When you are swimming in syrup, get out of the pool.

Even though this myth was busted on the television program 'Myth Busters', I think it is a wonderful description when you're faced with an issue and not making any headway. An acquaintance used another description by explaining it as trying to push a meatball up a mountain with a toothpick. [The other day some explained it as, 'running in flip flops'.]

I have learnt that when a situation feels that it is going nowhere, the best is to cut your losses and to walk away; the time to pursue it is not the right time yet. It does not help to force things. You'll be frustrating yourself and using a lot of energy in pursuit of something that is not destined to be.  When things are meant to be, you will find that things slot into place incredibly quickly and you might actually find yourself needing to up your pace to keep up with how fast things are happening.  Trust and listen to your gut instinct and suss out the pool well before you realise it's a pool of syrup, and when the water turns sticky know that it is OK to cue the exit lights.

Valuing Values

           

At the beginning of the year we had our team strategy session. The annual get together as a team to strategise, plan and spend time together is crucial. This years session just again reinforced that this session needs to be a non negotiable component on any team's diary. It gets everyone on the same page in terms of reinforcing where you are going, reconnecting and re-energising the team for the year. We were fortunate enough to stay on Robben Island in the Governor's House, which was an incredible experience to share with the team and added to it all being a fun experience.

One of the exercises that we did was to reconfirm our values. I wanted us to cement our values to be a driver for everything we think, do and say, and ultimately help with any the decisions we need to make. The Rotary’s four way test is a great example of what I had in mind to achieve for our team. What was important was that it was a team decision, I didn't want to say our values are xyz; I wanted the team to decide. 

I absolutely love the values that were agreed on, as these are values that resonate with us on a business and personal level:

Respect matters: We demonstrate a high regard for our clients, our colleagues, and the environment. We take all parties into consideration when making and implementing decisions.

Growth matters: We are dedicated to driving growth for ourselves, our team and our clients by delivering a differentiated reputation management offering. Aligning your needs with our vision, we are committed to your growth journey.

Authenticity matters: Compassion and honesty drive us to deliver original, quality work that maximises our clients’ return on investment.

It's time to be on time

The other day this Forbes article heading caught my eye, and I thought that this is a great guide for any engagement:

5 Minutes Early Is On Time; On Time Is Late; Late Is Unacceptable

My challenge to myself this year is to be 15 minutes for every meeting. I have a terrible habit of "..just quickly checking one more email / document / social media post..." before leaving for a meeting. Which then ultimately means that I misjudge my timing and that I then need to rush. I am so over being late; here's to better planning and more on time meetings.  

Leadership Magazine: Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes...

Internal communication is the lifeblood of any company and yet, (incredibly), it is an area that is woefully neglected or poorly executed. This month's Leadership article on page 97 is just about that. 

A big thank you to our strategic partner, Kristina Malther, who we work very closely with on internal dialogue assignments who provided additional insight into the article. 

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“Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change” ~Stephen Hawking

As intelligent as we want to be about communication and especially internal communication, many companies will score well below 70 if they had to complete an IQ test. Why is internal communication so often neglected? No matter what the size of the organisation, they all seem to treat internal communication as a second thought, if at all; thinking that it will take care of itself without any nurturing or attention. Organisations who do this are often left wondering what happened when things go belly up internally, and before they know it, are left with an employee morale dilemma and a high turnover. This internal dissonance has major consequences for an organisation’s reputation. As much as we want to keep our dirty laundry managed and dealt with inside the organisation, it will invariably filter through to outside of the company.

The hundreds and thousands of Rands that get spent on advertising will be for nought if you don’t also invest in an internal communication campaign. You may have the most amazing, Loerie-award-winning advertising campaign to lure in customers; if however you have a team that does not support you, your vision or know where the company is going, the truckload of money you invested in the advert may as well be used for composting, which would in that case then at least have served one positive purpose (and bring about a positive growth somewhere in the long run).

How many of us can put our hands on our hearts and say with a clear conscience that internal communication isn’t something which too often becomes an afterthought? I understand that when there is a change we need to tread carefully. In certain cases we need to err on the side of caution, not to communicate too much about an impending change so as to avoid unnecessary stress; sometimes communicating prematurely about something could be even more detrimental. However, if there is a possible change in the air, it will be sniffed out. If rumours are not nipped in the bud you could have anarchy on your hands. Some time ago we worked on a project that meant a massive change in the organisation; it was something that entailed much advice from a financial, legal and reputation management perspective, and if there were any leaks it would have been very harmful to the growth of the organisation and the impending change. Acknowledging the importance of internal stakeholders, we drafted a comprehensive leak strategy should anyone start suspecting that changes were afoot. We made sure that the CEO and executive team were well versed to swiftly address and snuff out any rumours.

Internal communication is usually the last thing on top management’s mind when there are looming changes; our strategic partner is the very dynamic Kristina Malther who we work very closely with on internal dialogue assignments. Originally from Denmark and an Associate Partner in Copenhagen based agency, Open, Kristina who is now based in Cape Town, has been involved in a number of multinational, global and local change communication engagements. I asked her what she thought the main reason for the lack of focus on internal communication is as she is well positioned to give a global and local perspective:

What do you think is the main reason for the lack of focus on internal communication?

There is some good news that Kristina shares, “I actually think there is a rapidly growing focus on internal communication these days. Especially in the UK and Northern Europe, and to a certain extent South Africa, where we seem to see more dedicated internal communication roles and budgets being allocated to this function. To some extent, this is due to macro trends that affect organisations and require them to focus more on heightening engagement and productivity. Continuous change is one of these tendencies, meaning that internal communicators are increasingly called for to help communicate changes and make sense of them. Something which internal communicators could do better is to clearly articulate the business value of internal communication and link it to the goals of the business.”

What are the key factors to consider when developing the core internal narrative?

Kristina explains that it is all about storytelling, “It must be both inspiring, easy to understand and easy to retell to colleagues. A strong narrative must speak to both hearts and minds to everyone within the organisation.

“Change is often much more emotional than we think. Speaking to people's hopes, pride, values and ambitions can be an immense driver in succeeding with change. Once a change makes sense to employees and they recognise the ‘why’ and see it as something exciting, it creates a clear vision for the future and is actionable, and it often starts to roll all by itself.”

When in your opinion should the communication for a change management process start?

To this Kristina advised, “Ideally the change communication strategy is an integrated part of the change management plan, helping the change management team communicate clearly and consistently from day one.

“Often communication is seen as an add-on to be applied in the implementation phase. This often makes it very hard to succeed in altering the perception and mood about a change at such a late stage. I usually recommend that the core change management team start by creating a core narrative to communicate the change, a narrative that is consistently used to communicate the change at all levels. A strong narrative can boost the process incredibly from the onset.”

Who within the company should be involved in putting the internal communication strategy and plan in place?

“Depending on the scale of the change and the organisation, I would usually recommend that internal communication allocates a resource to the core change team to assist with change communication from start to finish. This ensures proper integration of the communication effort and avoids the 'clip-on' communication activities which often don't work.”

“It is also essential that relevant members of top management are sufficiently involved, trained and orientated to the internal communication strategy, narrative and key messages as soon as possible and are consulted along the way to get their input.”

“Lastly it is always valuable to involve a group of employees as a sounding board, the biggest risk in change communication is that the change team get so immersed in the change themselves that they think it must be self-evident to others too; a group of employees can provide honest insight to what the perspective might be in other parts of the organisation,” concludes Kristina.

Keen to continue the reputation conversation? Join Regine on Twitter @ReputationIsKey or Facebook www.facebook.com/yourreputationmatters. Reputation Matters often host information sessions including internal narrative develop as a topic. Visit www.reputationmatters.co.za for more information. 

Leadership Magazine: Getting your ducks in a row

The January 2017 article can be read on page 94, here's the link.

With the recent launch of King IV^TM, critical guidance is given to the recommended best practices pertaining to building solid, strong and lasting stakeholder relations*. A key recommendation is that a “…stakeholder-inclusive approach is adopted, which takes into account and balances their legitimate and reasonable needs, interests and expectations”.

It is encouraging to see the focus on the importance of stakeholder relationship management, helping organisations to be considerably more strategic when it comes to engaging with their different audiences. In theory, stakeholder relationship management isn’t a new concept, in practice, it is something which has only really started getting a lot more traction recently.

Sixteen years ago, when I embarked on my communication management journey, there were very few communication management positions. Marketing was pretty much the be-all and end-all when it came to getting your message across. Slowly but surely, there definitely seems to have been an awakening when it comes to the importance of communication management and realising that there are different audiences that you need to connect with by using different channels and means to get the same message across. It’s not all about selling; introducing new concepts, ideas and building relationships are just as important for the growth and sustainability of a company.  

Reputation management ties all the different concepts of stakeholder engagement, communication and marketing together. They can’t work in isolation. You can market and spend millions of Rands on an advertising campaign, or invest a huge amount of time and resources into a public relations (PR) campaign. However, if a) you don’t align the communication activities, be it marketing or PR to the organisation’s strategic intent and b) have a thorough understanding of your stakeholders in terms of what is important to them and what information they really need from your business, you may as well be doing target practice with helium filled balloons instead of bullets; it’s fun and will keep you busy but you won’t have anything to show for it except a lot of frustration and a lot of wasted time (and balloons).  

It also does not help to embark on a marketing campaign and your internal building blocks are not in place. We so often hear about companies that spend considerable amounts on external communication initiatives and are surprised that it did not result in a positive revenue. On investigation (and we usually don’t have to look too far), questionable leadership or low employee morale negatively impacts the stakeholders’ experience with the company, regardless of how good your ad campaign is, it is not going to motivate your call centre representative to answer the call enthusiastically if they are not inspired and motivated by their daily work life.

I still get surprised at how many companies are shooting in the dark when it comes to the communication efforts. At a recent international conference, the delegates were asked what the communication landscape will look like for the coming year. As I watched the video and listened to the feedback from these experts, and as exciting as their advice was, I realised that many communicators are still very operationally focussed. No mention was made about how important it is that all communication should be aligned to the businesses objectives, and most importantly, research.  

What better way to adopt a stakeholder-inclusive approach than to conduct sound research to gauge stakeholders’ needs, interest and expectations? Then using the results to structure a carefully thought through reputation management strategy and plan.

I must admit that I do feel rather chuffed being ahead of the curve with our Repudometer^® that we’ve developed and refined over the past twelve years. The Repudometer is a research tool that helps organisations to measure and manage their reputations by having a thorough understanding of how their stakeholders perceive them and what parts of the business are of particular interest to them. The tool helps to identify which part of the business is building or breaking down the organisation’s reputation.

At Reputation Matters, we believe that reputation research is the springboard to organisational success. The research results enable companies to pinpoint and bridge gaps; ultimately helping them to build a solid organisational reputation. By conducting research, organisations are armed with results and data, which can be used to formulate a communication strategy to be even more favourably perceived by all their key stakeholders.

The Repudometer does not only look at the communication element of an organisation’s reputation, ten dimensions of the organisation is assessed to determine what is impacting the organisation’s reputation positively and negatively and it also narrows down which area(s) of the business is of particular interest to which stakeholder groups.

Being able to put a percentage to a reputation is very powerful, not only does it speak to the numbers orientated management team, it also provides an opportunity to have a measure in place to use for future assessments.

The research also helps us to proactively identify possible crisis situations. One of the studies that we did, we measured the reputation of ten stakeholder groups. The client was particularly concerned about their shareholders’ views. After analysing the results and plotting the feedback on our dashboard, it was very clear that the shareholders were actually quite happy; employees were a key concern. They were very unhappy with the lack of internal communication, the results from the union in turn (unsurprisingly) highlighted a very low score with external communication; if something was not going to be done soon the company was facing a strike. As a result of the cross-correlation of results and feedback from the stakeholders, a potential crisis was averted. The different functions within the business could work together to manage the situation.

Therefore, being able to put a value to your reputation is invaluable to building solid, strong, lasting relations.

Keen to continue the reputation conversation? Join Regine on Twitter @ReputationIsKey or Facebook www.facebook.com/yourreputationmatters.

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Book Review: Confessions of the Pricing Man, How Price Affects Everything: Hermann Simon

“The single most important business decision in evaluating a business is pricing power,”  Warren Buffet.

This book was highly recommended by Verne Harnish (coach and author of Scaling Up) in one of his newsletters.

The ten chapters explain different pricing considerations; don’t worry there aren’t complicated formulas.  The book is filled with great examples of what happens if your price is too high, too low and what happens to your profit when you give discounts.

Hermann Pricing says, “Good pricing has three prerequisites: create value, quantify value and communicate value. That is when you get the price you deserve, the price you need for a profitable business.”

Leadership Magazine: The paradox of Leadership, December 2016

Leadership, December 2016 pg 112 and 113

Whether you are revered or reviled as a leader the basics of leadership are clearly the same. The myriad of business books, workshops, courses and advisors go on about the importance of a vision, determination and consistency of message. It wasn’t until the recent presidential election in the United States of America, that these ideals were proved beyond any doubt.

In one week, two significant events occurred in America. The country’s politics were turned on its head with the election of Donald Trump as its 45th president, while in the business sphere Mark Zuckerberg was nominated Fortune’s Businessperson of the year. These are two very different individuals in leadership positions who have made history in unique ways. Their approach to achieving their success was, however, quite similar.

Both set audacious goals, the one to run America, the other to socially connect the world through technology. Once they knew what it was that they wanted to achieve, they had a laser focus on reaching that goal; everything that they said and did edged them closer to achieving their objectives and no distractions deterred them from their mission.

An organisation’s reputation starts with its leaders setting the right tone for the rest of the business. This can only be done when there is a very clear strategic intent and understanding of what the business’ core purpose is, as well as what the underlying values are in achieving those goals. This is the golden thread that will need to be communicated to all the different stakeholders internally and externally to the organisation.

It is not just about communication, it is about walking the talk; and delivering on promises made, i.e. consistency of messages and actions. Even though the message presented by both the president-elect and Zuckerberg were completely different, they both communicated their ideals consistently.

Another important aspect that impacts an organisation’s reputation is its strategic alliances; who you associate yourself with impacts your reputation. A shared vision and core values are important for any organisation as it allows people to understand where you are going, encouraging continuous support and help in achieving your end result.

South Africans can draw many valuable lessons from the recent leadership examples in America. I think it is safe to say that our own leadership has impacted our country’s reputation. I find it sad when talented individuals emigrate due to the crime and corruption rife within South Africa. What annoys me is when these individuals comment on various social media platforms from abroad on how the country should be ruled. Leaving the country does not solve anything. 

We all need to become the leaders of our own lives. What are the lessons that we can take heed of? 

Setting audacious goals: what would happen if we all, as South African citizens, had the daring goal of focussing on being the best possible citizen / business owner / employee that we could be?

Consistent actions and messages: every day we need to tenaciously work towards achieving our goals, not allowing ourselves to be distracted for one moment from the end goal of being the best possible version of ourselves that we can be. What would that do for our society, country and own reputation?

We need to be the leaders of our own destiny. So, as we wrap up this year and strategize for next year, let us not be complacent, let us be bold in our actions and set the examples we wish that our leaders had set for us.

Keen to continue the reputation conversation? Join Regine on Twitter @ReputationIsKey or Facebook
www.facebook.com/yourreputationmatters.