Posts about Human Resources

7 Considerations To Choose the Right Corporate Spokesperson

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The choice of corporate spokesperson should never be taken lightly.  Never.  Having the wrong person representing you can damage your brand in the best case scenario.  In the worse-case scenario, it could destroy your brand.

Courtesy of evercleanservices.com

Courtesy of evercleanservices.com

The person or persons chosen need to be creditable, knowledgeable, well-spoken, but above all empathetic and likeable. There have been a few tragic situations over the last few years when brands seem to have forgotten this fundamental rule.

Over the course of many years in Public Relations and Crisis Communications I have been both a corporate spokesperson and coached others.  It is not an easy task. When dealing with death, there are just no words that can make anyone feel better. That is why it is so critical that you have someone who can give information and facts and most importantly have real and genuine empathy. You can’t fake empathy. You can’t fake the terrible feeling that you have knowing that a human-being has died. At this point the spokesperson must do his or her best to share information that will help make some sense of the tragedy without inflaming victims and loves-ones who are experiencing complete and utter loss, disbelief and anger.

A few months ago I listened as one corporate spokesperson spoke on a very, very tragic situation here in Canada. I did not envy him or anyone who had attempted to coach him. This level of tragedy was unknown in our country and facing those left behind was not going to be easy. Suffice it to say, the conversation did not go well. The words chosen and even the tone used, were wrong. I listened in disbelief. Only days later I listened to a follow-up interview. My only words to describe what I heard was:  why isn’t someone saving him from himself? Again the words chosen would only inflame the victims’ families.  

Brands can mitigate this by having the right person in place.  I offer the following advice to brands to avoid having the wrong spokesperson:

1.  Know the abilities of your employees, including your executives.  Choose a spokesperson based on knowledge and the ability to be empathetic and likeable, not based on position.  While it is true that PR people will “typically” recommend that the most senior person speak out to “take responsibility” in very serious circumstances, avoid this if your most senior person does not come across as caring, patient, and likeable.  

2.  Have a regular cadence of training for your spokespersons.  Don’t wait for a tragedy.  Have mock interviews with cameras, people playing probing and tough reporters. Be sure to watch and critique the interviews with the spokespersons.  

3.  Get 3rd party impressions of the spokespersons.  Play on-camera interviews with the audio turned off.  Ask what people felt about the spokesperson.  Did they feel that he or she was telling the truth or hiding something?  Did the person look angry, sincere, or arrogant?  You need to know this before an issue emerges.  

4.  If necessary, retrain after the the feedback.  If there is no improvement, replace the spokesperson.

5.  If the unthinkable happens and the spokesperson is called into duty, respond quickly.  The longer you wait, the more inflamed people will be.   Review and assess the person’s experience.  Be honest and really critique the situation.  This is the time that you need everyone doing the right thing for the victims and their families.  

6.  Change spokespersons if necessary. Do it and do it swiftly.  

7.  This one is most important:  Be human.  You are dealing with a tragedy.  Remember that.  You are not the victim. 


Tragedies are never easy.  The role of the spokesperson is do the best job to provide the facts and not inflame people.   

(Note:  a version of this same blog appeared previously in my old blog.)

 

 

You Are Rude, Don’t Blame Your Job

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In this always-on fast-paced world we are all super connected to our technology.  We want to be on top of the latest email, tweet or Facbook post.  We want to appear cool and suave by responding quickly with some witty retort.  We want to feel important. But have you ever wondered how you really appear to others?  Have you ever thought that you might come off as selfish and self-important?  You should!  Are you innately rude?  You just might be.

Before going any further I have a confession to make: I “was” one of those people who had her phone physically connected to her body.  I even slept with the darn thing.  Every buzz or vibration was checked quicker than a cowboy could pull his six-shooter from his holster.  I prided myself in how quickly I got back to people regardless of the day of the week or the time of day.  When meeting with people I sometimes was only half there.  I was focused on that darn phone. I didn’t stop “being on” even when dinning with family or being invited to dinner parties.  Christmas get togethers also didn’t get my full attention.  I was “always” on.

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Image compliments of www.zazzle.com

Then one day it struck me that I was being really rude.  I mean really rude.  I wasn’t raised that way and I like to think that normally my manners are pretty good.  It is actually important to me.  So, how do I justify this behaviour?  Well, I take full responsibility and admit to liking the feeling of “feeling important.”  Really though, I wasn’t important.  Instead, I taught people that it was o.k. to infringe on my personal time and that I was at their beck and call 24/7.  I taught people that it was acceptable to take advantage of me.  This wasn’t fair to my family, my friends or even to me.

I wish my epiphany had resulted in my own self-awareness, but I can’t claim that.  Two things happened in one day that hit me like a hammer.  Two separate meetings taught me important lessons.

The first meeting was with a Vice-President that I reported to at the time.  When meeting with him you couldn’t help but feel like the center of attention.  After all, he stopped what he was doing.  He physically got up from his desk and sat at the meeting table with you in his office.  I am sure that he did this intentionally.  First and foremost he was moving away from any distractions on his desk.  Secondly he was moving away from the telephone on his desk.  His attention was 100% focused on you, the person he was meeting with, not anything else.  Even when his mobile rang, he ignored it.  The first time it happened I said it was ok for him to answer.  His response:  “No, it is not.  I am meeting with you.  You scheduled this time to meet with me and I agreed.  This is your time.  If there is a crisis or an emergency, someone will come to get me.”  I always left his meetings feeling respected and full of purpose.  Sure, we didn’t always agree on everything, but nonetheless I felt respected.

The second meeting was with another member of the executive team.  In this case we were meeting about an important strategic issue that needed a timely solution.  During the meeting the executive member answered no less than four calls, made three unrelated calls, accepted non emergency interruptions from colleagues and checked Facebook – which he said he “had to do.” Rather than feel respected I was frustrated when I left the meeting.  We had accomplished nothing.  He asked me to come back a couple of hours later.  I had to reschedule my afternoon to accommodate.  When I returned the next time, it was pretty much the same scenario.  Another hour passed and we accomplished nothing again.  I was asked to return later yet again.  It was the same thing.  In the end it took six hours of meetings to accomplish what could have been accomplished in 45 minutes.  It was not only a colossal waste of time, but it was indicative of how that individual thought of people.  It became very clear, very quickly that this was his M.O.  He did this to everyone.  

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Image compliments of business-technology.co.uk

So this was my epiphany.  I experienced what it is like to be treated respectfully.  I experienced what is like to be treated without respect.  One person valued both me and my time.  One person did not.

The real question however is whether or not you are respecting your colleagues, family and friends?  What about yourself?

3 Reasons A 5-Year Career Plan is full of $#!+

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Remember way back, when there was an established line of questioning that job applicants were asked?  You know the things to determine if you would stay with the company forever, what your ambition was, how organized you are, etc?

5 year plan

One of the standard questions was of course, where do you see yourself in 5 years.  Way back “then” I always dreaded this question.  Why?  Not because I didn’t know what I wanted to be doing in 5 years. Just the opposite.  For me, that was a very personal question.  I liken it to someone asking me for my age or weight.  So, of course the standard answer was:  “I want to be in your job.”  This was not meant to be threatening of course, but rather the response was supposed to mean that I had ambition and therefore will want more and better things “at the company” and would stay forever.  Therefore, it was safe to invest in me.

Today however, it doesn’t make sense to ask this question and here are 3 reasons why:

1.  Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A)

M&As have resulted in layoffs or reassignments for an increasing number of people.  Even those that survive the cuts begin looking elsewhere. Knowing what things will look like in two or three years would mean you have a crystal ball.  Five years, is well, just impossible.

2.  We Have Created A Monster –  A Culture of Job Hopping

Whether we like it or not, we have created a culture of job hopping.  According to Forbes in 2012, the average worker stayed at his or her job for an average of 4.4 years.  And, Millennials expect to stay in a job less than three years.  As hiring managers, we need to realize that this is reality and plan accordingly.

3.  We Are Creating New Jobs

In 5 years a lot changes.  A lot.  Today people work in roles that were non existent 5 years ago. There are far too many exciting possibilities to limit yourself.  Who can predict what new roles will emerge a year or two down the road? People want to keep their eyes wide open and avoid being pigeon holed.

So, it is not to say that people are non committal.  It is not that at all.  Times have changed and as a result people have changed.  The likelihood that people under the age of 45  will work for one employer for his or her entire career is just not the norm any longer.

Who knows, maybe the trend will be to question people who stay with the same employer for more than 5 years?  Maybe they will be looked upon as lacking ambition and drive and are really satisfied with the status quo?  What do you think?  Will this trend continue, or will things change yet again?

3 Performance Killers Leaders Should Watch for and Stop

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Performance killers are a reality, but it is up to an organization’s leadership to be on the watch for such behaviour.  In fact, it is essential for managers to be trained to spot and address these destructive behaviours in order to build high-performance teams.  And herein lies the difference between teams and departments.  In teams you don’t have this behaviour.  In departments that are experiencing challenging times and/or people competing to avoid downsizing, this behaviour is rampant.

As someone who has managed teams for close to 20 years, a former colleague reached out to me recently get some advice on some behaviours he was seeing in his own department.  With that in mind, I offered him the following description of what I was trained to lookout for as a manager.

Here are three performance killers that managers need to address and end:

1.  Cliques or Power Coalitions

Coalitions frequently form in group settings.  In this case, a few people align themselves with the leader and withhold praise or positive feedback outside the clique or coalitions.  In fact, giving praise to other members of “team” is intentionally withheld.  Members of the cliques may even go as far as to persuade the leader that the other parties are not performing.
 
Performance Killers, taylormade solutions, heather anne maclean
 

2.  Enforced Silos

Silos can occur in conjunction with cliques or independent of another action.  In these situations, people involved are focused on self-promotion and their careers rather than the overall good of the department and ultimately the team.  Individuals involved in these actions will ensure that information is withheld from others. Marginalization of other departmental members usually occurs.

3.  Alienators

In this case, Alienators work quietly at first dropping hints to the leader that other people are not doing their jobs and/or not performing as well as should be expected.  Alienators are very skilled at creating the perception that he or she is concerned about the “team’s” reputation and ultimately the leader’s reputation.  Through continued conversations, the discussions escalate to the point where the leader believes that the Alienator has his or her best interests at heart.
 

The Remedy:

Managers should be on the lookout for these behaviours, particularly during troubled times. And when he or she sees this occurring, the manager must take the bull by the horns. Individual staff members can’t address this situation.  The situation for those individuals will only worsen.
 
Managers need to look closely at the members of his or her  department and ask questions like:
 
  1. Who is always finding fault with members of the department?
  2. Is there a select group to who never gets any criticism?
  3. Is the same group, who is never criticized, jointly criticizing the same people?  Is the messaging eerily similar?  Same words?  Same timing of complaints?
  4. Who uses pass aggressive techniques to slide in negative comments?

The only way to stop this destructive behaviour is to set the stage that team members support one another and make each member in the department look good both within the department and outside the department.  That is a true sign of team participation.  While this is not easy for many mangers, good managers make it a practice to not accept anything less, even from people with whom they have befriended in the reporting structure.

These are only three destructive behaviours that can occur.  What would you add to this list?

Trust…the continuing saga

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Why is it that we cannot trust?  What has happened in our culture and/or society that encourages us to trust only after we have tested and tested our relationships?

Clearly there has been something that has transpired that has caused a dramatic shift for people.  We see this with the rise and evolution with Social Media.  People clearly have found a voice and a way to speak up and out.

While thinking about this very post, I received an email of an upcoming audio conference.  Guess what the topic was?  Smart Trust: The Ultimate Skill that Separates Managers from Leaders.

So, not only are we researching and benchmarking trust with employees, employers and consumers, there are now designated learning opportunities to engage in trust, or in this case Smart Trust.  (Isn’t it interesting how everything these days has to be “smart”?  Smart meters, smart technology, smart cities….)

I would encourage people to think about trust and what it means to them.  What can you do as an individual to inspire trust and demonstrate trust.  Remember you have to give to receive.

My next posting will be one in a series on thinking about being a social organization versus just looking at Social Media in isolation.

Trust…From the Employer Perspective

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Being able to trust, or not trust, is not just an issue for the employee or the consumer.  We know for a fact that as employers we have a few trust issues ourselves!

In fact, there is a fair amount of research to demonstrate that like employees, employers fall short in this area. According to Charlie Taylor and a study conducted in 2008 where 1,390 employers were surveyed, 83% of employers confirmed that they checked Facebook to see if an employee was really sick.  This same survey revealed that 67% of employers disciplined employees as a result of what they saw on Facebook.

The question is, just how many employers even allow their employees to use social networking sites?  According to Adam Ostrow and a survey of 1,400 Chief Information Officers with 100 employees or more, 54% of employers completely block access to social networking sites. I would argue that this is not very progressive thinking.

I would challenge employers to think differently about Social Media and social networking sites.  For those that think that employees will waste time or release confidential information, I hate to break it to you, but they don’t need social networking for that.  These employees will have already figured out a way to do this!

So, instead let’s take the positive approach and realize that:
1) Social Media is not a fad.  It is however, a fundamental shift in the way that we communicate.
2) As more people become mobile communicators, we need adjust the way we communicate.
3) A whole new generation is coming into the workforce using Social Media for communication.  Are you just going to ignore these employees?  You are if you aren’t employing Social Media.
4) Establish guidelines to help employees understand the do’s and don’ts of using Social Media.
5) Realize the tremendous potential for collaborating and sharing information.
6)  You need to take a leadership role!

In my next posting, I will cover some additional information about trust, or the lack of trust.