Copyright Melcrum Publishing Dec 2006/Jan 2007| [Headnote] |
| Organizations that focus on simply informing employees about business strategy are missing the point. In order to act on the strategy, employees must understand how it relates to them in their role and what they can do to help deliver it. Here, Roger D'Aprix and Chris Gay describe four essential steps that clarify how communication can be used to connect employees to business strategy. |
| The role of leaders and managers in connecting people to the business |
Your leadership team has spent months developing a business strategy that will take your organization to the next level of success. It's been signed off, approved and is finally ready to be put into action. Your CEO has asked the communication department to communicate the strategy to employees throughout the organization. Now what?
| Figure One: Four stages to creating a line of sight |
There are two situations that often happen next. In one scenario, an organization will distribute the strategy to employees, perhaps hold town-hall meetings where leaders present it and a few months later, employees will forget what the strategy is all about.
In the other scenario, employees will get bombarded with information as new initiatives to drive the strategy begin cropping up from all over the organization, with leaders discussing it in different ways, again resulting in employees not having a clear picture of what the strategy is really all about.
In both scenarios, employees may be aware of the strategy, but often have no idea how it connects to them or what they need to do to help achieve it - there's no line of sight between the employee and the company's strategic objectives.
Why is line of sight important?
In a recent study conducted by Wharton, researchers found that one of the key obstacles to executing a strategy effectively, was the lack of ownership of the strategy or execution plans among key employees. Numerous studies conducted around employee engagement also indicate that creating a line of sight between employees and business strategy is a key driver of engagement. But what does it really mean for employees to have this line of sight?
Put simply, it means employees know and believe in the business strategy, they're committed to contributing to it, and know exactly what they need to do to help achieve it. It also means that their hearts, minds and hands are connected to the success of the organization. This sounds simple enough, but the real challenge is developing a strategy to make it happen. The rest of this article focuses on how to better connect employees to your business, with an eye towards leveraging senior leaders and managers to do so.
Four steps to creating line of sight
The diagram in Figure One (left) outlines a four-step process to creating a line of sight between employees and the business. It's important to note that these steps don't need to happen sequentially, but each of the elements do need to be addressed and planned for your strategy to succeed. Let's take a closer look at each of these steps.
1. Develop and validate core messaging
For employees to truly be able to connect to the business, they must have an understanding of the business strategy beyond the high-level corporatespeak. They need to know the context of the strategy - the reason behind it. They want to know how the organization is going to change (and how it will remain the same), what exactly they'll be expected to contribute and how the organization will support them.
The role of senior leaders
It's critical that senior leaders and managers have a consistent understanding of these issues, so that they're communicating them in the same way. Core messages that address each of the issues need to be developed and used as a "blueprint" by all communicators in the organization. These messages need to be developed through a collaborative process.
Senior leaders should be included in the process, to ensure that their perspectives are captured and aligned with the final product (see side box, page 29, for an example of questions to ask leaders to gain their input).
Involving employees
Once a draft has been developed, it's important to involve employees in validating the messages and assessing the current state. Research repeatedly demonstrates that employees "having a voice" in the future of the organization and opportunities to provide input and be heard - is critical to their feeling connected to the business.
Employee data can be gathered both through quantitative methods, such as employee opinion and engagement surveys, as well as through qualitative means, such as focus groups or "listening" sessions. Issues to address include:
* The degree to which there is currently employee line of sight to the business (test knowledge, belief, commitment and action).
* Current barriers to achieving the strategy.
* Examples of what the desired behaviors look like when they're in action.
* Processes in the organization that enable or "get in the way" of achieving the strategy.
Creating compelling messages
Once the content has been finalized, putting it all together in a way that is engaging and compelling is critical. For example, an energy company was undergoing a significant cultural and business transformation that represented a dramatically different way of doing business for the company and for employees.
To help clarify the transformation, the organization developed a visual "Journey Map," which clearly laid out the case for change, the current state of the company and the future vision. The map also included several typical on-the-job scenarios that leaders, managers and employees worked through in terms of how they act at present, and how they would behave in the future that would be in line with the new strategy.
Follow-up data indicated that this interactive map dramatically increased employee understanding and connection to the strategy.
2. Align leaders and define their roles
There's been a great deal of recent discussion and research among communication professionals around the importance of engaging leaders (both senior and middle management) to play their part in connecting employees to the business.
In addition, we know from research that effective leadership and management communication is a key driver in employee engagement. To support leaders and enable them to be effective in their communication role, we need to define their role, determine the skills they need and provide the tools to support them.
The senior leaders' role in creating a line of sight for employees should include being responsible for setting the vision and bringing it to life for employees, and building context around the vision (the messaging). Their actions need to be in line with the behaviors they say are important to achieving the strategy, and they must hold other leaders accountable for connecting employees to the business.
The role of leaders vs. managers
To support this role, senior leaders often need further development in skills such as listening, recognition for desired behaviors and storytelling that clearly demonstrates why the business strategy is important to the organization.
The managers' role is to make the business strategy meaningful to employees at the local level and serve as an advocate for the employee voice back up through the organization. Specifically, it's the managers' job to connect the strategy to employees' job responsibilities, performance and group objectives.
Leadership development may involve change
Developing and supporting leaders in this effort is often part of larger transformational change. In one global technology company, six specific leadership dimensions, supported by key behaviors, were developed to support a new business strategy that represented a new way of doing business. This effort was spearheaded by the CEO of the organization, and the expectation was set that the top 1,000 leaders in the organization would know and implement each of these dimensions (which included things like developing a more global mindset, collaboration across boundaries and speed) as well as holding their teams accountable for implementing them.
To support this effort, the company developed a 12 to 18 month program for leaders. The program included training, learning seminars (based on real experiences) and structured experiences (such as executive sponsored actionlearning projects) that each leader had to complete before "graduating" from the program. The CEO held these leaders accountable for implementing their role going forward, and the program became a cornerstone of the transformation that resulted in greater profits and shareholder returns.
3. Commit to proof points
Leaders can talk and talk, but the proof of their messages is in their actions. For employees to have a compelling line of sight with the business, they need to know the strategy, believe in it, commit to it and align their behavior with it
One key component of this effort is a coordinated communication strategy to ensure that employees are getting the message on an ongoing basis, with a continued emphasis on setting the context for employees. The behaviors or actions that you expect from each employee to deliver on the strategy should also be stressed, but this step only lays the foundation for action.
The importance of an interactive approach
Getting employee commitment and changing their behavior requires an interactive approach. For employees to truly commit, they need to be able to discuss the strategy and raise suggestions, issues and concerns in forums where they know they will be heard. There also may be opportunities for employees to get involved at the grassroots level to help drive the strategy.
In addition, employees will look to their senior leaders and managers for evidence that they are "walking the talk" when it comes to the strategy.
Finally, employees will be looking for proof points within the organization that support the strategy, including processes that reinforce the importance of specific strategic goals, and success stories that recognize other employees for behaving in line with the strategy.
For example, if the business strategy calls for innovation, employees will look for processes that support gathering input for innovative approaches and a reward system that reinforces the importance of innovation.
Example of a comprehensive effort
A good example of this kind of coordinated and comprehensive effort can be found in a global staffing organization that was going through the process of rebranding itself to the external marketplace. The organization believed that for the rebranding to be successful and truly shift the perceptions of the organization, the 30,000 employees needed to be able to deliver on it.
To achieve this, the organization developed employee behaviors that were needed to live the new brand. These behaviors were developed with the input of over 30 executive leaders from around the world. They then conducted research with over 2,000 employees worldwide to understand the greatest gaps in living the brand currently. Leaders were brought together in an alignment session to agree on the behaviors and their role in engaging employees in them. A multimedia campaign was rolled out to employees worldwide to help them understand the brand.
Interactive sessions to be conducted with all employee groups were developed and rolled out to all managers. These sessions contained exercises and discussions to provide a deeper understanding of the brand and the behaviors needed to live it, as well as action-planning tools to model the brand attributes for their teams. Managers were also trained to conduct sessions with their employees to engage them in the brand.
4. Measuring success
To prove the value of helping employees connect to the business, it's critical to establish clear outcomes and measures for success in the beginning. Questions to ask include:
* How will we know that our employees have a clear line of sight with the business?
* How can we measure if employees know, believe and are committed to the strategy?
* How will we measure behavior change?
How will we know that leaders are doing an effective job of connecting employees to the strategy?
* Which business measures will this impact? (For example, profitability, productivity and customer satisfaction.)
The answers to these questions should dictate the methods used to measure success. These methods don't have to be complicated and can include employee engagement data, pulse surveys and business measures. What's important is finding a few critical metrics and measuring them over time to prove the importance of this work.
It's also key to hold managers accountable for their role in successfully creating a line of sight for their employees. This can be done through inclusion in the incentive plan, individual coaching and development plans, or through a "buddy system", where a best-practice executive coaches someone who is not so strong. For example, in one holding company, 25 percent of each executive's bonus is based on achieving a specified engagement score on the annual survey.
In summary
By using a collaborative approach to develop messages that are meaningful and consistent, educating leaders on their role in the process, continuing reinforcement of messages through leadership actions and organizational initiatives, and measuring success, you will win the hearts, minds and hands of your employees as they help you achieve business success.
| [Sidebar] |
| KEY POINTS: |
| * A clear line of sight between employees and business strategy means employees know and believe in the strategy, they're committed to it, and they know what to do to help achieve it. |
| * A strategy to create this line of sight involves four steps: develop and validate core messages, align leaders and define their roles, commit to proof points and measure success. |
| * Leaders and managers play a critical role in creating line of sight. They must be supported in their efforts to communicate the strategy and clarify the actions needed from employees. |
| [Sidebar] |
| "The managers' role is to make strategy meaningful at the local level." |
| [Sidebar] |
| GAINING INPUT FROM LEADERS |
| Leaders should be involved in developing a set of consistent messages around business strategy. Gain their input with these questions: |
| * The business case: Why is this strategy the right one for our business? |
| * The elevator speech: What will be our focus for the next 12-18 months? |
| * Cultural attributes: What does the culture need to look like for this strategy to succeed? |
| * Proof points: What are some stories you can tell now that demonstrate the success of people contributing to the strategy? |
| * Employee actions: What do people in your business need to be doing differently to achieve the strategy? |
| [Author Affiliation] |
| Roger D'ApriX is vice president at ROI communications. He is the author of several books on employee communication, including Communicating for Change: Connecting the Workplace with the Marketplace. |
| [Author Affiliation] |
| CONTACT |
| Roger D'Aprix |
| ROI Communications |
| e-mail: daprixl03@aol.com |
| [Author Affiliation] |
| Chris Gay is senior vice president at ROI Communications, where she works with organizations to develop employee engagement strategies that have an impact on business results. Her current focus is on ROI's geographical expansion. |
| [Author Affiliation] |
| CONTACT |
| Chris Gay |
| ROI Communications |
| e-mail: cgay@roico.com |
My Research
