousands who is getting this mail.

Still, I love the ego-massaging aspect! It's a mass mail and yet you feel "Wow! The president of BusinessWeek thinks I am somebody!"

Shows you how a little flattery will ensure people to do most things!

Do you use flattery? Does it work?

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Keith Fox, President, BusinessWeek
Date: Thu, Jun 5, 2008 at 11:19 PM
Subject: An invitation to join the BusinessWeek Market Advisory Board
To: Gautam Ghosh

Dear Gautam, As a valuable member of the BusinessWeek community, your input matters. That's why I'm pleased to extend this invitation to you to join our exclusive research panel, the BusinessWeek Market Advisory Board. We seek the voices of opinion leaders, like you, to shed light on critical business issues. When you join, you'll become part of a select group that weighs in on various topics through periodic online surveys. Your unique perspective will help us better understand how current trends are driving change in today's business environment. It only takes a few minutes to join, and membership offers benefits such as access to exclusive research papers, newsletters, and sweepstakes opportunities. Please click here to sign up. Thank you for your time and I look forward to hearing your thoughts as a member of the BusinessWeek Market Advisory Board. Sincerely, Keith Fox President BusinessWeek

The role of trainer

On a training e-group there was a discussion whether it is correct or proper for trainers to use the group as a resource bank to ask for presentations on various soft-skill topics.

This got me to think about the role of a trainer and I posted this email to the group:

This dependence on "slides" still means that we trainers are on a "Teaching" mode.... the sage on the stage

To really achieve learning amongst adult learners I would suggest using the different aspects of adult learning like active experimentation, reflective observation, concrete experience and abstract conceptualisation (ref: Kolb's learning theory)

Only then can we move from a "teaching mode" to a "facilitator of learning", being the "guide by the side"

People in a training room have collectively more wisdom and learning than the trainer, and the true role of a trainer is to get them to express it and share it with each other and crystallise it. A trainer is a catalyst.

When you try to teach adults, they will never learn

The Informal Organization

Well, we all knew it intuitively but it's good to see it confirmed by a large survey. The question is, so what? What will organizations do differently if they see this report?

A new survey of American workers confirms what many have long suspected: Informal relationships, rather than formal management structures, are where work really gets done, problems are solved and companies gain competitive advantage.

The “informal organization” is also what keeps people upbeat about work. According to the survey conducted by Katzenbach Partners LLC, a management consulting firm that works with leading global companies to achieve breakthroughs in organizational performance, the informal organization gives workers confidence that they can solve problems and the encouragement that they contribute to their company’s success.

“The lesson from this research is that the informal organization – the way work gets done outside formal organizational charts and processes– is real, and that employees recognize it and value it,” said Zia Khan, a Principal with Katzenbach Partners, and co-author of a major upcoming report on the informal organization. “The question is, does management also value it? Our research shows that the informal organization is a strategic asset executives need to actively manage instead of leaving to chance.”

The Age of Self-Promotion

You might not realise this reading this blog, but I am quite a bit of an introvert. I find meeting people and interacting with them with any amount of engagement quite strenuous and it is something that drains my energy.

I don't know if that has something to do with it, but the reality is that I find the idea od self-promotion quite obnoxious. Today on Linkedin Answers I posted a question, and when someone mailed me that he found the question a "lead generation trap" I promptly took the question down, even though I didn't find any clause on linkedin that says that using answers for such a purpose is discouraged. It says in fact "if you are asking a question in order to recruit or advertise, or announcing your own job search, you must indicate that while creating the question with the checkboxes provided."

However, on a personal level, I could not even bear it that one person thought I came across as self promoting. Which is why I took the question down.

So when Tom Peters posts about Donald Trump here and here, and ask does "Excellence in 'Brand You' Development" trumps (pun intended I suppose ;-) skill?" I surely wish it does not. However, in today's age we always see that any kind of promotion makes even a mediocre skilled person do much better. Take the example of David Beckham in football (or soccer, if you are in the US). Sure, Beckham is talented, but the rewards he gets are not commensurate with his skills as a player alone. In fact more talented football players than him exist, but are not as famous as he is.

So is this age as unfair as the ages that preceded it? What is objective skill and talent?

Should I shamelessly self-promote myself or not? Oh don't bother answering. I can't.

The Indian who holds two Guinness records

How many Guinness world record holders do you know? These are extraordinary people who do not reach just personal milestones but become the best in the world in a very concrete sense.

I know just one such person and he holds not just one but now two Guinness world records, and thereby becoming the first Indian to do so (not counting sportsmen I presume :-)

I met Sqdn Leader Jayasimha of Hyderabad at a recent trainers retreat organised by a leading firm. He holds the Guinness record for memory having remembered a series of 200 random items in the same order, and recently made a record as he spoke for a mind-boggling 111 hours continuously, starting from 24th and finishing on 30th March, with breaks of only ten to fifteen minutes in between.

Heartiest congratulations, sir !

Saying No

Knowing something intellectually and actually doing it are two different things.

When starting off on our own, I had anticipated that there would be a time when I would have to say no to a client. I thought I was ready for it. You know the whole routine of "You are as defined by what you don't do as by what you do" kind of thinking.

So when last week someone called from one of the world's largest IT firms if we could come and meet them in connection with a 2-3 hour game to conduct for their 80 developers in May, I realised that while it was do-able it was not something I wanted to be known for.

But I kept off trying to say no.

I reasoned and I justified to myself. "Oh I'll meet them and get to reframe their problem and make it a OD consulting intervention" was my dominant thought. "Even if I can't, I can always walk away and I would have made some connections in this large IT firm for future business development"

In my heart of hearts, I knew I was fooling myself. So today after a week of dithering I mailed the lady who had called me saying that the need does not fall in our expertise area and we would love to work with them in the future on OD and HR consulting needs.

Yes, knowing it and doing it is a totally different kettle of fish, I discovered again :-)

How do you say no to clients and customers ?

On emotions

It's a pleasure to welcome a friend Ishita to the blogosphere, and her first post is about acknowledging emotions in the workplace.

As she writes that bit about swiping one's card and leaving emotions outside is so true in organizations,

that's why words like Human "resources" and "talent" management are such buzzwords

people seem to shy away from calling employees as "people"

what has changed from the industrial era where people were called "hands" ? As she says:

We hire a complete human being into an organization. One human being, who is complete with competence, capability, experience and emotions. We expect several such complete human beings to stay and work together in a confined space (at times very large confined spaces) for several hours and yet we preach – “Don’t bring emotions into the workplace”

On the other hand, most of the workplace conflicts arise out of different emotions having being expressed at the wrong place. Stands true not only for negative emotions, but also for positive emotions.

A key skill for anyone growing in the corporate jungle, as I have posted earlier, is recognizing emotions (both of self and others), managing it and expressing it appropriately.

My Media sources

Nimmy tagged me with this media tag meme that's been going around in the KM circles. Hmm, trust KM people to want to know how people keep themselves informed, heh, right?

So here goes...

• Books: I am always ready to devour a book. Any book. I was brought up on a diet of fiction from childhood and it always is great to get lost in imaginary worlds created by others. Recently at a second hand book exhibition I got some great Le Carre novels at throwaway prices, and the Dubliners by James Joyce. In the recent past I've mostly read fiction by Indian authors like Amitav Ghosh (his Circle of Reason is my all time favorite), Jhumpa Lahiri (both the Interpreter of Maladies and The Namesake were amazing). I got hooked on to IWE (Indian Writing in English) after reading Midnight's Children in 1995 :-). It is also great to read a book that is about a place you know by someone you can call a friend too. On the non-fiction front I stick to the classical management books. Drucker, Tom Peters, Ram Charan. A recent buy has been Ram Charan's "Know-How", am still to read that :-) On KM, Nonaka's classic "The Knowledge Creating Company" has been a big influence. As well as Intellectual Capital by Tom Stewart. Other great books that have been big influences has been The Tao of Physics by Capra, Chaos by Gleick, Sensemaking by Weick, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Genome. Oh before I forget, I guess graphic novels have to go in this section. I loved "The Dark Knight Returns" by Frank Miller ...am a big Batman fan :-)
  
• Communication: My preferred mode of communication is by email. I do not like the intrusiveness of the phone unless it is by people close to me. I am not a big IM user too. Can't really express myself with clarity and with dodgy internet connections. SMS texting is a good compromise between the phone and IM. But my vote goes for the email anyday over the others. Hey, but that's just me.
  
• TV: I am a eclectic TV watcher. Mostly ESPN-Star Sports, CNN-IBN, NDTV, CNBC-TV18. Love Storyboard when I get the chance on what's happening in the advertising and media industry. Also like to catch the gadgets and tech programs on the channels even though I can't buy anything :-) Love "No Reservations" on Travel and Living. Always wanted a job where I could go around eating in exotic countries and get paid for it :-)
  
• Films. Am hooked to predominantly Hindi movies. The whole spectrum, from Nagesh Kukunoor to Aditya Chopra. Though I'll gladly miss a Barjatya movie anyday :-) Am looking forward to the Namesake's movie release (there's even a blog about it). In English movies I like the action movies with some kind of plot. No Vin Diesel for me. I'd rather see a Denzel Washington thriller. Haven't seen too much of the world cinema, though I loved the trilogy of Kieslowski's called Red, White and Blue
  
• Magazines - I read magazines when I am travelling. Outlook, India Today, Business Today, Time are my airport buys. Also keep a tab on what Training and T+D are saying.
  
• Music - Am not a big music buff. 1980s English music stuff. And Kishore Kumar.
  
• Radio - Only get to hear the FM when I am driving. Radio City is the cure for bad traffic in Hyderabad.
  
• The Web - Google search. Bloglines. Blogger.com. Ryze. Linkedin. Orkut. Recruiting.com. Google Reader. Flickr. Wikipedia. Wikimapia. The web is my virtual location. I keep reading most from here. This is where I respond and react to my various media stimuli.
  

So in turn I am tagging these folks (also to check if they really read this blog ;-) :

• Anuradha
• Bill Ives
• Michael Keleman
• Dina Mehta
• Sucharith Menon

Hey, anyone who reads it can take this meme forward too !!

The future of college recruitment

I was flattered when Curt Schafer of the National Association of Colleges and Employers in the US approached me to contribute an article on how college students and employers will match ten years from now.

Well, I hardly consider myself a futurist (did you know that most futurists get it wrong?) or an expert in the area of campus recruitment. However as an interested observer of the process, I had fun writing the article and I hope Curt's organization feels it adds some value. What is interesting is that all the articles would be compiled for the NACE annual conference at New York City in May.

If any of you are planning on attending the conference, I would love to hear from you.

How to ask for help

I'm starting to switch off from conversations where someone wants me to help them.

Don't get me wrong.

I like helping people. Heck, I like it so much that I made it my job :-)

*Rant begins*

However, there is one fundamental difference when you are paying me for my help, and when you want me to help you without payment.

That difference is, when I am being paid, it's my job to understand your needs. However, if you are seeking someone's help and are not paying them for it, the onus lies on you to articulate your needs.

For example, take a look at an email someone posted on a training emailing list:

Till date, i was a Sales Training Manager, recently i am given the
responsibility to handle all training fucntions of my organisation.

Can anyone help me in the following regards.

*1) Training Needs*
a) Training Need identification format
b) How to prepare Training Need identification form?
c) What are the things required to be considered to prepare the same?
d) Kindly provide me with some sample Training Need identification for

I mean, these are topics on which folks have written tonnes of books. This chap needs help on email? I can guarantee that either someone on the list will guide him to the most basic training textbook, or (more likely!) he won't get any response.

When you ask for help, specially on any online forum, make your needs clear. Don't ask questions for which there can be 2 pages long answers. Questions that will help you get answers are the "Who" and "What" variety "What books are great reference for Training Needs Analysis?" or "Who are the best trainers for Consultative Sales Skills programs?" will evoke an answer.

If your question is more complex, give as much of a background as you can without becoming boring. Yes, folks, that means you should have some great writing skills.

Unfortunately seeing what passes off for emails on some egroups and on online forum like Orkut I am starting to lose hope :(

And the most basic of all: Check if the person you are asking help from is the person who can help you in anyway. There is nothing as irritating as asking "Oh, you don't do that? Then what exactly do you do?"

Rant over.