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”?

REWORKING OUR NET

At yesterday’s lunch, we overheard – okay, deliberately – a twinned table talking about business development, referrals – and networking.

[Yeah, we like to eavesdrop.  It reveals a whole ‘nother side of humanity.  Sometimes funny or not.  But always enlightening.]

That started us on the topic, and the ways in which we abuse networking.  Just remember these various and sundry conversations:

“Boy, my business isn’t what it should be.  Gotta start networking … again.”

“Alice just got laid off.  Wonder when she’s gonna understand the value of networking.”

“I’m going to a (fill in the blanks) conference next month.  Guess I better stock up on my business cards as hand-outs.”

The concept of one-way connections just doesn’t work anymore.  Sure, information on individuals is more plentiful than ever, whether we Google, LinkIn, gtweet, or otherwise contact new and old acquaintances.  And the e-friendships do work, at least for a while.

Cynical-ness and skepticism, though, win out.  In the back of our minds:  What does s/he want?  Why are they bothering with me – and I’m not sure I can do anything?

Here’s our solution:  Swap the word for ‘relationshipping.’  It better connotes what we should  be doing:  Giving, rather than receiving.  Asking for the beginnings of a business friendship.  Inquiring about your health and welfare first, then, later, talking about me.  Providing value in the forms of time and thought, from scanning and sending an article of interest to mutually beneficial introductions.  Being old-fashioned enough to enjoy face-to-face conversations, and the delight of human connections.

Yup, it’s a favorite topic, one we tend to return to.  People, too.

DOWN ON THE FARM

General Motors and silos continue to be linked in the media.

And in our minds.

According to new GM CEO Mary Barra in her Congressional testimonies, the auto company’s managers operated in isolation, failing to connect and act on evidence that’s now been linked to fatal accidents.  That, in the words of Harvard guru Ranjay Gulati, smacks of protectionist behavior, decision-making conflicts, and just general inside-out perspectives.

Sound like any business you know?

Regardless:  In the mid-Aughts, after studying a number of different companies (e.g., GE Healthcare, Jones Lang LaSalle, Cisco, Starbucks), Gulati proffered his four-C solution to silo-busting:

• Coordination to share customer information and labor
• Cooperation, along with metrics, that will dethrone the current power structure
• Capability development, when customer-centric generalists also see a clear career pathway and
• Connection, or strategic alliances with other companies.

Later in the decade (or in this one), he holds up IBM’s Smarter Planet initiative as an example of a sword that demolishes silos, saying that values and concomitant images, symbols, and stories, will support the beginnings of a new culture.

Ahem. 

There’s one ‘c’ he’s forgotten:  Communications.  A discipline that, better than any others inside companies, can explain, educate, and elucidate employees on ‘what customers want.’  A function that, almost automatically, delivers awareness and drives actions on behalf of the corporation.  A mindset that will, either alone or in tandem with L&D/HR, establish parameters and ways in which an outside-in perspective reigns.

Ee-i-ee-i-oh, Mr. MacDonald.

VOX NOT-SO POPULI

Columnists (no names here) have called it a “dead medium.”

Psychological researchers say 40 percent of UK office workers admit to nervousness when using it.

And serious therapies exist to reduce the onset and existence of telephobia. 

Yup, you got it:  The fear of the phone.

It’s not a yesterday statistic (the survey we cite was conducted in 2013).  Nor is it limited to 18 to 24ers who are, in large part, tied to texting and emailing.  Rather, many employees these days (94 percent according to the study) simply prefer email over any other communication channel.

Why?  Let us list the ways telephone talk is shunned:

• It can be intrusive
• Playing phone tag is annoying
• We can’t read what someone’s really thinking
• It’s time consuming (retrieving and listening to messages)
• The caller rambles
• It’s too much of an expectation (to return calls)
• It’s rude … and an imposition.

Seriously?   We’re sad.  Friends and family aside, a telephone call – like snail mail – can brighten our day.  A real-time exchange, even one that’s sudden, allows us to find out what’s going on, without reading between the e-lines.  It gives us permission to simply listen, to emote, to interact with colleagues, vendors, peers, managers, and leaders.  At our best, we can be comfortable and confident, and bring clarity to a conversation that, yes, might have rambled. 

What would Alexander Graham Bell say?  “To ask the value of speech is like asking the value of life.”