1: Create a “No-Spin” Zone
You’re sitting in an airplane stuck on the tarmac. What would you want to hear from the flight deck?
David Eun, vice president of strategic partnerships at Google, knows what he’d do if he were the pilot. Instead of waiting until he had detailed information on when the plane would take off, he would get on the airplane intercom system. He would apologize to the passengers for the delay, share what he was being told by the control tower, and tell them what his experience suggested might happen next. He would keep it brief and to the point, and then promise to update them regularly. He would then do just that, even if he had no new information to share.
“I wouldn’t pretend to know exactly how or when the situation would be resolved, or imagine I could give them information they’d necessarily like,” says Eun. But, he says, passengers would still breathe a sigh of relief because he’d have provided some information.
Keeping people informed, resetting expectations as relevant, and consistently meeting those reset expectations can empower and reassure people who are otherwise unable to change the situation they’re in. Communicating directly and honestly shows them they are top of mind and that the person in charge respects their ability to understand the situation they—and he—are in together. This transparency reflects a different kind of leadership, based on the concept of acknowledging the accountability of leaders to their employees—and proactively accepting responsibility for things within the control of leadership—without providing false hope.
In troubled times, many managers tend to hunker down behind closed doors, until they have definitive answers or can shift the blame to other people or forces beyond their control. Others tend to give vague assurances that they think people want to hear, to make them “feel better,” even if it isn’t clear such assurances are warranted. That’s the opposite of what’s needed.
Participants in Hidden Brain Drain strategy sessions told us that undercommunicating is a greater risk than overcommunicating. Everyone’s anxiety level is already off the charts; silence from those supposedly in the know only makes it worse. When leaders don’t provide information, even the prized people whose positions seem safe start second-guessing what’s going on. The resulting rumor mill inevitably undermines trust. “You have to have the courage to talk, even if it’s just to say, ‘We don’t know,’” says Kathryn Quigley, head of Americas talent management at Credit Suisse. “But whatever you do, you must say something, because people interpret saying nothing as meaning something bad.”
And whatever you say, make sure it’s honest. “The idea that you can manage communications and spin the truth is pretty much wishful thinking,” says Tom Stewart, chief marketing and knowledge officer for consulting firm Booz & Company. In the age of the Internet, companies cannot avoid or cover up difficult facts. Rest assured that your employees will obsessively root out the smallest snippets of new information and broadcast them in real time via BlackBerry, cell phone, and Twitter. Trust can be built and maintained only through transparency: leaders at all levels must commit to a “no-spin” zone.
Calling All Managers
Effective communication in times of crisis involves all levels of management. According to participants in Hidden Brain Drain strategy sessions, “Not just the CEO but all managers need to be more ‘open book,’ so that people understand the realities of the situation.” Still, hearing from senior leaders might be particularly helpful.
“It is critical that employees hear from the most senior ranks of management,” says Frances G. Laserson, president of The Moody’s Foundation and former vice president of corporate communications, Moody’s Corporation. “They have the thirty-thousand-foot view of where the company sits in the overall economy. That’s something a lower-level manager can’t supply.” But, Laserson adds, “Best practice in a company is for senior management to provide talking points for individual managers and supervisors. Employees prefer to get their information from their immediate manager. Team leaders are the most believable source of information.”
Neither top management nor immediate supervisors will have credibility with employees, however, if their messages are contradictory. At networking giant Cisco, global manager meetings are scheduled for the day before quarterly performance announcements. This practice gives leaders a chance to hear and understand corporate messaging and prepare for questions from their employees.
To ensure that information cascades throughout the organization consistently, you should make sure that before any important announcement all managers receive a series of talking points providing detailed answers to specific questions. The points should cover items that people are most anxious about—for example, How will this news affect our company? What changes will occur as a result? What will that mean for me and my colleagues? How and when are things going to happen?
Choose the Right Medium for Your Message
Politicians and marketing experts know that it takes an average of eight sightings (or viewings) for an advertisement’s message to sink in. And that’s in ordinary times when people are distracted by normal things. This is no ordinary time. These days, members of your Delta Force or A team are likely to be more distracted than usual by concerns about keeping their jobs and making their mortgage payments. Thus managers need to use every tool at their disposal to engage the attention of top performers and keep them focused on the job at hand.
Luckily there’s a wide spectrum of possibilities, ranging from town hall meetings to one-on-one conversations, with interesting options in between. Technology—videoconferencing, Webcasts, team and leader blogs, even Twitter—certainly helps create a sense of collaboration and camaraderie, and it should be part of ongoing communication efforts. These new forms of communication are especially important if you want to reinforce connectivity between global leaders, as pharmaceutical giant Pfizer discovered in a recent Webcast.
On March 9, 2009, Pfizer celebrated International Women’s Day with a Webcast led by CEO Jeffrey Kindler and a group of top female leaders. They wanted to share information about new programs that seek to accelerate the careers of women in this science-based company. Five hundred high-potential Pfizer women from around the world logged on to the program, and many of them chose to participate in a lively Q&A with senior leaders. As Sandra Bushby, director of global diversity and inclusion, describes the event, “In turbulent times, this is a great way of cementing community—and giving voice to women around the world.”
In a similar vein, EMC, a $14 billion technology organization based in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, uses social media to encourage “enterprise collaboration.” On a internal social network called EMC ONE, EMC’s forty thousand worldwide employees are encouraged to brainstorm new ideas and connect with one another in more than 160 virtual communities—such as one called “The Water Cooler”—where employees can collaborate on anything from green IT, to understanding the real-time competitive climate, to ways to celebrate the company’s upcoming 30th anniversary, or simply to share what’s on their minds. Anyone at the company—from the CEO to engineers in Korea—can log on to the discussions. Like a virtual hallway, the “Water Cooler” community recognizes the power of unexpected conversations—thus it’s both strategic and a way to connect people.
These conversations yield potential solutions to the special challenges of recession—from customized client services to cost savings—as employees swap experiences and expertise. In December 2008, one EMC employee posted a discussion on Water Cooler titled “Constructive Ideas to Save Money,” which, as of May 2009, yielded over 23,000 hits and generated over 320 ideas for cost savings from EMC employees globally. Among the cost-saving ideas, employees suggested that the company offer unpaid time off and lower the temperature at EMC headquarters by two degrees—a suggestion that included a calculation of potential savings. “There were hundreds of very tangible cost-saving ideas that went above and beyond any ideas the company might have come up with,” says Polly Pearson, vice president of employment brand and strategy development.
The Power of One-on-One
The best way to keep your prized people engaged is to keep in touch. Get out from behind the barricade of your desk and walk around, visiting workstations and offices. This practice counters the bunker mentality that people fall into under stress.
Even good managers need to be reminded to communicate more than usual during times of crisis. “Everyone’s overloaded and on overdrive,” reports Judith Nocito, assistant general counsel at manufacturing giant Alcoa. “You get so busy with urgent stuff that needs to be done that it helps to be reminded to just sit down and tell your group, ‘Here’s where we are now; you’re not impacted today, and you’re doing a great job.’ Just hearing that can be very reassuring, rather than have people wondering what’s going on.”
You can further reassure employees by expanding the number of people you reach out to directly. Not only does this reinforce a sense of camaraderie, but it also reduces the risk of information getting garbled as it’s passed along. At Time Warner, Lisa Quiroz, senior vice president of corporate responsibility, used to hold weekly meetings with six of her twenty-one staffers. In February 2008, she had to lay off one-third of her staff. Today, she holds weekly meetings with her entire group of twelve. “We did this because it is an easy way to connect with everyone, and it reduced redundant meetings,” Quiroz says. “Sometimes, it is tough to get the right information from one level to the next because some managers are better communicators than others. Now, with everyone having increased responsibilities—as a result of staff cuts—this was also a good way to make everyone feel part of the team.”
When crunched budgets limit travel, a new challenge becomes how to communicate one-on-one with top talent located on the other side of the country—or the world. Don’t ignore the obvious: the most effective mode of communication is still picking up the phone and talking to far-flung colleagues. If one of your top performers works in a distant time zone, schedule regular one-on-one conversations and supplement them with IM pings. Leaders of virtual teams who drive to work can use their morning and evening commutes to connect with direct reports in various parts of the globe; in turn, direct reports should know that the rush hour may well be a good time for an uninterrupted conversation.
The bottom line: instead of having people piece together facts and figures from random sources and make their own interpretations, bring accurate information directly to them.
Listen Up!
Ultimately, what matters most is not where or how people connect but that they do connect.
Remember that the manager’s job is not only to talk but also to listen. One way to drive high rates of employee engagement is to hold instigative (two-way rather than one-way) conversations—both to understand what’s on people’s minds and to re-create trust and community. Especially in tough times, managers should listen up and actively involve valued employees in decisions and changes rather than issue set-in-stone directives. Appearances are critical here. Reaching out to listen, showing by your actions that you value and respect the opinions of your colleagues, is a big step in the right direction.
Open the conversation to questions, and encourage people to share concerns as well as the latest rumors. At Moody’s, companywide town hall meetings are followed immediately by mini-town halls between managers and their teams. Team leaders are instructed to ask, “Were your questions answered? What did you think? What are your concerns going forward?” They then pass the responses up and down the ladder. This sort of 360-degree involvement is especially valuable during difficult times, when even proven performers are likely to feel out of the loop and out of control.
Look for creative ways to link to people, to hear what they’re thinking. Reach out to explain the rationale behind restructuring and any job reductions. According to Alcoa’s Nocito, “Constantly focusing on making sure people understand can take the sting out of the situation and lighten the mood of the doom and gloom. It’s really important to keep people focused on things they can and should do—the things they can impact, rather than worrying about things outside of their control.”