Open communication with internal communication article

Weren't we just talking about this last night...? Open door policy with executives.... Read and give me your 2 cents on if this could apply to crisis communication.

Ragan.com
Published: 6/25/2008

Five ways to get employees to talk and executives to listen
By Sarah McAdams sarah_mcadams@yahoo.com

How to make internal feedback programs work
Few people like to hear criticism about themselves or their work. For those with especially high egos—like, say, many senior executives we know—the degree of dislike tends to climb exponentially higher.

But, as we discussed earlier on Ragan.com, not listening to employees’ candid feedback—about the company’s products, services, internal communication, managers’ style, whatever—can drastically affect an organization’s success.

Of course, it’s often not enough to just explain this to company leaders. We asked some pros who specialize in actually getting them to listen—and act on what they learn—to share some tips for making internal feedback programs work.1. Persuade executives to be brutally honest with their peers first.

Executives will have a better understanding of employees’ position if they’re put it in first, says Josh Leibner, a principal of Quantum Performance.

That’s why, when working with companies on feedback programs, Leibner often advises that executive teams first sit down with each other and put their “background conversations” on the table: What they really think of each other’s credibility, competence and courage.
He points to an example of Manufacturer’s Services’ (now part of Celestica) Arden Hills plant, whose management team did not have much respect for each other’s capabilities.

“Only when they were able to put their views on the table were they able to shift their turnaround initiative into high gear,” says Leibner, whose clients include Pfizer, Cisco Systems and Capital One. “In a session in which the heads of manufacturing, engineering, marketing, sales and other functions expressed their displeasures with each other’s competency, pent-up emotions overflowed.”

But eventually, he says, “a weight seemed to come off everyone’s shoulders because everyone knew these issues were under the surface, and the amount of energy they had been wasting on pretending these things did not exist was no longer needed … coordination, trust and collaboration improved immediately.”

“Everyone who participated in it came to me afterwards and said it was the most cathartic thing theyde ever been through,” says Margit Elo, vice president and general manager at Manufacturer’s Services.

This brutal honesty allowed the executive team to own up to their problem: Their facility was the poorest performing in the company, and if it continued to lose money it would be shut down and their jobs eliminated. Quickly, the team began clicking—and its next step was to ask employees for their candid feedback.

In three years, the chronically underperforming plant doubled sales and became the best performing operation in the company.

2. Anonymity is the key to candor.

Every expert we spoke to agreed: feedback from employees must be anonymous.
“The way to get employees to speak up is to guarantee anonymity and present findings in group form,” says Rachelle J. Canter, author of Make the Right Career Move. “Executives are no different than other people; they want to figure out who said the negative things. I tell executives not to waste their time figuring out who said what because they are often wrong and the point is to get honest feedback, that 15 people—or however many participate—can't be wrong, and that in any case, perception is reality.”

If the situation is excessively hostile, says Curtis N. Bingham, president of Predictive Consulting Group, “uncoded, anonymous surveys ensure it is impossible to trace specific comments back to the respondent.”

3. Prep the leadership team with the ground rules up front.

Bingham, whose clients include Cardinal Health, Intuit and Standard & Poor’s, recalls working with one team that was particularly hostile.

“The executive team was in a perpetual search for a scapegoat and would blame anyone and everyone before looking at themselves for the root of the problems,” he says.
That’s why, before beginning the project, he laid out the ground rules specifically stating that the only way it would be possible to gather the information they wanted was if they could guarantee it would be held in the strictest confidence.

“I told them up front that I would not identify sources under any circumstances,” he says. “It’s critical that you absolutely and positively refuse to engage in a bullying contest with CEOs demanding to know the source.

4. Deliver tough news by highlighting the business outcomes of behavior or decisions over the perceived slights.

For instance, during a feedback readout with an executive, Bingham says he took great pains to highlight the revenue growth opportunities at hand, and highlighted the steps necessary to achieve them that he’d discovered through employee interviews.

“I had to deliver scathing feedback I'd gleaned from a number of employees,” he says. “The executive didn't want to hear it and lashed out at me for even considering bringing it to her attention. I was surprised at the vehement reaction because I thought for sure that the issues would be addressed.”

So he tried again a while later, but this time focused on the business problem caused by the executive’s behavior.

“By outlining how this problem was slowing our company growth, causing customers to mistrust us when we didn't deliver on our promises and preventing follow-on business with these clients, I was able to get her attention as I outlined how the company could improve in resolving the issues,” he says. “In the end, I was reasonably successful—the process changed, which minimized the negative impact this executive had previously had, and we started doing a much better job in satisfying our customers.”

5. Encourage them to communicate about the biggest problems, explain how they’re going to fix them—and then fix them.

“Feedback without post-feedback implementation is worthless,” says Canter, whose clients include BP Amoco, American Express and Apple. “I never agree to a feedback-only project because feedback, while potentially useful, is just potential—not reality—without careful attention to how we incorporate feedback and put it into practice.”
She explains how employees reported that one executive client was abusive toward support staff, including yelling, publicly humiliating staff and calling people stupid. “Things had reached such a dire point that staff refused to work with him,” she says. “Because he was brilliant and a top performer beloved by customers for his outstanding work, the company chose to hire me to work with him for six months instead of firing him.”

One of his first steps was to publicly acknowledge what he had heard from staff about his behavior, and he described several specific things he’d be working on to correct this problem (reducing stress so he could give constructive feedback on work product, avoiding public criticism, asking staff if he had given adequate instructions at the start of the assignment and remembering to thank people for their contributions).

After six months, “the results included dramatically improved work relationships with all the staff and greater staff morale and productivity,” she says. “And he was recruited away by a competitor several years later, the staff pitched in and bought him an expensive going-away gift, something that was unprecedented at the company.”

Bea Fields, who’s worked with more than 800 executives on feedback programs, also liked this approach. She tells the story of how a nonprofit director client went to her high-powered board of directors and shared her thoughts with them about the negative feedback she received.
“She explained her plan of action—especially around the comments about her being abrupt and aggressive. She then went and did the same with her team, and they all then opted in to go through the feedback review shortly thereafter,” says Fields, author of EDGE: A Leadership Story. “Her organization raised an additional $200,000.00 in funding following the review process.”