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Resistance and Renaissance: A Metaphor for Managing Change

Posted by Constance Ward on May 13, 2013   |   No Comments
Renaissance Resistance West Zurich

Renaissance or resistance? Diverging views on change may stall or stop important initiatives. Photo: www.westnetz.ch

In the trendy western part of Zurich is the Renaissance building, a tall hotel-apartment complex that has continued since its conception to draw the ire of some vocal Swiss opponents who object to the placement, size and scale of the ”skyscraper” with 15 stories. Local residents have staged a form of permanent protest by attaching a sign to an older, more traditional building in the neighborhood. That sign, in the same font and style as the Renaissance one nearby, declares the owners’ point of view: Resistance.

The juxtaposition of the two buildings presents a metaphor for cultural change in the world of business. How often do you, as a leader, try to regenerate your company and meet with reluctance to change? Are you looking to promote a rebirth or renewal of your firm for the future only to find that some employees are still holding tight to the past?

How can you effectively achieve that Renaissance and mitigate any Resistance you might be facing? Ask, assess, then act. We’re here to help!

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5 Actions for Leaders in the Golden Hour of a Crisis

Posted by Constance Ward on May 9, 2013   |   No Comments

fire exit signA recent article floating around the blogosphere focused on the “golden hours” of crisis communications. Those are the critical hours immediately following an event when information is incomplete but audiences are continuously seeking additional facts.

The article lists five steps as the “Grand Crisis Response Strategy” for covering those first stages of the crisis.

1. Stop the production of victims. Continuous victim production is what drives the media coverage, the public interest, the emotionalization, the commentary and criticism from 1000 sources and the reputation destruction.
2. Manage the victim dimension. This is what leaders and senior managers should be doing rather than hanging around and second-guessing the command center.
3. Communicate directly and frequently with employees, stakeholders, and those directly affected
4. Notify those indirectly affected, those who have a problem now because you have a problem; regulators, licensing authorities, neighbors, partners, those who need to know and who should hear from you very promptly.
5. Manage the self-appointed and the self-anointed; the news media and the new media, those who opt in on their own, the critics, the bellyachers, the backbench bickerers, the bloviators.

Are you prepared to make good use of that valuable time window? Ask, assess then act. We’re here to help!

Photo: Paul Harrison

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Three Ways to Electrify Your Organization

Posted by Constance Ward on April 27, 2013   |   No Comments
Benjamin Franklin Drawing Electricity from the Air 1816 Painting Benjamin West Philadelphia Museum of Art

Benjamin Franklin Drawing Electricity from the Sky 1816 – Benjamin West (Public domain) via Wikimedia Commons

As a thought leader, you may find it more difficult to build your reputation internally than externally. Think, for example, about the saying that ”Genius is never recognized on its own soil.” Your communications team can and should help you build your professional brand internally while they work on developing your reputation in the industry.

My husband trained as an engineer and uses a great metaphor about electricity when he coaches team leaders. Applied to communications, these message-multiplier teams can help to electrify your organization in three ways. At the least, communications teams are transistors or transformers. At their best, they are transducers of the energy inside their organization.

Transistor teams simply send out messages like radio signals, rather than acting like radar, which also listens for responses. This is the least effective of the three ways to communicate internally.

A transformer communications team takes the same energy inside the organization and

At the least, communications teams are transistors or transformers. At their best, they are transducers of the energy inside their organization.

boosts it up or steps it down as appropriate to the situation. When false rumors are floating around inside an organization, for instance, a transformer team might communicate hard facts to take the energy out of the watercooler discussions. Or when a new sales campaign is launched, the transformer team might energize their employees with an electrifying communications campaign.

The third, most effective way to electrify your organization is by establishing a transducer communications team that will create a different form of energy within your company. Transducers will convert the strategic energy that exists at the top of the organization and the operational energy and dedication of the employees into a new energy source to drive the company.

Do you have transistor, transformer or transducer communications teams to help electrify your organization? Ask, assess then act. We’re here to help!

See related post: Sending the right and wrong signals

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Social Media Risks – Real or Simply Managed

Posted by Constance Ward on April 22, 2013   |   No Comments

You’ve heard them all before – reasons why not to increase the scope and frequency of your company’s social media outreach.

crowd surfing and social media risks

Instead of sitting on the social media sidelines, ride with the crowd, manage the risk and reap the rewards.

The arguments usually include concerns that employees or consumers might abuse the channels and thereby put the company’s brand at risk. Other perceived threats are a loss of intellectual property as inappropriate news is posted in cyberspace or a drop in productivity among employees who are supposedly just checking the company’s social media sites.

Whether these are real or imagined risks, they can be simply managed by a robust, considered, enforceable social media strategy. Does your company have strong social media strategies and policies in place that manage these risks? Ask, assess, then act. We’re here to help!

Photo Credit: Photos by Mavis

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Creating Crowd-ed Sidewalks

Posted by Constance Ward on April 19, 2013   |   No Comments

As a college student decades ago, I learned an important lesson about crowd-sourcing ideas that still applies to the world of business today.

Construction was ongoing at the time throughout the campus of my small university in the U.S. Midwest, Missouri Southern State University in Joplin, Missouri. Joplin is today best known for the unfortunate reason of being the place where the deadliest tornado in America struck on May 22 two years ago.

maps shows sidewalks following students natural paths

Well before concrete sidewalks were installed, students found and developed the natural path between buildings.
(View full map)

The part of the university campus I’m referring to here was not badly damaged in the tornado, so this map shows approximately where two buildings (numbers 14 and 17) were built in the 1970s and how the sidewalk connects them.

What happened when the buildings and sidewalk were built shows an early understanding of the value of crowd-sourcing an idea and channeling the wisdom of the masses.

Both of the buildings were built on a horseshoe-shaped commons area on campus. Rather than pouring concrete sidewalks between the facilities, the university let the students first make a footpath across the commons.

The students naturally found the shortest way to get from one place to another and over time wore a muddy path between the buildings. Then the university paved the sidewalk on top of the route that the students were already using. The unofficial shortcut then became the established direction for foot traffic.

Getting input from the end users of your ideas — by crowd-sourcing or cloud-sourcing the concepts — is an effective way to develop ”sticky” ideas before they are set in hard concrete.

Are you using the wisdom of crowds and clouds and stakeholders to find the best, most effective path forward? Ask, assess, then ask. We’re here to help!

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Call Me–No Maybe!

Posted by Constance Ward on April 15, 2013   |   No Comments

keep calm and call me maybeI’m too small–and too wise–to take on Big Tobacco by myself. So I will just comment on one specific, nefarious tactic being used right now as an advertising campaign in Switzerland. Billboards are warning young adults not about the dangers of smoking (except in the small font). Instead they’re encouraging them to smoke with four little words in very large type: ”Don’t Be a Maybe!”

”Maybe” is such a powerful word and now quite a trendy one, it seems. According to a recent New York Times article by Ben Sisario titled The New Rise of a Summer Hit: Tweet It Maybe, Carly Rae Jepsen’s catchy song ”Call Me Maybe” was the longest running hit of the year in 2012 and stayed in the Number 1 spot for nine weeks.

It also spawned a series of viral internet Maybe videos, like the Cookie Monster’s ”Share It Maybe” and the political spoof with excerpts from Obama’s speeches knit together so that he seems to be singing ”Call Me Maybe.” Finally, if you want to see a funny video from a trade organization, look at the American Water Works Association video “AWWA Call Me Maybe.”

Being a Maybe person in business isn’t always a bad thing. Maybe can give you time to think things through more thoroughly so that your final decision is better considered. Maybe can give your organization time to catch up with you and align with your thinking.

But Maybe can also do the opposite and that’s the risk. Too much hesitation or ”analysis paralysis” can allow doors to close behind you and options to be taken off the table.

Do you know whether Maybe is hurting or helping your organization? Ask, assess, then act. We’re here to help so call me — no maybe!

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Putting it together: read our most popular Thought Leader Zone Post Series

Posted by tlz-admin on April 7, 2013   |   No Comments

post series part 1 2 3 thoughtleaderzone.comSome topics demand more than a single blog post. That’s why we’ve discussed several timely, key topics as a multi-part series. This compilations list provides easy links to our 5 most most popular series.

Leadership, Communications and the Annual General Meeting

Being a Social CEO

Planning for the CEO’s First 100 Days

Pink Matters: Female Leadership

Gray Matters: Cross-generational Leadership for Age 50+ Executives

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Being a Social CEO – Do Keep Up! (Part 3)

Posted by Constance Ward on April 1, 2013   |   No Comments
reasons ceos don't use social media

Some of the reasons CEOs stay away from social media
(Full infographic is here.)

Right now, 70% of all Fortune 500 CEOs don’t have a presence on social networks. An estimated 16% of CEOs use social media to keep up with their customers currently, but that number is expected to jump to 57% in the next three to five years, according to an IBM survey published recently. See the survey results in infographic form or in a short video at the end of this post.

Another survey published on that site presented a finding that may make you want to be an early adopter and lead the way with social networking. Continue Reading…

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11 Questions and Prompts for Insightful Debriefing Sessions

Posted by Constance Ward on March 22, 2013   |   No Comments

flow chart for debriefing sessionIn order to create a powerful “learning organisation,” your management team needs to be able to share lessons learned among themselves in a systematic way. Structured debrief sessions following major projects can help your leaders learn from their successes, as well as the times they could have done better.

Debriefing sessions shouldn’t be viewed as negative finger-pointing exercises but as opportunities to acknowledge successes and challenges and then to empower each leader to help others in the organisation learn from their experiences.

Before the debriefing session begins, a strong discussion leader should be appointed who will encourage everyone to contribute but won’t allow personal attacks to derail the conversation.

Here are 11 prompt questions that can be used to guide the discussion during a debriefing session: Continue Reading…

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Meeting the Challenge of the Shareholders Meeting (Part 2)

Posted by Constance Ward on March 18, 2013   |   No Comments

shareholders and executive compensationArguably the most important event of the year so far in Switzerland took place earlier this month when Swiss voters passed the controversial referendum to impose unprecedented controls on executive pay. Even in this normally pro-business environment, more than 2/3 of the Swiss voters backed the proposal to let shareholders have their ”say on pay.”

The passing of the referendum means that Swiss company shareholders can veto bonus packages, as well as ”golden handshakes” when executives agree to join a company and ”golden handcuffs” when they exit, as compensation and a way to prevent them from working for a competitor.

Many Swiss companies are working on revised bonus schemes that incentivize executives while better aligning the interests of leaders with shareholders. As it’s Annual General Meeting season in Switzerland, shareholders are watching carefully as the large multinational companies announce results and rewards.

Are you expecting a challenging Annual General Meeting? Are you prepared to meet those challenges head on with a proactive approach to messaging — verbally and non-verbally?  Ask, assess, then act. We’re here to help!

See also Part 1:  Three actionable steps to make your AGM a Thought Leadership Showcase

Illustration: HikingArtist.com 
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