WHEN THE STARS ALIGN ...

We’re sad.

Only (you fill in the blank) more episodes to the Mad Men saga, a time when creative directors ruled and men were, well, men.

Seriously.  With the star power of that era faded (but not completely obliterated), today’s work world, no matter what the industry or issue, resembles team collaboration more than individual creations.  Diversity is rampant.  The pace of digital collapses time and barriers.  That one great breakthrough idea is subsumed by little mini-campaigns, building incremental value.

Except:  Psychologists and social researchers reveal that the notion of team consensus – replacing leaders’ command and control -- doesn’t always work.  Decision making often stops, or slows down.  Execution can be slow at best, stuttering at worst. 

Their solution?  A list of four actions, from playing the connector to ending debate, all within the scope of senior leaders’ responsibilities.  Yet at least two of them, in our opinion, fall into the province of communications/marketing, roles that might not be the most comfortable, but, certainly, are the most needed.

Here are the two we believe we must own:

• Connecting.  It is up to us to bring in the appropriate universe to our companies, our clients.  We should be cultivating information that others might not have heard, sharing it in examples and how-tos.  It might be an arcane approach to storytelling.  A new technology that might excel, inside and out, in achieving goals.
• Modelling.  For sure, we act in all the right ways when we set up cross-organizational diverse networks and labor virtually.  We need to extend that role modeling, showing it live and capturing it in memories for the rest of our populations.  Otherwise, how will they know what collaboration really can mean?

Why not adapt this riff on Don Draper’s witticism:   “If you don’t like what is being done, then change the behaviors”?

SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE

With all the conversations about monetizing social media and, specifically, brand conversations, it seems like we’ve forgotten one thing:  Kickstarting the dialogues, inside.

A long-ago research study about, yes, study groups reminded us.  Decades ago, under the auspices of Harvard, it pointed out that learning was all about relationships, that is, with whom you learned, rather than how you learned.  When compared to solo students, social learning produced more engaged, better prepared, and more knowledgeable participants.

[We also remember One L, author Scott Turow’s account of his first year at Harvard Law, wherein study groups became highly politicized – and learning-challenged.]

Today’s collaboration is yesterday’s study group.  And collaboration, most CEOs admit, is the gateway to the company future; it’s all about the ability to access people and resources when needed and drive the insight and performance business must have.  Better opportunities for learning and growth, as millennials have demonstrated, will magnetize the best talent.

In turn, the role of communicators shines.  Ramping up the social network.  Forming communities of practice.  Encouraging the talk – and walking that same way.  Encouraging leaders to role-model by working together in inclusive and diverse teams and conversations and brainstorming.  And offering references and tools and relationship-building context (in tandem with HR and other functions) that propel the business forward.

Interactive.  Experiential.  Personal.  Ever-evolving.  Now that sounds like a recipe for change.

WHAT OUR ORTHODONTIST TOLD US

As much as we recoil from even the thought of teeth and the dentist, one word in particular reminds us of our not-so-beloved orthodontist … and the many times we spent in his chair straightening and tightening our braces.

[By the way, our teeth remain as charmingly crooked as they did before treatment.]

The word also calls up memories of siblings playing with trains, and their continual work to keep them running on track.

If you haven’t guessed by now, the magical nine letters spell “alignment.”  And it’s a concept we’re run across way too many times.

Actually, we have no real problem with the philosophy.  In most cases, alignment is, after all, a needed activity, linking corporate goals with project and employee goals.  It started, not surprisingly, as an IT initiative in the 1990s, then gradually morphed into an effort that gets everyone, from executives to customer care reps, on the same page. 

And it does benefit the organization:  establishing trust among different functions, developing and following processes for decision-making and control, and managing risks, among other values.

What bugs us is the indiscriminate use of the term to apply to, yup, literally anything corporate that needs to be linked to a project or initiative.  There are alignment workshops galore.  Sessions to explore our innermost connections.  Consensus reports that detail who’s bought in, who hasn’t, and who’s on the fence.  It’s a lot of paper and a lot of time that could, very easily, be diagrammed and discussed in a few regular meetings and cascaded through lunch ‘n’ learns (with, of course, continual reinforcement of the agreements). 

Save us.  Please.  The alignment we’re seeking is the familiar bond between people … using simple agreements to ensure business togetherness. 

STORMING AND FORMING, JAMMING AND SLAMMING

It started, innocuously, with an ad exec detailing his brainstorming process in 1953.

Thanks to Alex Osborn and his Applied Imagination, millions have faithfully followed his prescription for ideation.  Simply put, the greater the number of ideas generated, the more likely a winner or two will emerge.

Today, that’s so outdated.  Pundits and scholars alike poo-poo that methodology, each group creating their own version of the ‘storm. 

Some contend the fault lies in the admonition to “withhold all criticism until later.”  Others chime in, asserting that a constructive conflict is necessary to create healthy (or unhealthy) discussions.   What will matter most is the composition of the group, say psychologists, since great output is heavily reliant on different perspectives.  After all, they emphasize, discussions in a familiar setting with comfortable work colleagues do not lead to innovative solutions.

The extreme perspective:    Groupthink doesn’t work well.

How do we get inspired, anyway?  Many count on innovation communities, where conversation flows and participants are free to join (or not).  The pinnacle of that is jamming, a process first popularized by IBM in 2003 when figuring out its values.  Rules of the road, of course, accompany the jam: small teams, clear definitions, opt-in attendees help unearth new ideas.

In our opinion (and you just knew we had one!), more than the architecture and lists are the freedom and space to create.  We’ve held solving sessions in all formats, from traditional to online discussions.  What drives us to the right solutions, in most cases, is our focus on different industries, different experiences, and, yes, the unusual associations between the two.  Sometimes, it happens in one meeting.  Sometimes, outside that venue – in a shower, on a morning run, reading at night.  It’s not something that can be mandated within a certain period.  It just, er, happens.

As easily as peanut butter and jelly- jam.