Communicating Rewards

It was a cold Saturday evening in October and I was winding down for the day. After a warm cup of tea, I snuggled within warm fleece blankets on the sofa and turned on the TV. As usual I would flip around all the channels before I can decide what program or movie I want to entertain myself with. While surfing the channels, I came upon a rerun of Los Premios MTV 2009. I paused there for a moment and suddenly the passion and excitement of the Latin music captivated my senses so I decided that I would watch the rerun as my entertainment for the evening.

I sat in the dark with low lights, big screen and surround sound. I was enjoying the music, the beautiful Latin artists, and presenters and of course the wonderful stage effects. I watched the award winners humbled by their win and some with teary eyes, thanked their fans. Of course the screaming audience was living every moment of the award ceremony. Suddenly I realized that all the Latin glamour, glitter, energy, and achievements of that MTV 2009 Award was reminding me of something special. It was a stark reminder of the annual incentive award program that I host to recognize the top sales men and women of the Latin America region for a large pharma company. That program was called Golden Circle.

As I watched the celebrated artists received their awards and made their speeches, I felt an emptiness that was profound – that emptiness reflected the fact that after four years of hosting the Golden Circle award program, it will no longer be under my wings since the company has undergone an acquisition. But it was one part of my job that brought me immense satisfaction – the planning for this event takes over nine months and its execution as always had to be flawless because for me, rewarding the men and women who are the drivers of the business was more than the compensation or the incentive trip – it was the black tie evening when they became superstars like those on the MTV scene. It was the night when they were celebrated, honored and photographed among their peers and loved ones. It was their night – their night to shine – to feel proud but more importantly to feel valued.

As a communications manager, my satisfaction was watching their faces light up and their eyes swelled with tears of joy as they are called upon the stage to receive their plaque and photographed. Over the years as I have done this program, it reinforced the fact that human beings value recognition and honor. It is what propels them to constantly give their best and to be defenders of their business. As a communicator, I say, it is not what you say, but how you say it, where you say it and the medium through which you say it that makes all the difference. Similarly, it is not what you do to reward your top performers, but how you reward them is what makes that reward so special and impacting.

Often I imagined the Golden Circle reward being only a cash prize and a congratulatory letter. That seems cold, distant and just okay in comparison to spending four days with senior management, a business workshop – a chance for the people in the field to have a chance to air their views and ask their questions and to crown it all, be treated like celebrities during the gala dinner and award ceremony. It is the how and the what that has the impact to these winners that leaves them eternally grateful for that moment. Their thanks are endless and upon returning to their homes, we get very emotional letters of how grateful they are for the special way in which they were treated and celebrated. For those winners, the award night was the greatest motivator of all! Would the cash prize and a congratulatory note create such profound reactions? I don’t think so.

As a communicator, I am a firm believer of the face to face communication because regardless of the growing social media, face to face communication will always play a key role in the motivational factor. After many decades, the most popular way of proposing marriage is still face to face. It still is, in my opinion, the most intimate and emotionally captivating way to do it. Face to face communication in many ways is time consuming we may say now that technology gives us the ability to communicate faster and with a wider reach; but depending on what we really want to achieve, sometimes, investing the time for face to face communication can provide more productive insights and build stronger relationships. It is the how and what factor.
(to be continued …)

The Power of Culture

Too may times we underestimate the role of culture and its impact on relationships, marriage and perhaps even more so in organizations - the latter being organizational culture.

Before reading any further, take a moment and think about a marriage or a relationship where two different cultures exist. Was it not a learning process for the people involved to understand each other, their perceptions, beliefs and values? It certainly is. I myself reflect as both my husband and I are from different cultural backgrounds and it is funny to look back upon the times when I tried understanding him from my terministic screens which obviously differed from his and so with time we began to understand different vocabulary, figurative expressions, behaviors (interpreting silence versus verbal responses) and so on. Not understanding the other’s body language or misinterpreting actions often leads to conflicts and the same goes for organizational culture.

Culture is a key element to harmony and success and I am prompted to write this piece as I experience the merger of two large companies. During the long transition process and working with so many different teams, interacting at different levels of the organization, I slowly begin to see that the organizational cultures of these companies are very different and I wonder when the two finally merge, what would be the culture that survives and would it be the best one for the future success of the new company. Obviously and more often, past mergers consistently shows that the culture of the acquiring company is the one that preserves but is it the smart thing or is it the easier solution?

Really, it is the easier solution because changing corporate culture is a tremendous job and it takes a lot of work but it can also bring great benefits - after all a corporation is its people and having people believing in a company’s vision and being able to associate with it at all levels, understanding how their role fits into and contributes to the vision is paramount to success.

A vision should never be seen only as some lovely statements to be displayed. Employees need to feel and see it in action from the top down. It needs to be part and parcel of their daily working lives and each objective that they own should be meshed into the company’s culture.

Every company has a formal and an informal culture and very often, as organizational consultants can relate to, it is the informal culture that really defines and tells what a company is. That is the real pulse of how employees feel and see the company they work with. I wonder how many organization have run diagnostics to assess the formal versus the informal culture. It is an interesting and worthwhile exercise for any company that truly wants to be successful and wants to see that its brand or culture is being lived and embraced by its people. It is what compels each individual to look for quality, to strive for flawless delivery, to seek effective and robust processes and to bring value each day in every way and hence create a strong and sustainable bottom line. It is strong corporate culture that sustains organizations amidst the ever changing dynamics of the external environment.

To really get a good understanding of organizational culture, it impact and its value, I suggest reading Corporate Culture - Illuminating the Black Hole by Jerome Want. But before you start reading, think of your organization’s culture and how it is perceived by the employees. Has it had impact on the success of the company? It is a culture that is highly talked about with pride? Does everyone know what the organizational culture is and does the leadership team exhibit the culture? What is your organization’s culture - Bureaucratic, Service, Political, Frozen, Predatory or New Age? Jerome Want does a great job at revealing the behaviors of these cultures and how they affect the success of a company.

Culture should never be underestimated. It drives the way we think and the way we behave!

The Power Of Connections

Check out this SlideShare Presentation: The Value of Networking

The Power Of Connections

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Recognizing and Developing Talent

Over the past weeks I have been watching America’s Got Talent – a show where people from all backgrounds and talents take a shot at becoming the next big performer in Las Vegas. I do not watch this show solely for the entertainment, but rather to see how talent is discovered, and once given a chance to move forward, how those talents develop. The phases of this show can so easily be applicable to our corporate or business world in so many ways as there are some take away on people, talent, feedback and development.

Last night I watched the performance of one gentleman by the name of Kevin Skinner who is a Chicken Catcher from Kentucky. A man who radiates humbleness has made it to the semi finals. A plain and simple farmer who, when he walked on stage for the first time, gave the impression that he could possibly be just another guy trying his luck at the game of talent! But when he sang and played the guitar, he melted his way into the hearts of everyone.

On the night of his first performance, the quiet spoken Skinner with a rustic farm look and a shy smile gave a heartfelt performance. He sang with sincerity and a passion that seemed to have come from the bottom of his soul and shone through his eyes, penetrating the minds of his listeners. It is often said on many talent shows that the best singers are those that perform with emotion and are able to transmit that emotion to their audience and that was what Skinner had going for him. After the judges’ feedback and standing innovations from the audience, Skinner quietly said, “I believe this is my time to shine.”

Performing at the semi-finals, Skinner the tender heart farmer got teary eyed as he listened to the astounding feedback from the judges, including Pierce, the British judge who is the known for his very harsh feedback at times. Pierce was also moved to tears with Skinner’s passionate performance. Skinner is on his way to the finals!

Just following his passion of becoming a singer, Skinner took the risk of putting himself out there and putting his heart and soul into his first audition. The judges, who are versed in recognizing talent, saw the potential and so did America. Skinner was moved to the quarter and then semi finals and with each performance, demonstrated what he really is – a brilliant country singer, guitarist and song writer – not a chicken catcher. By following his passion, finding the right channel to show it and being in front of the right talent promoters, Skinner was transformed.

So where am I going with all of this? The lesson here is two-fold. As individuals, we need to follow our passion, pursue that which we are versed at doing and more importantly, finding the right channel to show who we are. As managers, we need to know what to look for when we are reviewing potential new hires or promoting from within. Many high potentials fall through the cracks either because the individual did not know how or when to demonstrate his/her abilities or that managers failed to recognize the potential or did not have the confidence in giving the individual a chance to grow. Like a singer who gets better over time, so do talented people in organizations once given a chance. Experience, genuine feedback and the passion to excel is what helps talented people to grow and become their best.

Another lesson from Skinner’s case could be summed up as “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” Skinner could perhaps be compared to Susan Boyle, a 48 year old of Blackburn, West Lothian, Scotland who appeared on the Britain’s Got Talent and also made it to the finals. Like Skinner, she was also a quiet woman from the country who guarded her talent for many years but was deeply passionate about singing. When she got on stage in front of the judges, they had already formed an opinion based on her looks. Little did they know the talent she possessed until she sang a powerful rendition of “I Dreamed a Dream.”

The lesson is – don’t prejudge. Those who are dressed for the part may very well not be the best player. Get to know a person, see what’s behind the face; get the feeling they are transmitting. Observe what they bring, how they communicate about themselves, thier passion. Challenge them.

In summary, individuals must always be ready to showcase their talent by being passionate about what they do and managers must always be on the look out for high potentials and get a little closer to those they think have hidden potential. Have honest and open feedback and encourage career discussions. It’s strange what we can discover when we really are looking and really conversing.

Health care reform through the lens of Change Communication

Many of us who are graduates of the communication field can look back upon those college days when we were taught the many different theories in communication, be it interpersonal or organizational, and back then we wondered, “Do we really have to know all this theory stuff?” I can remember sitting in a class one day during the introductory class titled “Strategic Communication Theory” and as I listened to the professor, everything seemed puzzling and it seemed the world was just one orderly place until language was invented and things became chaotic. The chaos developed further as civilizations developed, cultures emerged and each saw, described and interpreted the world and human behavior through their own terministic screens. Hence today, communication is no small feat and today, as I look back to those graduate classes, I now value the theories I learned because now they make all the sense in helping me to organize and understand human communication and more so to drive effective communication.

So how does all this apply to Change Communication, you may ask? Look around you and examine all the instances where you were involved in or simply observed communications on change? How many times was the desired outcome achieved in a clear, coherent and inclusive manner? How many times did a stakeholder or an impacted group be brought into the communication loop too late or too early or did some group fall totally out of the process? How many times were there opposing views and misinterpretations or just simply bad explanations? These have happened time and time again because planning and understanding are two key elements of the communication process. Having a background in communication theory and putting the respective theory into practice is what can help us communicators to be successful and always vigilant in covering all the bases.

Driving change means understanding what you want to change and why you want that change; who gets affected and what will that affected group have to change or adapt. Has the affected group been engaged in conversations for their feedback and input? What is the breath and depth of the change and who are all the key stakeholders. Do these stakeholders change along the communication process and do we have a stakeholder map that guides us – that plan that we should have at the beginning of the process?

A great example of change communication failure and one that we can all identify with or at least know about is the current health care reform. Applying all the above questions to this situation, I am sure you can see the problem. So the president proposes health care reform and the public agrees that the health care system needs improving. That’s all good. But did that give the president and his policy makers the green light to simply go ahead, decide what the best solution is, write it up in a volume of more than a thousand pages and then they all take turn at trying to communicate what they have proposed? No wonder the outrage of the affected group is so dominant. The affected group cannot clearly or concisely tell what the proposed reform really is. There are distorted messages from different angles, and the affected group (the population) now feels that their health care is threatened. This is just one good reason why change communication is a delicate matter that needs its experts to guide it. How we drive change and how we communicate it go hand in hand, and first we must seek to understand the problem, its pros and cons, who are the affected parties, who are the major stakeholders and how would change be perceived at all levels. Engagement of stakeholders and affected groups are key. Most of all we must determine whether we are conducting a transformational or a radical change – which best fits the situation.

Stepping back to my opening on theories, if the Obama administration had any really good communication strategists and policy change specialists who understood the theories And dynamics of communication, perhaps they would have handled the whole health care reform differently and perhaps they would have taken a more transformational rather than a radical, time pressed approach; and not with the thinking that they can write the edict of health care reform in their high chambers and then announce it to the poor peasants who will be ever so grateful!!

Hurray to the population for standing up and seeking to understand what exactly it is they are being told and how exactly all of this will be sustained. Let the debate continue for this issue is not a one sided rhetoric; the affected group needs to be heard as well.

Unfolding before us in all these debates are the empty, non-directional government rhetoric and misunderstanding of the complex health care issue that the government pretends can be solved rather easily with a plan that did not involve perhaps some of the key stakeholders! Health care reform on such a grand scale, unless this is a dictatorship, cannot be radical and simply handed down. Like communication, change is also a two way conduit.

Establishing A New Communications Role

So you have been given the opportunity to establish a new role as a Communications Manager for part of a large organization – how do you begin?

Of course you take a look at the job description and you have many conversations with your manager and other senior leaders to understand what are their objectives and the expectations for your role. But as the days go by, you find that what really gives you the best window into your new world is getting a good understanding of the organization, it’s goals, people, culture and past attempts at communications. And how do you begin to do that?

I have been there – it is fascinating, energizing and most importantly it gave me the chance to breathe new life – to bring that breath of fresh air, to excite leaders on how to make everyone be part of what is happening. To make everyone understand that communications play a key role in building success and organizational culture.

On day one, I felt like an artist sitting in front of a large blank canvass with my palette of colors and brush in hand. What do I paint and what do I want my final painting to look like?

So I began talking with everyone around me to get a sense of how I could support their projects and each one had his own idea of what the communications role should be so that did not make my job any easier. There was a mix of marketing and organizational needs, it seemed. Further there was nothing to benchmark against since the position was now being established. As the days went by, the only thing I knew is that I wanted to make this my own. I wanted to maneuver my ship safely over the high and unpredictable seas! I was going to create that benchmark for which all future incumbents will be measured against. That was itself exciting enough to drive my passion for the job.

As a child, I hugged story books and my parents gave me them by the dozens. In high school I began writing poetry. In college I wrote short stories. My first job was in radio where I worked with clients to schedule air time. I sat in the console room with the technical operators; I recorded some of my stories for broadcast and I even played the main character in one of my stories! During graduate school, I was always excited to write and research on organizational communication. I was captivated by the many facets of human behavior seen in multicultural and gendered communications. Ultimately, my passion has always been and will always be communications.

So with this reflection, I knew that establishing and proving the worth of communications could not be such a hard task. With time I became the “go-to person” for the organization. I was the conduit between corporate and affiliates; I counseled the supporting business partners and I took incentive programs to a whole new level.

When it was time to shift the mindset and operational paradigm of the business, I was behind the branding and cascading of the new vision. I worked passionately with the executive leaders to create a brand, run the campaign and build materials that not only drove home the new messages and direction of the business, but everyone got involved. With one simple logo and consistency across all messages, employees were engaged. Everyone was excited about the new momentum. Everyone – from top to the guy in the plant could eloquently speak of the business objective in five words – yes that was the elevator pitch and it was what the logo expressed symbolically.

When people are excited and feel part of the business, and when messages are coined for every level to easily understand and relate to, there could be nothing more satisfying than success and return on investment. This is the value-added component of having a communications role.

Ultimately, it was neither the job description nor the expectations of my business associates that justified the communications role - it was the many ways I worked communications into supporting the business. The results were tangible and measurable.

So today, four years later, I can see what I started to paint on that blank canvass! And I will paint many more whenever I have that chance.

Introduction

This first post is to introduce myself very briefly while I work on my first official post. I have been in the field of communication for many years now and my passion for this area has only grown stronger. I started working in radio many years ago when I graduated high school, back in Georgetown, Guyana. Then, I was also a young writer of poetry and short stories - so what I do today has really always been what I would have wanted to do!

I graduated from the University of Guyana then migrated to Venezuela and eventually to the United States where I obtained my Masters Degree in Strategic Communication from Villanova University.

Communication is no easy task - it's not just about words and people - it is so much more... the spectrum of communication is broad and each one, be it interpersonal or organizational, is pivotal for success, harmony and the advancement of our world.

Presently, I work as a Communications Consultant in a large pharmaceutical company and I love writing on the subject!