Working with Sparkle #3 - What does your company value?

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Company Values, like its Mission Statement and Vision requires internal marketing and branding if they’re going to stick.

Why have values?
To articulate the “us” of an organisation. Without sounding too much like Carson McCullers, what the values do do - is articulate the look and feel of and organisations’ intangibles.

In other words, the Values puts a shape to the peoples’ thoughts, their language, their aspirations and their beliefs. The culture of an group or organisation and its values are fine bedfellows.

Why articulate that though?

To give meaning to the group’s long term direction, where it plans to be and to go in the future. And to delineate it against the market place. Putting a shape to these values, puts the organisation into sharp relief, and helps to make it stand out against others.

Arguably, if you get this right - and by right we mean, a true reflection of what you say you are – then you may attract, or become attractive to those who share those values. You are in the group lovingly hailed as an employer of choice.

In this market place of high movement, shifting loyalties and relationship machinations, how do you package something so elusive as values? We have a diverse set of dreams and aspirations representative of thousands of members. How do you find an image that captures such a myriad? How do you embody and capture those aspirations and beliefs?

First of all you have to get the words

To do this - you ask the people. You craft the dialogue and then you reflect that back, testing all the time that those words are what was meant.

Then for those who didn’t talk with you, those hundreds that were busy working when you held your think tank - what then? How do we keep that stream of consciousness with the myriad of light and gems intact? This is the palette you need to paint the pictures that follow. This is what you need to match each valued word with an image that resonates as clearly.

Our job is to ‘brand’ or 'image' the values

So as all good painters do – we prepared the canvas. We got some hot coffee and cakes, and we mulled over ideas surrounding our organisations’ seven (7) values. Converstations are the best way to think through an idea. A snatch of a thought in dialogue is often much richer than a linear declaration. We sat with the idea and thought of colours, sounds, shapes, subject matter, icons, landscapes, music and techniques. Some values were easier than others. And our input was as diverse as the subject matter:

• Some of the group reverted to traditional concepts –referring to remembered or traditional images whilst attempted to give them a fresh twist.


• Others, more resistant, refused to move beyond those older, iconic images; images they had fallen in love with years ago. Refusing to believe that a new image would be better - fearing the baby would be hurled out with the bath water if our approach was too gung-ho.


• Others chose a completely different approach, taking the people out of the equation and making the technology forefront, arguing that a piece of clothing rigorously tested was as full of integrity as a human interaction.


• Some wanted the quick grab - vox pops, interviews and stories, yarning around the camp fire - watching their words, rising up in the smoke, refusing to be captured


• And others took the epic approach - placing each of the values in the narrative of the whole. Where the audience would be taken on a flight around the organisation, across landscapes as diverse as the people, descending now and then with close focus at each of the values.

So where to next?

We’ve posted this group dialogue on a wiki (A collaborative online working environment). We are juggling the demands of management who want it done for limited resources with our own creative integrity and finding the right (best) solutions.

We’re hoping for an iterative process where the stories that emerge will give us a glimpse of the pictures behind them, and we’re hoping that collaborative environment will continue the think-tank environment, so that others can dip into and draw from group ideas.

Some new ideas will bubble up and get allocated to a value or the strategy. Some old ideas - the pearls of great price that nestle unseen in shells at the bottom of the tank - will always stay in the iconic imagery – and you wouldn't or couldn’t throw them out even if you wanted to.

Working with Sparkle #2 - Managing stakeholders with pain points

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Liz Mead interviews James Williams on the role of benefits selling and pain points in stakeholder management. We debunk engagement into simple into three easy measures and provide examples of how you can manage stakeholder engagement by mentally taking your stakeholders to a point of pain and then showing them a way to get out of that pain.

For more information on this episode including extra examples visit the website at workingwithsparkle.com and while you're there subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss the next episode. Thanks for listening to today's show.

A period of pain

When digging for gems it’s best to keep a clear head as the shifting landscape can cause pain. By finding your pain points, you’re more likely to uncover the most beneficial jewels.

This story is about managing extreme and risky engagement and it started with the sweeping statement

“Staff are having problems finding information on your website”

A strange statement considering we had just spent months consulting this specific group as to how they think about and search for information on the website. My immediate need was to determine the extent of this ‘issue’.

I use a process of questioning to uncover the root problem.

Q: “So what is it that people can’t find?”

A: “Procedures”

Q: As you know they are available from the front page of the website – do you know whether the person actually checked there?”

A: Silence

Q “Do you know how many people are having this problem”

A: “Well, I’m not exactly sure but the CEO tells me that somebody told him that they couldn’t find the procedures.” So we’ve come up with a new website design that will make the procedures easy to find.”



Now at this point our drilling is stalled. To proceed in this vein would endanger the gem.

This in-depth plan to totally rearrange the website navigation from the top down, the bottom up and inside out so that the whole website was focused around procedures was based on a conversation with one person, who most likely was avoiding a wrap on the knuckles for not doing their job properly. And it was causing me pain.

When in pain, it is essential to maintain calm. Using the whiteboard as a therapist (I’ve always found them to be discreet) I mouthed a series of silent expletives. Purged I could maintain a calm demeanour and think more clearly when I turned back to the conversation.

A change of strategy was necessary. I needed to shift the pain and fix the problem. Finer tools were required for this new situation.

• There is a perceived problem
• There is no shared acknowledgement that it is a problem
• There is a clear case of extreme non-specialist intervention
• There is an manufactured solution to a problem that may not exist
• There is an expectation that this solution will be delivered.
• There was danger to our program deliverables
• There was oppositional points of view
  

My mind was a tornado of activity. I had to work out how to get this project back on track, without undoing months worth of work on interface design, and website usability.

The dig had unearthed a dangerous crevice in the rock face. As a skilled gemologist (communicator) I retreated to base camp and plotted a course.

• Examine and re-examine the data
• Get clear on the implications (for us such a wide-scale change would add to the confusion of users)
• Form the argument
• Find a productive pain, (not physical pain, although perhaps tempting at the time!) rather, psychological pain.
• Focus attention on the most likely and least desirable outcomes of the alternate course (anger, confusion and frustration of users)
• Meticulously outline the findings to cause pain
• Emphasise the tangible benefits (high level of existing engagement from staff) to alleviate the pain
• Practice the 'thud factor' (dropping reams of printed data relating to time, effort and cost on your stakeholder's desk)
  

The thud factor sounded something like this:

Do you realise this means not just changing the website navigation, but that you are about to dismantle a website that the staff have built?

Are you sure this is what the staff want, because we have already built what they told us they needed?

Did you know that 3 months has already been spent collating very specific data about how staff across the organisation look for and think about website information?

Are you sure you want to enforce this change without looking at our data?

How would you plan to handle any objections from staff around your changes?

By the time these questions had finished, the level of perceived pain was palpable on the face of this well-meaning executive. It was then that we played our benefits card.

Fix the pain with something of benefit to both parties.

“I know our data is solid, and I understand that you need better exposure for the procedures. Why don’t we place the relevant procedures in each section of the website so that they are more easily accessible and relevant to the area being viewed?”

The executive had an answer for the CEO, backed up by data, and we had averted a significant risk to our program. The added benefit to us was an executive champion – who knew more about the program now than before, a virtual jewel in the crown.

Working with Sparkle #1 - Trust and the human element of communication

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Join Liz Mead and James Williams as they discuss the broad area of internal communication and in particular the role that trust has to play in establishing long term best practice communication strategies in the workplace.

For more information on this episode including extra examples visit the website at workingwithsparkle.com.

Make sure you subscribe to our podcast so you get our next episodes automatically.

It's a gem of an idea!

Metaphors are a communicator’s best friend.

Most of us realise how easily metaphors facilitate learning, insights and creativity. Imbed a metaphor in a story, then begin the telling. Watch your audience shift into listener mode, watch them travel to a space combined of comfort and exploration.

Once the story begins, their eyes glaze over and they relax. This is the place of creation. This is long term, cellular memories of fairy tales, myth, adventurers, Aladdin’s cave, the flight of Icarrus, the journey of Ulysses, the Rainbow Serpent.



The posts on this blog, Working with Sparkle, will be in the main, shaped as a story. Stories that house tips and tricks we’ve learnt over the years. No magic, no sleight of hand, just a few gems we’ve managed to dig up in our working lives.

They will be stories more about the adventure than the people involved. And because of that, there will be nothing that intentionally or personally criticises those people involved. That doesn’t make a good story.

Instead, they will be elements about the quest, the problem, the rescue, the treasure, the action, the cut and thrust and parry, the sail, the secrets and the companions. A virtual Odyssey. Let’s face it there’s only about seven types of story you can tell. After that it’s just re-configuring the characters and destinations.

The title, Working with Sparkle provides a great opening to a world of gem metaphors. If your penchant runs to diamonds, saphires, emeralds or rubies, we’ve the gem for you and the matching story.

Think about it. A diamond is distinguished by its cut, clarity, carat and colour. Isn’t communication practice the same? How deep does the message cut into the culture and audience mindset? How clear is the intention and reception of that message?

How much weight do we assign it before the moment of exchange and afford it after the exchange has happened? And finally, how colourful is our language, our style and how appropriate is our setting? There will be more diamonds ahead on this blog. Suffice it to say, some are “in the rough” and others prove to be a “girl’s best friend” indeed.

The beauty, magnificent colours, constancy, durability and transparency are what sets the saphire amongs the most trusted and loved gems. If you want a constant lover plonk a saphire on their engagement ring. Notwithstanding the unhappy ending of the Charles Diana story, the intention was there at the start.

Like so many of our strategies and plans. Blue is arguably the favourite colour of 50% of men and women, it has an association with sympathy and harmony. Just wait until we get started on the Fancy family of saphires stories and the myriad of suprising colours that emerge in times of organisational growth.

Some of the most valuable emeralds are enormous. There are exotic stories of Maharajas with emeralds big enough to allow inscriptions of words and songs. Cleopatra loved the Emerald and had a famous emerald mine.

Like Cleopatra, the emerald is hard to work with because although it is hard it has a brittle nature. Gem cutters have their work cut out for them if they’re working with the emerald. The gem is formed by extraordinary geologoical fusions. Mmmmm I feel a merger or an organisational re-design strategy emerging.

The ruby, a colour of pigeon’s blood, is a gem most affliliated with high emotions, love and passion. Rubies have inclusions that provide a unique finger print for each gem. The inclusions only assist their brilliance. There are even Star Rubies (and Star Saphires) so extraordinary because of the six-pointed star caused by the deposit of rutile. This deposit reflects the light into this extraordinary shape. These are the most rare of all.

In our work as communicators, we sometimes, rarely get a glimpse of such a reflected light. That delightful time when we don’t star but the audience does. That time of success when they seem to ”get it”, then “own it” and finally “drive it”.

We hope the Working with Sparkle blog can engender discussions about the value, quality and process for cutting communciation gems. No gem is more valuable than any other. It is a matter of choice whether you select a diamond, saphire, emerald or ruby, topaz, jade, opal or pearl or…. Well, the mine is deep, the preferences varied so let’s start blogging.

We anticipate this rich deposit of metaphor will assist us in thinking more clearly about the tools we use, the cuts we make, the precision we need, the style we have and the value we afford to this rewarding pursuit of communicating with edge and honesty.

A virtual Aladdin’s Cave of treasure.

About the Sparkle

The posts on this blog and the stories told on the Working with Sparkle podcast will be, in the main, shaped as a story. Stories that house communication tips and tricks we’ve learnt over the years. No magic, no sleight of hand, just a few gems we’ve managed to dig up in our working lives.

They will be stories more about the adventure than the people involved. And because of that, there will be nothing that intentionally or personally criticises those people involved.

Instead, they will be elements about the quest, the problem, the rescue, the treasure, the action, the cut and thrust and parry, the sail, the secrets and the companions. A virtual Odyssey. Let’s face it there’s only about seven types of story you can tell. After that it’s just re-configuring the characters and destinations.

The title, Working with Sparkle provides a great opening to a world of gem metaphors. If your penchant runs to diamonds, saphires, emeralds or rubies, we’ve the gem for you and the matching story.

Working with Sparkle is a blog about communication and is jointly written by Liz Mead and James Williams.

The genesis of the name Sparkle is covered in another blog so we won’t repeat ourselves (even though repeatability has some advantages in the communication process).



We came up with the idea of this discrete blog though, as a place to house our thoughts and distilled approach to communication. Each topic is covered by the partner with the most direct experience and expertise of that area.

Liz Mead comes from an arts background, one that is steeped in the tradition of presentations, production and events. Her special skills and passions are engagement and production. With a strong sales inclination and and highly planful nature, she’s not happy until she delivers a tangible and achievable strategy. The selling side kicks in with her ability to make strong affective connections with people. In short, she matches the communication concept to the personal situtaion. With a provocative and humorous approach to uncovering the cultural and personal blocks in the communications process she is able to persuade and influence others of the need for change in themselves and in their situation.

James Williams comes from a technology, communications and service background with an innate ability to create, brand and market solutions to complex problems and deliver effective and lasting change. James is the one who pushes the boundaries out even further. One of his greatest strengths is the rigorous diagnosis of a stituation. His incisive almost intuitive questioning means he is able to ascertain what is really going on - be it a technical or cultural block of communication flow. Pushing buttons is a forte. His presentation and timing secures him a seat at the planning stages with senior management. The blog postings comprise topics such as: engaging stakeholders, reducing assumptions, managing change, benefits marketing, evaluating the results, identifying the pain points, messaging.

We hope you enjoy Working with Sparkle and start a dialogue with either or both of us any of the topics you read. Our learning to date has been cumulative and your input either in agreement or disagreement will add to that learning.