Are you struggling to engage your global audiences? Are you trying to break a silo mentality between regional offices? Find your solution by listening. Really hard.
The IABC Global Communication Conference in Hong Kong was an eye-opening experience. Outside of being in an incredibly cool city, it was really refreshing to hear about communications from a different perspective.
Last week communicators from countries all over the world (Canada, China, Singapore, Australia, and India … just to name a few) experienced the first-ever IABC communications conference in their neck of the woods. One of my favorite sessions was with Mark Schumann, ABC. During his morning keynote he talked about the new rules of employee engagement - and I had an “a-ha!” moment.
One of Mark’s main messages was that when it comes to communications it’s all about listening. Now, we’ve all heard this before, right? I’m a measurement person, so I definitely have heard, and have said this myself many times. But this time, there was something different. Mark used a wonderful analogy to put this statement in a global perspective.
“Think about two tin cans and a string,” he said. So I did. I could visualize myself using these to talk to my sister when I was growing up. I thought it was cooler than the set of walkie-talkies we had.
“Now,” said Mark, “Think about what happened as you got farther and farther away from the person who was holding the other end. The farther away you were from that person, the harder you had to listen. The same applies with global communications.”
OF COURSE! That made perfect sense to me. And, it’s so true. I work with a couple of clients right now and engaging the regional offices and working to not be so U.S. centric is an ongoing battle. And, while we have included them in employee surveys — and have done some focus groups here and there — we just aren’t listening hard enough.
Unlike our ability to constantly get feedback from the offices we’re located in, we’re making the mistake of only “scheduling” feedback mechanisms once or twice a year. And, as Mark put it during his keynote, that’s only a snapshot of how their feeling right at that moment.
In order to engage them throughout the year, we need to have conversations with them throughout the year to understand their challenges, their achievements, their fears, their questions and their markets.
So how do we do this? Here’s a couple of ideas I have that I’d like to toss out here — I welcome you to do the same.
They just have to get it. And, believe me, these people are out there. As a communications person, it’s become our role to scout them out and find them. With regularly scheduled meetings with them (either by phone or video conference), they’ll be your eyes and ears to their part of the world and will be able to keep you in the loop. More importantly, they’ll be able to provide ongoing feedback on your communications to let you know if the content is relevant, appropriate and accurate.
In a nutshell, the teleseminars are limited to only 25 participants per session and are on a first-come, first-served basis. Participants need to agree to come to the teleseminar prepared with questions for the leader on a specific subject. Questions from other employees are also collected beforehand and helps to form the starting dialogue. It’s not only encouraged employees to interact with regional leaders, but it’s also provided great feedback for the communicators. The teleseminars help to reveal the global topics that mean the most to employees. It’s brilliant.
Steve and I are off to London next week (April is proving to be an exciting month) to speak at the Simply-Summit. I’m hoping to get more case studies and best practices from across the pond. In the meantime, what about you? Has anyone used any techniques to bring global offices together? I’d love to hear from you!
Excellent post–not surprisingly. Two things I’d add:
1) Use the phone–as great as the new tools are, there’s no substitute for plain old aural intercourse–it’s hard to listen if you don’t hear (particularly as non-native English is often less precise than what we Anglophones are used to).
2) Don’t just get correspondents by geography–combine geography with other key characteristics–level, team and tribe.
All the best from Brussels,
Mike Klein
Mike, thanks for the feedback — great tips to add to the list. I really love your second point — what a wonderful idea to get more well-rounded insights!
The need to listen is so important, Cindy. Maybe I’m influenced by my own experience, but I believe the manufacturing environment is one of the most needy areas when it comes to communicators — and senior management — listening. Yet, that’s where the real action is (and where the real money is being made, or not) for companies that make things.
Nothing beats being there, but the suggestions you offer go a long way toward understanding non-HQ facilities and responding to their needs.
Robert -
Another great point! You know, come to think of it the whole concept of the farther you are, the harder you have to listen can be applied within each individual organization.
Executives need to listen harder to the employees they are farther from – the front line employees.
Not only does it improve your insights — it speaks volumes to front-line employees when they feel they have consistent contact with execs and leadership.
And, if they can do this in person once in a while — that’s even better — and more human, which is always nice.
I’d say spot on! And at the same time, many organizations with strong global presence are centralizing and “streamlining” their comms, marketing etc operations even more. So sad.
One good example of this way of thinking is Nokia and I wonder how long the brand value is going to shrink before Nokia execs realize that their inability to listen (customers, local employees, sw developers etc) in one of the core reasons for the decline