CRA Inc

Reverse the curse of knowledge

Internal communicators are all too familiar with business buzz words—shareholder value, excellence, compassion—intended to engage employees. On the contrary, organizational strategy is often unclear to employees who don’t understand how their work fits into the mission. A Harvard Business Review piece (subscription required) explains that the “sweeping, general language” used in many organizational strategies and missions disconnects executives from staff. Authors and brothers, Chip and Dan Heath, explain this phenomenon as “The Curse of Knowledge” and offer the following definition:

Top executives have had years of immersion in the logic and conventions of business, so when they speak abstractly, they are simply summarizing the wealth of concrete data in their heads. But frontline employees, who aren’t privy to the underlying meaning, hear only opaque phrases. As a result, the strategies being touted don’t stick (HBR, December 2006).

To reverse the “curse,” Heath and Heath suggest making strategic messages sticky. Sticky messages are relevant and clear to staff, and encourage them to (1) remember what they learn about their organization’s mission, and (2) carry out that mission daily.

This is consistent with what we advise our clients. Perhaps more simply put, all strategic messages must be:

1. Universal
2. Simple
3. Broad
4. Actionable
5. Accurate
6. Explanatory of what you’re doing and why 

The challenge, then, is how else you can increase stickiness. Like the Heath article, a chapter of Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point (which we recommend highly) identifies ways to do just this. For illustration, Gladwell presents two empirical studies of some of the least sophisticated, least biased audiences: preschoolers. From those studies, Gladwell highlights that people pay attention, and subsequently learn, when they understand the messages they hear and see. Taken together, Heaths’ and Gladwell’s arguments make a point that all employees echo: organizational strategies should appeal to common sense.

So how can you reverse the curse of knowledge? You can read more on sticky messages here, and consider these final tips. First, give people concrete language—even if it seems overly simplified. For example, “raising the value of our stock” is more concrete than the ubiquitous “creating value.” Next, the component parts of an organization’s strategy should be intuitive. Anyone can understand a phrase like, “Satisfy our customers’ needs.” The ways staff can satisfy their customers, of course, can be more complex and specific to each department or role. And finally, construct memorable stories that illustrate your organization’s values in action. Base the stories on what’s familiar—using well-known parables or examples of your staff doing great work—which will help eliminate business-speak, and create usable context for your staff.

Best Practices is Risk and Crisis Comms

In trying to catch up on my journal reading I’ve just been through the August 2006 edition (Vol. 34 No. 3) of JACR, which is a special section on “Best Practices in Risk and Crisis Communication.” The basis of the review is the NCFPD’s list of ten best practices, which are a result of an extensive synthesis of the body of risk and crisis communication scholarship. The best practices are:

1. Process approaches and policy approaches (meaning, have formal processes for this stuff and have the communicator at the policy formulation table)
2. Pre-event planning
3. Partnerships with the public
4. Listen to the public’s concerns and understand the audience
5. Honesty, candor, and openness
6. Collaborate and coordinate with credible sources
7. Meet the needs of the media and remain accessible
8. Communicate with compassion, concern, and empathy
9. Accept uncertainty and ambiguity
10. Messages of self-efficacy

Straightforward enough, and a good list. More interesting, though, was the response by Peter Sandman (HTML, PDF). First, he provides an interesting frame on the topic, noting there are important differences between when people are not worried enough about a serious hazard, too worried about a small hazard, and rightly worried about a serious hazard. Second, he notes:

My final comment on the best practices may be the most important. In an article as short as this, with only a few paragraphs on each of the best practices, they come out sounding pretty abstract but also pretty obvious–so obvious, in fact, that the reader may fail to notice that they are extremely difficult to implement and very seldom accomplished. They’re not so much best practices as they are aspirational goals. Any reader whose overall response is, ‘‘Yeah, we do most of that,’’ has been ill-served by the article. Odds are you don’t. Almost nobody does.

The best practices wisely concede that candor and openness are tougher goals than honesty (#5). But in fact, all ten of these recommendations are tough. They fly in the face of organizational culture, of individual ego, of technical hubris.

This sounded like the clear-eyed perspective of someone who’s done the thing and not just studied it. Ultimately, the matter one must solve for–in particular, that the leader must solve for–is execution. Strong communicative practice is tough stuff, made tougher by the fact that most approaches to communication problems are relatively unsophisticated and grounded in historical precedence and a journalistic tradition. The ultimate best practice is getting things done.

How to combat a culture of excuses and promote accountability

Whether the goal is elevating employee performance, SOX compliance, strategic alignment, spurring innovation, or something else, leaders earn their keep by creating the conditions of accountability in their organization.

What conditions lead to accountability? Our research has shown time and again that most people in organizations will be accountable—that is, they will do what’s needed and expected—to the extent to which…

• Expectations are clear to employees.
• Employees perceive that those expectations are credible and reasonable.
• Employees anticipate that positive consequences will follow performance.
• Employees anticipate that negative consequences will follow poor performance.

Strategy & Leadership has just published an article that elaborates our Accountability Model, highlights from our research the factors that most frequently promote and inhibit accountability, and provides a case study of how we helped one organization assess and address its accountability problems.

You can download the complete article, “How to combat a culture of excuses and promote accountability,” here.

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Can Leaders Concede Confusion?

A recent Phi Delta Kappan essay examines �what leaders should do when they don�t know what to do.� As the authors note, this is a challenging issue, since �[a]t the gut level, many managers believe that saying �I’m at a loss here� is tantamount to declaring �I am not fit to lead.��

No matter how capable or well prepared, managers regularly find themselves confronting bewildering events, perplexing information, or baffling situations that steal their time and hijack their carefully planned agendas. Disoriented by developments that just don’t make sense and by challenges that don’t yield to easy solutions, these managers become confused — sometimes even lost — and don’t know what to do.

Many managers inevitably will respond to these symptoms by simply denying that they are confused. Others will hide their confusion — their search for sense — because they see it as a liability� Acting as if they are in control while really not knowing what to do, these managers reflexively and unilaterally attempt to impose quick fixes to restore their equilibrium.

Sometimes, these managerial responses may even succeed in making the immediate symptoms of problems go away, but they rarely address underlying causes. More often, they lead to bad decision making, undermine crucial communication with colleagues and subordinates, and make managers seem distant and out of touch. In the long run, managers who hide their confusion also damage their organizations’ ability to learn from experience and grow. Yet, despite these drawbacks, few managers can resist hiding their confusion.

The authors prescribe a sensible solution, which boils down to being strategic about framing the issue: Candidly acknowledge your confusion but speak with certainty about the next step needed to achieve clarity. You can read the whole thing here.

Let’s Start Meeting Like This

Let’s Start Meeting Like This summarizes “Can Absence Make a Team Grow Stronger?” (Ann Majchrzak et al., Harvard Business Review, May 2004), a study of virtual workgroups:

E-mail, while essential in today’s workplace, quickly overwhelms team members, as multiple chains bounce back and forth. Videoconferencing is not quite ready for prime time; according to the study, desktop versions have too little bandwidth, and remote locations require too much travel.

But online team rooms, also known as virtual work spaces, received top marks from successful virtual teams. These networked, file-sharing spaces provide a place for team members to access the latest versions of files at any time, carry on asynchronous discussions (without getting sidetracked into multiple conversations), and keep track of deadlines and time lines. In sum, they collect all relevant information into one place.

The researchers make an interesting point about media richness:

It’s often pointed out that nonverbal cues are an important dimension of face-to-face meetings. For virtual teams, the absence of body language and facial expressions is actually a boon to productivity, the researchers said. Virtual meetings are more democratic than face-to-face discussions; participants don’t feel the effect of hierarchy as much.

The Outlook for Social Networking Technology

MIT’s Technology Review has an excellent primer on social networking technology and its potential business applications.

The premise behind this new social-networking technology is simple: you may know a lot of people from work, college, church, or your neighborhood, but you probably don�t know exactly who their friends are�and forget about their friends� friends. But join an online social network and invite a few acquaintances, and the software will begin to reveal previously hidden second- or third-degree connections that can lead to an interview, business meeting, or tee time with that elusive potential client or employer.

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It�s About Apprehension, Not Shyness

A recent article in Communication Quarterly (CITE(Vol. 51 No 1 Winter 2003, Pages 101-110)) presents research examining the relationship between communication apprehension, shyness and communication quality for supervisors. Aren�t communication and apprehension the same? Not according to communication scholars, who define communication apprehension as

an individual�s level of fear or anxiety associated with either real or anticipated communication with another person or persons.

Shyness, however, is

the behavior of not talking � the actual frequency of a person talking � and not a person�s preference toward communication or a person�s anxiety about communication.

In the study, the researchers learned that direct reports of communication-apprehensive supervisors see those supervisors as significantly less credible, less likeable, and has having a significantly less favorable general affect. Shy supervisors, however, were not seen this way.

Why it matters: It�s a common misconception that shy leaders are less able to effectively manage or motivate employees. This research, however, suggests that shyness really isn�t the issue: apprehensiveness or anxiety about communicating is, and while apprehensive supervisors may appear shy, not all introverted supervisors are apprehensive.

The consequence: There is much organizations can do to help communication-apprehensive supervisors overcome their anxiety. Common approaches include training, coaching, or education, but the end result should be the same: address the anxiety, not the personality.

Is Your Upward Communication Process Missing The Most Important Content?

“A particularly telling finding was the relatively low level of dissent expression to managers, supervisors, and coworkers about issues related to ethics and preventing harm.”–Kassing & Armstrong, Management Communication Quarterly, Vol. 16, No. 1, August 2002 39-65

Not long ago, the standard practice for fostering upward communication in most organizations was to establish a suggestion box. With rise of information technology, however, we’ve seen the channels for fostering upward communication expand to include telephone hot lines, e-mail, and employee feedback intranet sites. But do these channels really capture the key information that internal communication strategists and leadership need to proactively respond to issues before they become crises? Recent research published in Management Communication Quarterly suggests not.

In the August, 2002 Issue (Vol. 16, Issue 1) Jefferey W. Kassing and Todd A. Armstrong of Arizona State University West present an interesting study on how the sources of employee discontent relate to how employees express that discontent. A key finding from the research: that employees appear to be significantly less likely to express concern or discontent to managers, supervisors, or coworkers when the topic that aroused their discontent involved concern over unethical practices or things that may be endangering employees or customers.

The authors call for communication processes that “layer” feedback tools such as e-mail boxes and Town Halls with others that further encourage openness. These might include anonymous “tip” lines, Ombudsman programs, or–an idea we often use–informal “pulse” networks that regularly provide employees with the opportunity to share sensitive information with other employees while retaining a measure of anonymity.