Lost in translation

Katrina Andrews, Director, Melcrum Asia-Pacific

This week's news around David Cameron's "snub of China over poppies" is a great example of how easily even the smallest of symbols can be misinterpreted in different cultures. Of course in Britain,  the poppy is a symbol of remembrance of World War 1, in China it has an entirely different meaning, that of Opium Wars.

As we all know Asia is a region experiencing a rapidly growing economy – quite a unique challenge compared to the rest of the world, where talk of "double dip" is still looming. As a prelude to Melcrum's opening of our new Asian office, I've been fortunate to interview some practitioners across the region to gather a better understanding of their different challenges compared to those faced in the UK, US and Australia. I've come away absolutely fascinated and invigorated at the depth of these and how little understood they often are by communicators operating at the global centre elsewhere.

Before you put pen to paper (or more likely finger to keyboard) to communicate with a global workforce, here are just some examples of the culture differences I’ve stumbled across in my conversations:

Political sensitivity: one communicator I interviewed described the need to steer away from using maps in her communications e.g. the controversy regarding the political status of Taiwan (as independent or part of China).

Colours: another communicator described a very classic mistake of Corporate sending out a global message in red, which in China is generally regarded as a sign of happiness – this particular global announcement was regarding possible redundancies.

Culture: depending on your regional coverage you could be communicating with up to 15-20 different cultures and corresponding cultural values. Plus, of course, there are language issues to consider as well...

One of the most fascinating challenges I came across in many of the organisations I spoke to, was that of culture change and how to move a very traditional cascade approach to communication, to one that was more interactive and involved two-way dialogue. This is a common challenge in the West too, but when faced with a fairly hierarchical culture – the depth of this challenge is multiplied.

Many spoke of the (mainly) western concept of CEO roadshows and how when delivered in Asia it’s highly unlikely that employees would even consider asking questions as this goes against inherent cultural values. In some Asian organisations this means that a large proportion of senior leaders are still working on a 'need to know' basis when it comes to internal communication. Putting this into context it was only 10-15 years ago that in Japan a large proportion of the nation had the same job for their entire adult life so – as local practitioners pointed out to me – there's still a residual attitude of "they turn up every day and do their job so why do I need to tell them what I'm doing?" in many senior leaders from that era.

Communicators in the region are certainly rising to these cultural challenges. For example, one practitioner I spoke to, after witnessing yet another CEO roadshow where employee “plants” were primed to ask questions – championed to do away with these seemingly pointless events and instead launch smaller, more intimate meetings with the senior leadership team and line mangers to help break down some of the cultural barriers preventing dialogue.

When we talk about “dialogue” this also extends to online discussion and collaboration but in Asia the use of social media is still held back somewhat – by the infrastructure itself rather than a lack of interest. Communicators spoke of their passion for using new tools and technology, but there are some channels that Asia isn't regionally able to support yet – for example, sending text message announcements to remote manufacturing plants in the Philippines. That said there are also some shining examples of how social media has been harnessed to initiate culture change – the folks at BASF (Hong Kong) are a great example on using wikis and other platforms including Facebook to enable collaboration throughout BASF Asia.

Given both the communication challenges – and innovations – emerging from this part of the world Melcrum’s plans to expand its operations to provide more tailored support to internal communication professionals in Asia couldn’t be happening at a more exciting time. If you'd like to get in touch to find out more about our activities in this area please contact me on: katrina.andrews@melcrum.com.

Highlights from Melcrum's SCM Summit Australia

Katrina Andrews, Director, Melcrum Asia-Pacific

This year’s 7th Annual Strategic Communication Management Summit in Sydney, drew together a crowd of over 120 communicators, based throughout Australia and Asia, including Japan and China. Compared to last year, in the midst of the global financial crisis, there was an air of optimism in the room. If I was to sum up in one sentence the general attitude of the audience it would be: "We’re through the worst of it. Let’s reignite, reinvent and most importantly re-engage."

There were case studies of communication triumph against adversity, with Andrew Huckel, group internal communications manager, Bankwest, coaching us through the internal comms challenges faced when a parent company collapses (HBOS) and a subsequent acquisition takes place (by Commonwealth Bank of Australia).

Most interesting was to hear how their senior leadership played an integral part in keeping their employees informed and internal brand consistent. Huckel told the audience that in the midst of the crisis, he was having twice daily meetings with the MD.

Olivia Wirth, head of corporate communications, Qantas, delivered an outstanding presentation on how she and her team harnessed and learned from Qantas' 13 individual unions – a communication prospect that would make most of us shudder.

Communicating within such an iconic Australian brand like Qantas brought up a whole set of challenges, including the mainstream media being named the primary source for organizational information for employees. Quite simply, Qantas “hadn’t invested in internal communication” -  a challenge both Wirth and the executive team set out to change by introducing "we will tell you first" –  a new governing internal communication principle.

Spurred on by the belief that if you haven’t got your top 100 engaged, you're not going to get the rest of the business engaged, the team set out to develop a new senior leadership communication project. Plus, executed a brand review process targeting individual staff across the organization with a set of questions focused on:

• What do you think our values are?
• How do you think that relates to your behavior?
• And reflecting the nature of the Qantas brand: What is the "Australian way"?

At the completion of Olivia’s presentation, I really was left convinced that this was a company  on its way to delivering world-class communications.

Some of the other key takeaways from the Summit included

• Melcrum’s Rebecca Richmond’s presentation on moving from a cascade to a dialogue approach to communication. When thinking about manager communication, help them to set the scene i.e. create the infrastructure. Bill Quirke’s model for structuring a meeting is a great tool to help manager’s foster dialogue within your organization
  
  
• Athena Wiliams-Atwood, AMP New Zealand, encouraged all communicators to adapt a sales approach to convince senior leaders of the importance of engagement, perhaps by reading Spin Selling – a book on how to pitch your ideas, or – even more radical – attending a sales training course!
  
  
• Insights and learnings from one of the year's biggest stories: the multiple outages that hit Telecom's XT mobile network. Also, a great example of how to harness a charismatic CEO can be seen through their use of video.
  

Plus, great further presentations from Ericsson, IBM & ABT, Luxottica, Raytheon, AMP Australia and Integral Energy. All up, great speakers with great networking – I’m already looking forward to 2011!

Kevin’s rudderless employees: does the Prime Minister need a lesson in employee engagement?

By Belinda Evans, Communications Content Manager, Melcrum

It appears Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has been so busy running the country and attempting to engage voters as we enter a new election year, that he’s neglected to engage some very important people... his employees.

Rudd and his ministers have reached a whopping staff turnover rate of nearly 60% in the two and a bit years since coming to office in late 2007, with yesterday's Daily Telegraph reporting that from a total of 444 positions, 262 ministerial staff members have left their roles. Is it any wonder the front-page headline of the newspaper posed the question: Is Kevin Rudd too hard to work for?

Of course, these figures are somewhat dramatized. Staff turnover is generally measured by counting resignations during a period of just one year, and the figure of 262 includes employees who may have left to start a family or simply transferred to another ministerial office. Having said that, there are clearly some internal issues at Parliament House, and I’ll bet my vote in the next federal election that communication lies at the root of those issues.

The media is accusing the Prime Minister of being a demanding boss, one who provides little feedback to his staff. But Rudd himself admits that working in politics is no walk in the park. Talking on radio station 2UE yesterday, he likened a year working in his office to a dog year, meaning it was worth seven years in normal life. Obviously, having employees work long hours in a high pressure environment does you no favors in terms of staff turnover, but I do wonder how many of those 262 employees might have hung around had Rudd spent some time engaging them in his vision, as he would his voters?

It’s a shame Kevin Rudd didn’t secure himself a place at our sold out Employee Engagement conference in Melbourne next week, as it sounds like he could do with a few tips.

What are your thoughts? Do you think Kevin Rudd has is too hard on his employees?

10 great reasons to attend this year’s SCM Summit London

By James Bennett, Managing Online Editor, Melcrum

If you haven't already, make sure you sign up the Melcrum's SCM Summit in London 13th to 15th October 2009! It's only 27 days away!!!

  Here are 10 great reasons why you should!

1. The economic recovery - looking to the future: find out why successful internal communicators are the key to leading us to economic recovery, how they can rebuild trust in leaders, re-engage employees and increase performance, and plan for 2010 by refreshing your ideas and knowledge and finding out what’s working for others.
2. Take the lead - find out how your peers are becoming trusted advisors to the leadership team, and coaching managers to be better communicators.
3. The best networking - rub shoulders with the best and brightest in the industry, the largest gathering of senior communicators in Europe this year.
4. Latest research - hear the latest trends and Melcrum research into internal communication best practice in rebuilding trust, change communication, social media and employee engagement.
5. International perspective - meet delegates from all over Europe, the US, Africa and Middle East and gain an international perspective.
6. Case studies: hear first-hand accounts from senior communicators at HSBC, ING, KBC Group, Network Rail, Westminster City Council, Asda, Volvo and Vodafone amongst others.
7. FIRST UK PRESENTATION!!! A CEO’s unique view of comms - don’t miss this year’s special guest Stephen Martin, star of Channel Four’s ‘Undercover Boss’ series and CEO of construction company Clugston Group as he recounts the lessons he took back to the boardroom after working on the frontline.
8. Ideas you can put into practice - you’ll come away with dozens of proven techniques and ideas you can use back at the office.
9. Get involved - the SCM Summit is more than a conference, it’s a chance for you to gain feedback, discuss your challenges and hear what’s working via roundtable sessions, panel discussions, and interactive workshops.
10. Communicators trust Melcrum to deliver - now in its 8th year, the SCM Summit is the one event you tell us you can’t afford to miss, even when your budgets have been cut.

We have three summits, one in Australia, that is in its first day today, one in the US in Chicago and of course London.

Follow us at all three summits on Twitter via the following hashtags:

Australia: #scmau
United States: #scmus
United Kingdom: #scmuk

Black Belt heads to NZ in October

By James Bennett, Managing Online Editor, Melcrum

As Flight of the Conchords – New Zealand’s biggest comedy export since the country’s football team - once sang, “it’s business time”. Of course Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie were singing about something altogether different and I'm sure you can guess what, but here at Melcrum we’re singing out loud about business and time in a different way. Why? Because we've just heard that Black Belt, the internal comms profession’s iconic training program, will be landing in the land of Māoris, Lord of the Rings, and, er, sheep from 20th to 22nd October at the Pipitea Campus, Victoria University in Wellington later this year.

Melcrum's Internal Communication Black Belt Program was updated at the beginning of the year and is designed with the development of the modern internal communications practitioner in mind - to guide you as you progress up the IC ladder and equip you with the skills you need to become a trusted and influential adviser within your organization.

So, if you live and work in the internal communications field (not literally of course) in New Zealand and would like to know more or simply sign up to the industry’s most renowned and well-respected training course then see here for more information. And even if you don’t live way up there in NZ but know people who might be interested in other parts of the world, make sure to let them know. As you guys up there in beautiful NZ say, choice mate!

Best job in the world campaign signs up for Oz SCM

By James Bennett, Managing Online Editor, Melcrum

It’s what many of us strive for all our working lives, need to fulfill our ambitions, and hope to secure so that one day we can tell our children that we were there. No, not a change to dress up as a clown and compete on Deal or No Deal, I’m talking about getting the job of your dreams.

It happened to one British man last month, who from a pool of 34,000 hopeful global applicants, won the opportunity of a lifetime. Branded and marketed as ‘the best job in the world’, Ben Southall, a 34 year-old charity fundraiser from Petersfield in Hampshire, became the new caretaker of an Australian tropical island. Sound idyllic? Well it gets even better. His six-month £73,500 (AUS$110,000) contract includes a three-bedroom beach home, a swimming pool and golf cart, while his job description is to simply explore the islands of the Great Barrier Reef, swim, snorkel, make friends with the locals and generally enjoy the tropical Queensland climate and lifestyle. He will, however be expected to do some work, and in the true spirit of the Web 2.0 age we live in, will report back to Tourism Queensland (TQ) and the world via blogs, a photo diary, video updates and interviews. And this is where the business brains at TQ have come into their own.

Amid the worldwide recession tourism in Oz has fallen downhill faster than a jet propelled Koala on roller skates but this campaign has already generated massive amounts of publicity, PR and interest all around the world, and all for very little expenditure. And from an internal communications point of view it has served as a vital tool to boost employee engagement within the organisation.

More importantly, Tourism Queensland has agreed to speak about its great success story at our SCM Summit Australia on 15th to 17th September 2009 in Sydney.

In the session later in the year you’ll hear about:

• How the campaign spawned around 200,000 blogs, 43,000 news stories and over AUS$120 million worth of publicity.
• How the campaign was developed.
• How social media channels were used to spark global interest.
• How external interest was used to create engagement and enthusiasm inside the organisation.
• How Tourism Queensland has re-energised its culture and brand.
• How to harness successful brand initiatives to drive employee engagement.
• How to make the most of social media tools and channels.
• How to equip senior leaders to manage intense media interest and act as brand ambassadors.

Are you working on a groundbreaking campaign, if so we want to know? And what, in your opinion have been the best employee engagement campaigns of recent years? Let me know by either replying to this post, by emailing me at james.bennett@melcrum.com or by Twittering to @Melcrum

How to thrive and survive as an internal communicator

“It’s so important to keep the lines of communication open during crises and change. Employees get so frustrated finding things out via the rumor mill or the press. Even if you don’t yet have more news, tell staff this,”…says Sally Hinder, trainer, coach, facilitator, communication specialist and now Melcrum’s latest addition to The Internal Communication Black Belt trainer faculty.

Formerly Head of Internal Comms at Brit Insurance, Sally gives some fantastic advice for communicators, writing in an in-depth interview this week for The Internal Comms Hub.

So, in her experence, what competencies does Sally reckon are essential to being a successful communicator?

• Influencing skills: Being able to influence people – what we do can sometimes be seen as, dare I say it, “fluffy”, so it’s vital that we win hearts and minds through effective influencing.
• Business skills: Being able to understand business issues – communicators are sometimes criticized for not speaking a business’s language – a mistake I learnt from early in my career. In order to influence people to our way of thinking, we have to demonstrate that we understand their pain and the challenges they face in their business.
• Great listening skills – it’s not all about us talking and persuading but also about ensuring we understand the communications need and listen attentively both to what's being said and what's not being said.
• Diplomacy – for all the politics you have to deal with.

Above all, have a great sense of humor!

You can catch Sally at her first Black Belt course in January or at the Alumni drinks reception on January 22nd in London or on the Black Belt Dojo blog.

Melcrum’s Internal Communication Black Belt Programme is now in its third year, which has helped. Sally takes over from Liam Fitzpatrick who is stepping down at the end of 2008. Sally will be working with Black Belt’s long time UK trainer, Sue Dewhurst.

The Black Belt Programme is now held in London, Sydney and Melbourne, Australia throughout the year and will soon launch in other locations in Europe and North America in 2009.

If you’re interested in bringing Black Belt to a city near you, please do get in touch.

Robin Crumby.

SCM Summit Australia 2008 - and we still have some free iPods left!

By Alex Manchester, Editor, The Internal Comms Hub (Australia), Melcrum

For this year's Strategic Communication Management Summit in Sydney in September, we're giving away free iPod Shuffles to the first 25 delegates.

They're going quickly but we still have a few remaining, all you have to do is sign up to the conference (easy!) and they're (PRODUCT) Red shuffles too, which I find a worthy cause.

Now, I appreciate I'm in danger of breaking one of the unwritten blogging rules by writing marketing-esque stuff on the blog, but iPods are a handy diversion that allow me to talk more about the Summit, because we're rapt with the lineup of speakers and sessions this year. In no particular order we have confirmed:

• Jim Schaffer, Jim Shaffer Group (US)
• David MacGregor, Internal Communications Manager, Woolworths
• Kevin Panozza, CEO, SalesForce Australia,
• Rosie Mullaly,  Deputy Director News Services & Manager Corporate Employee Communications, Telstra
• Jenny Burn, Organisational Development and Learning Manager, AstraZeneca
• Helen Taylor, Internal & Management Communications Manager, Shell Australia
• Kellie Tomney, Executive Manager Recruitment & Branding Strategy, St George
• Ross Bernays, CEO, HIP Super
• Cary Frost,  Principal - Communication at Work, Aon Consulting
• Louise Martin, Director, Strategic Communication, Department of Justice (Victoria)
• Alex Gosman, Director - Government & Corporate Affairs, GlaxoSmithKline Australia
• Todd Montgomery, Principal Consultant, Mercer
• Karina Keisler, Group Manager External Communications, Sensis
• Michelle Berardone, Manager Corporate Communications, Powerlink Queensland
• Chris Jackson, Head of Communication, CGU Insurance
• Michael Moore, Manager Corporate & Business Communications, Bristol-Myers Squibb
• Genevieve O'Reilly, PhD, Research Consultant, Bond University

For a full list of presentations you can download the brochure here.

It was a great event last year, with the likes of Angela Sinickas, David Grossman, Peter Eksted at HP, Anna Wills at Alcatel-Lucent, Sue Dewhurst and more, and the Employee Engagement conference in May had some truly excellent presentations. If you're looking for a first class conference for internal comms, and you're in the region, then get in touch to register.

In fact, Melcrum Strategic Communication Management Summits are happening in quick succession around the world, with the Australian event in Sydney, 10-11 September, the US event in Chicago on 23-24 September, and the UK event in London on 15-16 October.

Do you need some Presentation Zen?

By Alex Manchester, Editor, The Internal Comms Hub (Australia), Melcrum

A notice for anyone on this side of the world who's done a bit of public speaking or simply wants to know how to avoid death by PowerPoint.

Garr Reynolds, author of Presentation Zen, is hosting a talk in Sydney on Friday 4th July, courtesy of the StepTwo Designs team.

In a 2-hour slot, Garr will:

Challenge the conventional wisdom behind PowerPoint and Keynote slides, particularly targeting [the aforementioned] "Death-by-Powerpoint" and "sliduments" that are so prevalent in today's business environment.

Instead, he will encourage you to think differently and more creatively about the preparation, design, and delivery of your presentations. Garr will dispel popular myths about what is an effective presentation and offer up effective alternatives and approaches for designing and delivering better presentations. All throughout the seminar, the common themes are restraint and clarity in preparation, simplicity in design, and naturalness in delivery.

This will be Garr's only public presentation in Sydney while he's here and he won't be back for a while.

I'll be there and places are filling up fast according to Catherine Grenfell at StepTwo. If you're interested, don't waste a minute in booking and head to their site.

When customers say thank you

By Robin Crumby, Managing Director, Melcrum

"I flew all the way for this!"

With oil at $130 plus a barrel. Increased security checks. And corporate budgets under pressure. Traveling to business conferences just to hear a bunch of speakers read out bullet points from PowerPoint slides, when improved communication and social media mean you could have listened in from the comfort of your office...All this is really raising the bar for conference organizers. Or so says author of Permission Marketing, Seth Godin.

Anyone who's ever read his white paper on 'Death by Powerpoint': Really Bad Powerpoint will have looked back and cringed at their own slide decks crammed packed full of bullet points and dense text that has delegates' minds wandering or plain squinting at the screen.

The days of the traditional format conference are surely numbered. But from roundtables, to Q&A sessions, to interactive group discussions, to plain-old networking in the halls, there's no substitute for the shared learning experience conferences offer, when done well.

So imagine our delight when a delegate at Melcrum's recent Employee Engagement Summit in Sydney, Australia took it upon themselves to buy our very own Amy Lyons the most enormous bouquet of flowers with a card that referenced all the wonderful things Amy had done to make their conference experience second to none. (Customer service smug factor: 10/10).

It would seem that the value of attending conferences is alive and well, after all. And can social media and so-called 'virtual conferences' really replace the real thing? Virtual flowers, anyone?