3 Apr 07 @ 9:59 am
The Chairman’s Letter @ IBM
In reading The Chairman’s Letter in this year’s IBM annual report I was struck that it’s an excellent example of several principles of effective internal leadership communication:
- Alignment of the “strategic message hierarchy”: The letter creates a clear and credible link between IBM’s mission, vision, strategy, initiatives, and metrics.
- The use of narratives to frame the strategic context: The headings of the information dashboard about halfway through the piece, when strung together, tell a story that frames the strategic context of the business and the 2006 results (and even better, the report offers quantitative support for each):
- Several years ago we saw change coming.
- We remixed our business, to move to the emerging higher-value spaces.
- And we decided to become a globally integrated enterprise, in order to improve IBM’s overall productivity and to participate in the world’s growth markets.
- As a result, IBM is a higher-performing enterprise today than it was a decade ago. Our business model is more aligned with our clients’ needs and generates better earnings, profits and cash.
- And that has enabled us to invest in future sources of growth and provide record return to investors … while continuing to invest in R&D — more than $28 billion over the past five years.
- Strong information design in presenting the numbers: Both the dashboard and the financial table would make Tufte proud.
- “The expert’s voice”: Sam Palmisano sounds more like an adviser than an executive … a solid choice for a document meant to reassure and offer guidance.
You may read the entire report here in several formats.
(Disclosure: Members of IBM’s internal communication team are friends of the firm, though they weren’t contacted nor consulted in my writing this post.)
posted in category(s): Miscellaneous
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