Divas, Liars and Thieves

From our guest blogger, Terry McKenzie, at Sun Microsystems...

In the past two weeks, at two different conferences, I've stuck my foot in it.  Squarely. 

Sigh.  You'd think I'd learn.

Here's what I did.  I stated my opinion that I despise doing values campaigns more than almost any other kind of communication.  And went on to say, in my somewhat irreverent way, that one of the reasons I hate them is that values can be so, well, trite.

Is there an organization our there that does not have collaboration or team work as part of their values construct?  How about integrity?  And would an organization ever declare themselves as based on the values of divas, liars and thieves?  (Yes, I know a more polite way of saying this would be "individual contributors" instead of divas, but hey, values language is always slanted toward the dramatic so i don't see why i can't play that game, too!)

And of course, the instant I relinquished the stage, I was followed by fabulous communicators talking about their great work in communicating values programs, as I shrunk into my seat.

The problem is that, too often, communication of values is, in my opinion, shallow, glitzy and subject to the creation of cynicism.  Spare me the posters, the wallet cards, the Lucite pyramids with "Our Company Values" proudly engraved.  Serious communication of values programs is hard work, not glamorous, requires partnership and total support of the human resources organization, and must have consequences.

Yep, consequences.  So as I listened to Rob Hallam at Pitney Bowes talk about how their company is communicating values in conjunction with rewards, I nodded in enthusiastic agreement.  As I looked over at Sheryl Lewis of ROI Communications, and remembered our days at Quantum communicating their performance management system (in which results were only half the score - how you got the results - that would be values, folks - made up the over half of the equation), I knew that there is a right way to do this.

What are those common values again?  Collaboration and integrity?  So if we want the communication of our values program to work, and be more than words on a wall, we need to team with human resources, collaborate with senior managers, and bake integrity into the rollout of the program.  That means that performance management and reward systems MUST incorporate the values.  And that people who are blatantly out of sync with the values cannot be promoted.  Or bonused.  Or allowed to keep doing what their doing, regardless of their results.

Because it's what our parents told us when we were growing up:  it's not what you say, it's what you do.  As communicators, let's make sure we're setting the right path here and taking the rollout of values very seriously.  Hand out wallet cards and freebies if you must, but make sure that hard measurement and consequences are a part of your program.  Otherwise, my irreverence will be dwarfed by the cynicism of your employees who can sniff out the truth in two seconds flat.

Oops, did I do it again?  I guess I'm a slow learner....

Preparing to Present - Thoughts of a Speaker

From our guest blogger, Terry McKenzie, at Sun Microsystems...

Have you noticed? Conference season is right around the corner!

My email box is filled with enticing offers to sign up for events, and my datebook has a few fun speaking engagements in it (a couple of them for Melcrum!). So I've been busy, busy, busy writing talks - and practicing them on my poor beleaguered staff (yes, you do have to hear me again, and yes, you will hurt my feelings if you don't do a more enthusiastic courtesy laugh for my better lines!).

Let me tell you what's so great about speaking at conferences, at least for me. It forces me to take a lot of stuff that's been floating around my head for months and use it to actually tell a story. In the average 10 hours it takes me to put together a decent presentation, I go from unconscious competent to conscious competent. That's a pretty good return on investment. Not only does it provide a good sharing experience in a formal setting, but it sets me up to apply learnings to other situations that I might otherwise have missed.

My process of writing a presentation starts with a rough outline, and I then go on to waste way too much time on a clever opening, including surfing the net for photos I can use without breaking copyright law or paying usage fees. I find this enormously entertaining, and when I finally get serious about writing the meat of the presentation, feel great sadness at letting go of such images as this:

or this:

Alas...

Anyway, as a development opportunity for my staff, I have a standing offer that goes like this: Anyone who would like to take the learnings from a particular project or initiative and turn them into a talk has my support in two ways:

First, I'll work with them on their presentation, both content and style.

Second, if the presentation is good enough, I'll help them find a venue to present.

In the two years I've made this offer, I've had a couple takers. The result? We can talk with good authority about outsourcing, change management, manager communication training, CEO transition, and now...social networking.

We all get smarter and all gain ways to network with the communication community. The staff member gains confidence in speech writing and presentation skills, plus meets lots of great people. A win/win for all...

So I look forward to the start of the fall conference season.  Hope to see many of you there... And don't worry, no Davy Crockett hats to look out for - I've edited that image from all my talks!

Voices of the Young(er than me)

From our new guest blogger, Terry McKenzie, at Sun Microsystems...

Last night, our son and two of his friends joined us for dinner. Over corn-on-the-cob and barbecued chicken, we talked about the worst jobs we'd ever had (I think the prize went to our son's friend, Bill, who dresses up in black and goes out in the wee hours to post signs on freeway entrances/exits advertising slightly sleazy web sites - although we agreed that the worst job on earth might be standing at major interesections in the hot sun, waving a big sign for open houses or whatever.) and other items that bridged generations.

But I was especially taken by the lively discussion amongst the three of them (ages 23, 23 and 25) about Facebook, MySpace and text messaging.  So here I am, sitting with those whom many web creators consider a target demographic, and here's what they had to say:

• Myspace - still the best site.  Best functionality. Most friends on it
• Facebook - use it for sharing photography.  But just plain irritating features such as "Poke" seem to be pointless - why poke someone?  Why not just do something more social...like text message them?
• Text messaging - air and water.
• Twitter - huh? 
• E-mail - e-what?
• Friend lists - is there some sort of contest for having the longest list?  Why do people I haven't seen in years want me to be their friends?  Don't get it.
• Purpose of social networking - to figure out where to meet, what's going on, swap the latest news.
• E-communication versus letter-writing - why do people assume that just because you like to write letters or communicate in more than three words that you don't get it?
• Future of e-communication - sadly, we'll probably get to the point where we'll be hardwired so that you know everything everyone is doing.  And that will be the end of thinking and creativity, because we'll be so overwhelmed finding out what everyone is doing right this second.

So communicators, take heed.  Social networking is for ... social networking.  We need to really think about the purpose of communication at our companies, and about the social aspect of work to make this an effective tool.  And meanwhile, don't go "poking" me! I gather it's just not done...

Viewing the World through Web 2.0 Glasses

From our new guest blogger Terry McKenzie, at Sun Microsystems...

When was the last time your life changed?  I mean really changed.... like you had a baby.  Got married. Got divorced. Won the lottery (OK, we can see where my mind is!). Went through a difficult illness. Dealt with a crisis. Achieved a dream. Became an empty nester.

Life-altering experiences don't happen that often, and when they do, they are often very personal in nature.  So the fact that my new job became a life altering experience was a little astonishing to me.

Last winter, my CEO, Jonathan Schwartz, approached me with an idea for a new charter.  Rather than my group focusing only on employee communication, he asked me to expand our work to drive employee community building through technology.  I lit up - how much fun would that be?

I convened an all-day session for my extended team, and we began the work of figuring out what what the success would look like for our CEO (and therefore us),  what we knew, what we didn't, who other players at Sun might be, and a roadmap to get us started.  Since then, we have become absorbed in social networking, and it has truly changed my life.

I see the world through different spectacles now.  When I'm asked for communication advice, my responses are very, very different than they would have been a year ago.  When I'm asked how Web 2.0 is meaningful to an organization, I have strong opinions on how it may or may not be useful.  I think about team work differently.  I think about leadership credibility differently.  I think about web properties differently.  An example:

We recently completed our annual VP conference here at Sun. To cascade the information, we are relying on a combination of:

• Command and control (Executives have told their VPs that they are being held accountable for sharing the conference learnings and action items with their directors).
• Traditional meeting-in-a-box kits.
• Videocasts and audiocasts on demand.
• Social forum software for use in meetings, where VPs will present problems and proposed solutions from the conference, and then ask their directors, "What do you think?  Is this the right approach? Is it enough?" Ideas will be entered on the forum with the opportunity to exchange ideas with other directors and vice presidents online.

Participation and sharing, real time. High return on an investment of time, not dollars. Lots of minds. A fair shake of chaos. Opening ourselves up to risk, to feedback we may not want to hear. Treating our employees like adults with valuable ideas.  Getting people together so they can exchange thoughts, share problems, collaborate.

I've been blogging for a year (you find me here) but what I'm involved in now takes my experience to a different level. My advice to you? Get smart. Get educated. And jump in.  The water's fine.