Like many of you, I’ve been following the tragic oil rig disaster and subsequent spill into the Gulf. While companies may eventually realize the importance of external communications, adequate communications with employees is often lost when a crisis occurs.

I’ve worked for a few companies who’ve had their share of crises that were either self-inflicted or out of their control.  Consequently, I’ve seen some best practices that BP – who seems to suffering from both –may want to leverage for communications with its employees:

1. Care. This may seem obvious, but the history of business is rife with examples of companies that didn’t see the need to communicate with employees. The reasons cited are more often “it doesn’t affect them directly” and “fueling the water cooler talk just causes lower productivity.” However, the reality at BP is that productivity is already suffering. Their employees are consuming news far more than the average person because it’s about their company.  They are also hearing it in their social communities, networks and from others within the company. Multiply this by 96,000 (latest BP employment count) and you have the makings for quite a productivity problem.
2. Listen. During crises, employees want information and they want to be heard. Don’t guess on what they are thinking, engage them directly. Toyota, despite its missteps, has a plan in place for internal communications, and by their accounts they are seeing the positive results of doing so. Even if “I don’t know” is the best response you can give them to their questions; employees will appreciate that you took the time to hear them and respond.
3. Acknowledge. It’s ok to be empathetic, even if the company doesn’t think it’s at fault. Just acknowledge what the employees are feeling (hint: you learn this from listening). BP finally seems to be doing this to some degree with the clean-up workers.
4. Be Timely. The goal is to be the information source your employees trust. If there is news, make sure employees hear the company’s version of the story first. This makes you appear transparent and open. It can be challenging to do, but when it’s built into the plan, it can be done successfully.

A great example is this earnings video from Cisco Systems CEO, John Chambers. This was completed in November 2008, right in the middle of the economic free fall. In the video, Chambers provided a steady voice and outlined a plan in the face of tremendous uncertainty. What’s interesting to note is that this video was made available to partners, shareholders and the press as well.

Even though BP is now being proactive and acknowledging mistakes, their initial approach of minimizing the event, not taking accountability and limiting information really fueled the fire with the press. Time will tell if these missteps result in any long-term damage with employees. However, a strong internal communications plan will keep employees informed, keep them engaged and most importantly keep them on the company’s side. And in a time like this, BP needs all the allies it can get.

In my last blog I suggested that we were unlikely to see the fulfillment of a vision of full corporate democracy imagined by a new generation of anti-authority Internet bloggers. Their dream is of the end of corporate hierarchy and autocracy to be replaced by consultation and the flowering of social media that presumably will influence, if not drive, leadership action and behavior. But that vision seldom gets articulated clearly, and one is left to imagine what the new age will look like.

No doubt the digital age that is truly in its infancy will inevitably have a profound impact on the communication style and behavior of today’s organizations. The growing interest and actual creation of internal social media is one of the hottest trends in our profession today. Not every organization is joining in, but the degree of interest reflected in various communication publications and meetings is intense. Social media alone, however, are not sufficient in the drive to open communication cultures.

The earliest adapters of greater openness seem to be the usual suspects—those organizations that are on the leading edge of all things new and novel. It’s a good bet that if there is going to be a significant movement to greater employee inclusion and openness that it will happen in these companies first. They are the leading candidates to create any movement toward less hierarchy and greater inclusion and collaboration.

Predictably, they will also continue to have as their imitators those companies that are receptive to new trends but that are not necessarily pioneers. They too fall in the category of early adapters. In both cases, they will for a time be in the minority as companies contemplate the benefits and risks of greater openness.

That leaves most of the remaining organizations today in a range of positions from heightened awareness of the potential opportunities posed by the digital age to caution occasioned by the perceived risks of openness. A small minority of the late adapters will continue to resist openness at every turn and to rely on spin and failed attempts at information control.

In the end what is likely to create movement toward open communication cultures are two forces. The first is the obvious one of the irresistibility of the information revolution powered by ubiquitous digital technology. The other is perhaps less obvious. It will be the eventual ability of our profession to connect all the dots and to create integrated information strategies that will knit together social media, the need for innovation and collaboration, and the strong business case for openness. That case is increasingly evident from a variety of respected researchers. It remains for us to do our job and to integrate the moving parts in a compelling fashion.

Sun Tsu, a Chinese military commander from the sixth century BC, wrote a book titled The Art of War that is considered by many to be the definitive work on military strategy. The book’s influence is widespread and has been used by military leaders throughout the centuries, and most recently has been applied to Western business strategy and management tactics.

Sun Tsu’s insights can also be applied to communications, particularly how to ensure effectiveness of your work. Here are a few pearls from The Art of War and how they might apply.

“Every Battle is Won Before it is Fought.”

This goes right to the heart of why developing a communication strategy is important. A good strategy starts with understanding your goals, both communication and the larger organization goals. These will shape and drive your communication strategy.

“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.”

Building off of the earlier quote, having a clear plan to achieve your communication strategy is the quickest way to produce results. Without a clear plan, your chances of success are unknown at best.

A good plan also provides direction to the team responsible for implementation, and builds confidence with your stakeholders because they can see how the results will be achieved.

“If you Know Your Enemy and Know Yourself, You Need Not Fear the Result.”

In
 communications, knowing your audience is as important as knowing your enemy (or your competition), and understanding your audience is the key to selecting the right messages and vehicles. To gain an understanding, ask yourself these questions:

• What are their current attitudes and beliefs on the subject?
• What channels do they trust the most?
• What channels do they prefer for this content?
• When and how do they normally access content, and for how long?

Use the answers to these questions to determine the appropriate content, tone and vehicles for your communications. If you are unsure of how to answer these questions, it may be time to consider evaluating your communication vehicles.

“If words of command are not clear and distinct, if orders are not thoroughly understood, the general is to blame. But if his orders are clear, and the soldiers nevertheless disobey, then it is the fault of their officers.”

This reinforces the importance of effective leadership and manager communications, which not coincidentally, are components in our ROI Scorecard.  Employees need to understand the company’s strategy, and research has shown they want this direction to come from senior leadership.  Connecting the dots between the strategy and the employee’s role is the job of the line manager. The important thing to note is that both need to happen to produce the desired results.

It is fascinating to see that words written so long ago have a practical use in today’s environment. At the very least, they are a reminder of what’s important.

At ROI, we pride ourselves on collecting quantifiable data to help clients understand situations and make informed decisions.  Like many, we subscribe to the motto that “facts are our friends.”

Interestingly though, we see that regardless of what the data says, people still rely on their emotions when making decisions. This isn’t just limited to communications. If you look around, you can see plenty of that actions contradict what the facts says should happen.

Well, it turns out that this is simply human nature and that we are wired to use our emotions when making decisions. In fact, we have two sections in our brains called the amygdalae whose sole purpose is to fuel our decisions with emotion.

Furthermore, in a study of risk and decision making, researchers found that even when people are presented with odds of success, they still chose riskier options, even when the odds say there was a greater chance of loss.

So, should we abandon data-based decision making and just go with our gut tells us to do? Hardly.

The key is to understand the role that emotion plays, and build your strategy to leverage it. Obviously, what you present and how you present it is key. In addition to the quantitative stuff, you need to pull in other types of information to build your story. Qualitative information like quotes and first-hand observational data are great ways to produce the desired emotional reaction. Combine these with the data and you have a recipe for success. Here’s a hypothetical example of how this would work:

Let’s say you conduct a readership survey of the company magazine.. The results show that 55% of employees don’t find the company magazine a valuable source of information. You want to recommend cancelling the magazine, but it has a 15 year history, so you anticipate some resistance. To engage your audience’s emotions, along with the date, you select 3-4 write-in comments that reinforce your findings through the employees’ voice. Finally, you include a full-slide photo that shows the mailroom’s recycling bin filled with unread copies.

The combination of quantitative, qualitative and observational provides your audience with facts, but also produces the emotions necessary to produce the right actions.

The other benefit of using the different sources of information is they can be used to validate each other (i.e., “Does the data match the comments?”) This makes the findings even more compelling.