An Interview of Michael Yates about internal communication, values and organization goals
by Tanya Brickler
- - - - - - -
You stressed how important it is to communicate values to employees. How can a leader do that?
The most important way is literally walking the talk, actually being what you are trying to communicate. I mean, the classic is Gandhi, “Be the change you want to make”. It is important not only to walk the talk in the day-to-day business but also to teach it. If you can teach something, first of all you really understand it and then, secondly, the people that you are talking to really appreciate the fact that it is important to you. So, if the leader not only acts like the values of the company but also tries to help teach it, I think that’s better than simply having some kind of scorecard where the people are being evaluated on whether they are behaving in a certain kind of way. That is important but it isn’t the way to really drive the original understanding. That’s the way you keep score once you’ve got complete understanding in place.
You also talked about simple communication and storytelling. Can you talk a little more about that?
There’s so much stuff going around in the world and we’ve sort of forgotten that fairytales are quite easy to remember and they carry all kinds of messages in a very few words. I’m not really suggesting we should all use fairy tales but here is the idea of really simple set of ideas encapsulated in a very simple set of messages. Leaders can learn a lot from simple storytelling because they do tell stories. They don’t tell stories in the sense of they are trying to sell something. They tell stories in the sense of they are trying to bring an idea alive. So, the best way to explain how something is going to be is tell a story. What people really want to know is how things personally relate to them and then they can figure out how to respond personally.
Do you think social networks have changed or are changing the way organizations function?
I think organizations are changing but I also think that it has always been the case that there have been groups of people that don’t use the formal organizational structure to solve a problem but somehow get together. There is a famous example about IBM trying to stop people gathering around the watercooler because they thought it was a waste of time. But actually what was happening was that people were sharing ideas, solving problems, and creating new initiatives. So some of that has always been around. What is different is the speed of change - it is a lot quicker. Also, everyone thinks that they get to vote on everything (so called democratization of decisions). And then technology which now allows you to connect to people everywhere face-to-face, allows virtual communication. You’ve got those as enablers that can help everything get better. The basic dynamics have been the same forever.
Talking about communication, what do you consider the best channels?
I think there is no substitute for face-to-face communication at the end of the day. It doesn’t have to be a lot fortunately but once you’ve done a little bit you can go off and use different technologies and different ways of connecting. If senior managers are deeply involved in teaching and talking about the values and principles of the organization, it is going to accelerate everything enormously. Then the technology helps afterwards. I don’t advise just relying on technology. And if you can’t do the face time yourself, then you need other people that can. So, a leader’s job is to have people in different parts of the organization that can have that face time with the rest of the organization knowing that they are saying the right kinds of things, having the right kind of values, and walking the right kind of talk. So, in other words, the leader’s job is to make sure the other people are having face time as well as creating networks in the organization.
Mick Yates speaking in Nessbar
What do you think is the most efficient way to engage employees?
I think everybody has the right and responsibility to understand the purpose of the enterprise, why are we doing what we doing and where are we trying to get to. Management has the responsibility to make that really clear and employees have the responsibility to figure out how what they are currently doing actually fits inside that framework. Every time I’ve seen a problem in a company it’s usually been because the basic purpose and mission isn’t clear. What that does - it makes it clear to the individual and helps them see what their career path might look like. So, if you know that a company is going a certain direction, you can kind of see what you future might look like. If you communicate the mission right, people start to understand and they can see where they fit and they by definition feel more engaged. The other thing I have learned over the years is that if you try to deal with engagement by working only on the people side of things, you will probably fail. You are much better off to think about what is the work that you are trying to do collectively and get everybody engaged around what becomes the core from which you can work on the broader issues with employee engagement. But if you miss that step and work really hard on engaging people just for the purpose of having an engaged workforce, I think you are going to waste your time.
How important is internal communication for the organization?
It’s critical. It connects everything we’ve talked about so far because if you know what you are trying to get done, you know the values you want to build your culture around, you have a sense of mission and know what people need to get done, you’ve got to communicate it. Usually, just when you are sick of saying something, that’s when people actually understand it. A leader’s job is to keep communicating, communicating, communicating. The senior management team needs to be doing face-to-face communication as many times as possible and then look for systems to back it up. You also have to have consistency and you definitely have to have two-way communication. Employees should be able to come back and get explanations for things or give feedback and suggestions. Without that kind of communication, you can’t win. When everybody was in one place, in one building, in one city working together around the watercooler, communication was pretty straight forward. It happened because of the physical proximity. Now people are figuring a way to communicate about issues they want to communicate. It’s all about communication. Humans are essentially social beings. They want to communicate, to be connected. If you don’t do the communication right, you are just not doing your job as a leader and you’re certainly don’t deserve to be running an organization.
The interview was conducted by Tanya Brickler during BHRMDA’s XI annual conference in Nessebar
- - - - - - - -
*Mick Yates - is the founder of LeaderValues. He is currently leading Global Business Development at dunnhumby. He is a globally experienced senior executive, having spent almost 30 years working in Europe, the USA and across Asia Pacific.
Mick is a globally experienced senior executive, having spent almost 30 years working in Europe, the USA and across Asia Pacific. He has held multinational General Management positions since 1985. Until mid 2001, Mick was Company Group Chairman of Johnson & Johnson ’s Consumer business in Asia-Pacific, based in Singapore. Mick was responsible for all aspects of the Asia Pacific operation (Sales, R&D, Marketing, HR, IT, Finance, Manufacturing etc.).
Mick is a member of the Change Leaders, a global community of practice dedicated to helping organizations positively address the human side of change, created by the participants in the 2004 “Consulting and Coaching for Change” program.
няма подобни статии:
