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Lucy Nixon

Lucy Nixon

Without Warning: on leadership, whistleblowers, corporate culture and silence

Without Warning

Do you have an uncomfortable suspicion that your business has a problem lurking in its depths? Is there an issue that you keep catching a glimpse of out of the corner of your eye, but can’t quite get hold of?

This is what Rodney N Johnson’s book, ‘Without Warning’ is about, and he calls these ‘silent problems’, as opposed to simple, complex or wicked problems.

  • A simple problem is one in which everyone agrees on the problem and on the solution. If not solved correctly, this could become a complex problem.
  • A complex problem: one in which everyone agrees on the problem, but disagrees on the solution.
  • A wicked problem: a problem (or nest of problems), in which people disagree over what the problem is, so a solution can’t be identified, and without agreement on the problem or a defined solution, you won’t know when the problem has been solved. Different groups of stakeholders understand the problem differently; any proposed solutions can’t be tested or evaluated other than subjectively.

Nasty.

But a silent problem is different, and Rodney Johnson (RJ) defines it like this:

A problem that is being avoided, neglected, or going unnoticed… A problem that is intentionally being silenced.

This is perhaps the worst kind of problem of all. At least a wicked problem can be acknowledged and struggled with. But one that you’re not aware of? How are you supposed to deal with that?

Whose problem is it?

One of the many silent problems RJ uses as case-studies is the sub-prime financial fallout which we’re all too familiar with now – warnings were given, but disregarded.

Question: if someone able to impose a solution had been willing to say ‘here’s a problem’, would it then have become a complex or wicked problem? That is, is it a silent problem only as long as no-one with enough authority to deal with it has spotted it or taken responsibility for it?

If there were warnings, then someone was aware of the problem, so it wasn’t silent for them – but presumably they didn’t have the clout to tackle the issue. A silent problem, then, is a leadership issue: it is a problem that is being ignored by management.

You’re the manager: how do you know if there is a silent problem?

The identification of silent problems is a key leadership skill: a good leader will be constantly looking out for them. RJ offers 7 symptoms and 5 areas where the problems are likely to be lurking. (No, I’m not going to give them away – you’ll need to get hold of the book!)

Without giving away the list, I can tell you that some of the symptoms could be easily missed in the hurry and scurry of actually doing business. This is why a silent problem is a leadership problem: someone needs to be working at enough of a strategic level that they are working ‘on’ the business not ‘in’ the business – that way they have a chance of spotting the problem.

I’d have liked a bit more on how to find and identify the problems, as this seems to me to be the key to silent problems. And some of the symptom-spotting is going to come down to gut feel that something is wrong – but how does one develop that, other than by experience? (Luckily, RJ provides a few tips on his blog for how C-level executives can use Management by Walking Around to help with this).

The book offers a structure for resolving these problems, and this, together with the case studies, is very thought-provoking (as well as entertaining), but it seems to me that the most important element here is identification of the problem. And that, of course, is the nub: the very thing that makes these silent…

I found two of the types of silent problems he identifies most interesting, one because the problem becomes part of the corporate culture, and the other because the problem is deliberately contained and ignored.

The latter sounds distinctly risky, even potentially verging on the unethical, and the kind of issue likely to cause major problems when it is eventually unearthed, requiring full-on crisis communications and significant business action. The former, in which the problem becomes encapsulated, pearl-like, by layers of corporate culture, I find intriguing. At what point does the problem become embedded in the culture? And it requires a particularly objective viewpoint to be able to see part of the corporate culture as a problem…

Don’t kill the messenger

In the Corporate Eye list of best practices, whistle-blowing is usually related to an ethics issue, but the principles are relevant here too. RJ says “we must encourage and empower those around us who might unearth and identify the silent problems”. These, he points out, could be employees or associates, but could also be clients or customers. And perhaps those outside the organisation – or new hires – are best placed to spot problems, because of the need to have an objective view of the situation.

So: what are you doing today to check for problems – or how are you enabling people to raise the alarm?

RJ seems almost to anthropomorphise problems, referring to them as living, growing, breathing and consuming resources (the latter is almost certainly true!), undisciplined, unruly and disobedient. This, together with the many fascinating examples, makes for a lively read.

It is all too easy to skim this slim volume the first time, but it definitely repays a second reading.

CoTweet for business: Come on in, the water’s lovely

swimmers waiting

So you’re thinking about plunging into the Twitter stream – or perhaps you’re already swimming, and want a colleague or two to join in – but are wondering how you’re going to manage multiple accounts for your company?

In one of our recent newsletters, I mentioned CoTweet as a way to manage multiple company accounts. Since then I’ve been given access to their beta test, so I’ve been able to experiment with it.

Sidenote: if you’re not receiving our newsletters, why not? Sign up at the top right of this page – I promise we only send out a newsletter intermittently, and it contains snippets not available on the blog …

Back to CoTweet: this may just be going to change the way I use Twitter for Corporate Eye. This is what I’ve found in my first few days of experimentation…

Use multiple accounts, multiple users per account

one tweeter per account

I’ve set up multiple accounts within CoTweet, and I can access them all via one login. If you’ve ever tried to log in and out of different accounts with Twitter in the same browser session, you’ll know how confusing this can get – CoTweet makes this easier.

multiple tweeters per account

I’ve also set it up so that multiple people can twitter using the same account. So I now can have more than one person tweeting for @lucynixon (if I wanted).

Streams of tweets: merged and threaded

On logging in, the @replies and direct messages are immediately visible, but in one flow – no separation between @replies and direct messages. And they’re threaded, so you can see which messages were sent in response to which.

Of course the normal flow of updates is also available – and you can easily see a separate list of those messages you’ve sent.

Divert tweets to the right person

Once you’ve got your cotweeters set up with access, then they’re good to go, and individuals within your organisation can be marked as on or off duty. That way you can see who is available immediately to respond to a tweet.

You can assign any tweet to somebody else in your organisation to handle – whether this is to reply to, or simply for interest – and send it with a note from you, to explain what you think should be done. And this can be followed up with an automated email to that person (in case they are ‘off duty’, I suppose). These can then be followed up at leisure. I expect I’ll use this as a way of ‘bookmarking for later action’ for myself, as well, as I haven’t found a favourites option.

I can assign messages to any one of my ‘channels’ and to an individual within that channel – so that, for instance, if I were in the auto industry, and had one Twitter account for Vans and another for Trucks, I could assign Tweets to Suzie in Vans, or to Brian in Trucks – or assign one to the Vans Sales team, and another to the Vans Support team. And if I get it wrong, I can re-assign it.

There is a list of what tweets have been assigned to me, as a work-flow management device, but it would be useful to be able to see a list of messages I’ve assigned to someone else, so I could track response.

Worried your readers may be confused about who is tweeting? CoTweet lets you set up handles for each user (such as ~Lucy or ^LN), and these will be automatically appended to your tweets if you want.

(Yes, you can remove people from your account if you need to).

Message management

All the usual functions are available: I can send a direct message to each individual tweeter that comes up, or @reply them, retweet their message or email that tweet to someone for action – if I didn’t want to just assign the tweet to them inside CoTweet. Perhaps they’re not Twittering for my company but still have an interest in what’s being said?

CoTweet lets me schedule tweets to go out later. Yes, I know this is available as functionality elsewhere – but if I can get it all in one place, why look outside? A full-service system is what you need if you’re under pressure.

Plus – and importantly if you have multiple staff using the same account – scheduling tweets means that you can see if someone has already scheduled a tweet on the topic you’re thinking to mention. That way, people who follow your account don’t get three tweets in a row making a special offer!

When you’ve read and actioned a message, you can archive it so that you have a record, and to clean up the stream of tweets. I’m not sure whether they have plans for an internal search – I can see that if you handled thousands of messages, and needed to find one from a couple of months ago, it might be nice to be able to search your archive.

And I can see a list of messages I sent, rather than have them bundled with incoming direct messages, as Tweetdeck does it. I can see what my co-authors sent too, identified by sender. (Control freak? Me? I just think that might be useful…)

Interestingly, I can choose to cross-tweet, if I wanted: as the owner of multiple accounts, I can choose to send out the same tweet on each of them.

Keeping track of Twitter activity and customer management

cotweet-300

Suppose I wanted to keep track of my keywords and brand mentions …

The search function is great – I can do multiple searches (e.g. for governance, csr, and IR) and each set of results comes up in a separate stream on the same page. I’m not sure what the maximum number of searches would be – I tried 6, and had to sideways-scroll after 4 – but each separate search can be refreshed to get the latest tweets on each topic, and I can easily subscribe to an RSS feed for each of those searches.

However, it doesn’t retain the searches you set up if you logout, unlike Tweetdeck, which reloads the search panes. And it would be nice if the search panes auto-refreshed.

I can find more information about interesting people who come up in those searches, or even for any given user: their profile and their updates and – if relevant – the conversations I’ve had with them on Twitter; and, potentially even more usefully, I can add notes to myself (or, presumably, to others) about that person and the conversation we had. I can see that being very useful for a business.

Any bad points?

CoTweet is still in beta, so there are bound to be things to be ironed out and a few missing elements. I’ve made some suggestions above, but there are a few additional points:

  • each page is quite slow to load
  • the number of followers/following is out of date, and isn’t refreshed by logging out and in again
  • I’d like a desktop application that would run in Windows; there is one, I understand, for Mac

So – not yet perfect, but a really well thought through setup for business twittering. I like it.

Leadership in a credit crunch: don’t blink

Colin Shaw is the founder of Beyond Philosophy, a consultancy, training and Customer research organisation recognised as a thought leader in customer experience. Colin is an international bestselling author and widely acclaimed public speaker.

I recently invited him to share his views on how companies should react to the current climate; his views on leadership and action aren’t necessarily what you’d expect …

Tighten your customer experience belt in a credit crunch only if you want to be left in the dust

>I always remember watching a film of a racing driver in the late ’50s. He had just won a race where there was a fatal accident. He was asked: “After seeing the accident, did you slow down?” His reply has always stayed with me. “Whenever there is a bad accident, other racing drivers slow down. I don’t. I see this as my opportunity to win. I accelerate and drive harder than before. As others slow down, I pull ahead of them and win,” he replied.

This, for me, is a similar analogy that can be applied to the credit crunch. Having worked in a corporate environment all my adult life, I am more than aware of what is happening today. The “Powers of Darkness” are gathering and there are pockets of people in an organisation who have never really believed in the benefits of improving a customer’s experience. They think cost cutting and efficiency is the answer to everything. The Powers of Darkness are “inside out.” They will see the credit crunch as their time to strike – The Powers of Darkness are starting to cast their shadow far and wide throughout companies and they need to do something about it.

They talk of the doom and gloom that will befall the company if we do not cut costs. And while professing their support to customer focus, they say now is not the time. Now, they say, is the time to cut costs, become more efficient and to focus on infrastructure. If your business is thinking: “When times are better, we will reconsider improving customer experience.” As the doom and gloom spreads, the clouds thicken and people start to waver. So, maybe you’re right? Shouldn’t we all forget about improving the Customer Experience for a while? This doubt spreads, and the clouds eventually overshadow the fledgling shoots of a customer-focus approach. Ultimately, they wither and die.

Customer Experience is seen as a luxury, not an essential. And sure enough, I recently spoke to one client who was running a Customer Experience initiative and she was told that the project team was to be disbanded. Why? The official reason was that the company had “completed the Customer Experience work” and could now “pass it to the operational teams to build on this work.”

While I would agree that this is the ultimate goal for any organisation, the roots need to be strong and firmly established. In this client’s case, the roots are not strong enough. In my view, the company is doing this at the wrong time and for the wrong reason. This will eventually undo all of the team’s good work, and I guarantee the competition will catch up. I also guarantee that two years from now, my client’s executives will realise their mistake. But such is life. My advice is the opposite: This is the time to invest; the time to accelerate, not slow down, and the time to put some space between you and the competition, as those businesses will be slowing down. This is also the time to identify the Powers of Darkness and banish them from the organisation once and for all. This is the time for leadership to stand up and be counted. This is the time when leaders’ true principles are tested.

I appreciate that during these times, businesses need to save money, but life is full of choices. Let’s be clear: There are always money and resources available. It’s only a case of where they are deployed. The other day, we were presenting to a client on some market research we believe the company should be conducting. As I walked through reception area, I noticed it was being gutted and refurbished. This client did not have any customer research to talk of. The people I was meeting with started to question if such an investment was worthwhile. What was the ROI? A decent question, but my response was, in a friendly way, the ROI on the refurbishment of the reception area? The cost of this refurbishment must have been four times the cost of the research. The point was made.

All businesses need to look at their costs during a credit crunch. It would be silly to suggest otherwise. But, is cutting costs to improve the Customer Experience the right approach? No. Leaders should see this as a time of opportunity, rather than threat. In the wake of 9/11, Southwest Airlines famously allowed its customers to have a refund or change tickets. Other airlines didn’t. The long-term benefit on customer loyalty is obvious. It is easy to keep to your principles, values and beliefs when everything is going right. It is when things go wrong that you are truly tested. That’s when what you do should still reflect those principles and values and beliefs. Be very clear that this is a test of leadership. Actions speak louder than words.

So ask yourself this: What do you want to be remembered for by your people and your customers when the credit crunch is a distant memory? Are you cutting or investing in customer experience? Do you see this as an opportunity or a threat? Are you advancing or retreating? During these challenging times, we will see the leaders’ true colours.

Thanks, Colin!

Information, Please

In It’s not the R, it’s the I, I opened a consideration of how ROI analysis applies to online recruiting in general and social media investment in particular—and I planned to follow up with posts drilling down on these topics. This has turned out to be much more of a challenge than anticipated!

So I’m falling back on an old journalistic trick: make the story the story. And the story is . . . there is very little information or analysis to use in discussing these aspects of recruiting expenditure. Although there are many software products, consulting companies, pundits, and industry associations that refer on their websites and in their literature to metrics (aka “analytics”), online recruiting, electronic recruiting, and so on, their commentaries and presentations seem to be long on rhetoric and short on facts.

I did not find any up-to-date, in-depth case studies or white papers. Maybe they are out there (and please share any knowledge you have!), but I couldn’t find them—and not only could I find no free information, I couldn’t even find anyone selling expensive reports that seem to promise illumination. This is true for HR and recruiting in general, not just the online aspects, as confirmed by experts:

Noted HR commentator Dr. John Sullivan starts off an ere.net post on Talent Management Analytics with the sentence “the subject of analytics is often discussed but rarely executed well, even in the most well-established talent management functions.” He continues with a long discussion about why this practice lags (short version: it’s too hard) and how new techniques like predictive modeling and text analytics will be revolutionary—except that “unfortunately, leveraging new and emerging tools often requires that users step out of their comfort zone.” So it seems we will have to stay tuned a while on those developments.

Ray Schreyer (Program Manager of Interactive Recruiting Channels for IBM and co-author of The Employer’s Guide to Recruiting on the Internet) observes on his Corporate Recruiting Blog that the “big three” job boards experienced a 35% drop in traffic during 2008, explaining that “2009 looks to be the year of Job Aggregators and Job Distribution Networks. The Job Board destination model is near dead, and seems only perpetuated by HR Recruiting folks who are lacking metrics and an ‘in the tank’ Wall Street crowd who does not understand the dynamics of the online recruiting marketplace. More to come in the weeks ahead.” But (again) unfortunately, twelve of the weeks ahead are now in the past, and there’s no further word from Schreyer.

In their Hiring and Recruiting Challenges Survey 2008, well-known consulting firm The Adler Group included a section on how recruiters and recruiting managers rank their use of specific recruiting metrics. An article by Bryan Johanson explains the findings, and notes among key conclusions: “Even with all the talk and focus on metrics over the last few years, recruiting departments and recruiters still struggle to implement real-time metrics.” (Though the survey information dates to 20007, it’s worth browsing Lou Adler’s summary of the findings.)

Of course the connection between internet recruiting in general and the Careers website specifically is another topic—one which also is noted by many as (a) very important and (b) not given sufficient attention. I’ll turn to that in the next post, and in the meantime, will keep looking for hard data to support the discussion.

Energizing Your Brand Through the Media: Act II Popcorn Finds a Way

Act II popcorn has been around for quite some time and perhaps even appears in a lot of our cabinets at home. Their popcorn (in my own opinion) is light, awfully good and buttery and is just perfect for a movie night at  home or with friends. It’s even good with a 52-hour movie stint, something Act 11 did a few years back that caused them to buzz the market and explode with their product.

Act II Popcorn, parent-owned by the Conagra Foods Company, held a movie fest/movie marathon that was used to introduce their newest product into the market. History begins with its predecessor—ACT I, an early microwave popcorn that had to be stored in the refrigerator. In 1984 ACT II, a shelf-stable microwave popcorn, hit the stage. It was the first mass-marketed microwave popcorn. ACT II has brought Americans many firsts since then, including the first flavored microwave popcorn, the first fat-free microwave popcorn, and the first kettle-corn-variety microwave popcorn.

To introduce this concept and product to the consumers, Act II held a movie fest which lasted for approximately 52 hours at the Heights Theatre in Columbia Heights, MN.

Con Agra foods was holding the ACT II popcorn “pop fest” at the Heights, which broke the (then) worlds record of continuous movie watching. The first movie started on Friday Morning at. 9:30AM, and the last movie did not end until 7:00PM on Sunday night.

The participants could have ALL of the popcorn they desired, with 15 minute incremental breaks at designated periods, but NONE of the participants at any time could fall asleep or leave the theatre. They were competing for a Guinness Book of World Records championship. The winners of the movie competition would receive a year’s worth of Act II popcorn free, their faces on specially marked packages and the chance to claim bragging rights in the Guinness Book. And all of this for doing something that really is fun: watching a movie and eating hot-buttered popcorn.

This clever act of advertising, media relations, branding and marketing helped to make Act II a popular popcorn with a hard-to-forget creative branding strategy. Their goal was to embed the image and thought of their product into their customers minds, and create a desire for their product for the next time they’re in the grocery store on the popcorn aisle. Has it happened to you yet? Are you an Act II popcorn eater? Does their marketing strategy work on you?

What was so clever about this campaign is that they involved, heavily involved, the participation of their customers and made it fun for them to interact. The marathon lasted for about three days or so, and was just enough time for the product to create a buzz and gain media attention. (YouTube News)

Conagra Foods actually ran this campaign over a year ago, but the residuals are still evident today. The company is still enjoying profitable increases in their stock with a growing and successful product line. Is is all or partly due to the Act II commercial? Not really of course, but it is branding strategies like this that can help a corporate entity establish themselves as a market leader and a competitive force. Kudos to whomever the advertising executive or committee was who thought of this type of marketing strategy. It did well for the brand!

What kind of creative things can you think of that would explode your brand? Would your company be willing to try anything that would bring them exposure? Is it worth it to them or is it something that is reserved only for the “creative brands?”

Hard Copy Reports from Online IR

For most investor relations departments, the Internet and the company website have been a great addition to the arsenal of tools used to communicate with shareholders, analysts, and the media.  But, for all of the online world’s advantages, there are still some things and some people that are just a little better when they are offline.  Mixing the two is just one of the important challenges IR faces.

Annual Reports Online

Offering the company annual report online has become a no-brainer at many publicly traded companies.  In the past, many investors requesting the annual report really only wanted certain information.  Tailoring a report to each user’s specific needs would have been a regulatory nightmare with the necessary disclaimers likely running as long as the full annual report itself.  So, investors requested the annual report, and IR put them in the mail.  Many trees were lost, and many printers grew wealthy.

Fast forward to today, and investors can generally get any company’s annual report with just a few clicks.  Some companies offer online versions which allow the investor to browse through all of the information online without ever leaving their browser.

Other companies offer their annual reports in a downloadable format such as Adobe PDF.  This solution allows investors to save the file to their computer and then review it at their leisure whether online or off.  Additionally, for users that want hard copy, the pages of interest are just a printer away.  The investor gets the best of both worlds, online reading and electronic tools when wanted, and hard copy printouts for highlighting, note taking, and just easier reading.

No longer must an investor wade through 80 pages to find the 6 pages and 4 tables that they are actually interested in.  No more skilled investor relations professionals spending 3 hours a day in the mail room pasting labels.  No more clear-cut forests, and the sons and daughters of the printers now go to state schools.

But, is something missing?

Hard Copy Reports in the Mail

It is easy, and perhaps unfair, to stereotype the investor who wants a traditional printed annual report mailed to them as older or technologically behind the times.  IR departments still dutifully mail out full hard-copy annual reports to multitudes of shareholders.  But, there are many investors and potential investors who are technologically savvy but, for one reason or another, want to get a printed copy of the annual report in the mail, not a file to download.

For these users, the IR website can accidentally become a fog of semi-confusion.  As they click around the site, they may become more confused as terminology changes, links go to places they did not expect, and the simple question they have, “How do I request an annual report to be mailed to me?” seems to go unanswered.

One frustrated user resorted to posting a comment to an article here on Good Investor Relations Websites, no doubt after arriving via search engine query that apparently did not contain the exact words required to get the answer he wanted.

PG.com - Investing

Ironically, the information the investor wants is very easy to get.  The catch is, that you have to know the difference between what you want and what it is called on the website, and that is where an investor relations team needs to bend over backwards to ensure that everyone can get what they are looking for, regardless of whether or not they speak “IR”.

Consider the household giant Proctor and Gamble.  In many ways, PG could be the poster child for an easy to use informational IR website.  The Investor Relations website is easily found via a prominent link in the main menu across the top of the company’s main page.  The site constrains its width to ensure proper function even with older monitors or small laptops.  The landing page has easy to follow navigation to virtually anything an investor could want, including the Annual Report.

Click the first link (the heading is not clickable) and you’ll find yourself in the online annual report, just as promised.  If you clicked hoping to find a way to a non-online annual report, you are still in luck, but only if you look very closely.
PG-annual-report-online-links

Of course, clicking this link goes straight to downloading the PDF, so depending upon your connection speed and how you have your browser set up, you could be in for a bit of a wait.

There is of course, the archive, and the Financial Report menu and tab, all of which go here.
PG-annual-reports

Again, information galore, but no place to get the hard copy.

Right about now, if you work in IR, or analyze their websites (or other websites), or if you know something about usability studies, or if you are just one of those people who spends a lot of time online, you might be screaming, “There it is!” while pointing at either Contact Us or Request Information.  And, you would be quite right.  In fact, if you pay attention to the bottom status bar, you’ll notice that the “Request Information” link points to a file called annual_report_order.html!

So, yes, there it is, right in front of your face.  That is, if you know what you are looking for.

request-annual-report

Consider the investor who does not spend hours on the Internet.  Perhaps a small business owner running a very successful enterprise which is so successful precisely because he spends 10 hours a day in his shop assisting customers.  After a long day at work he spends time with his family, not online.  When he heads to the PG website — he actually typed www.proctorandgamble.com but that’s ok because the company thoughtfully redirects to PG.com from that domain name – he wants to fill out a form and get a copy of the annual report.  So, why not click Contact?

Many users are used to “contact us” being some bottomless pit email account that is read and responded to by an intern buried within the bowels of the company somewhere underneath the mailroom.  That isn’t where he wants to make his request.  Besides, the whole reason he came online in the first place instead of making a phone call was because he wanted to do it quick and easy at 11:00pm and consider it done.

Best Practices

In the end, the company does everything right.  The PG IR group offers up a smorgasbord of easily accessible and usable information, and yet, just one nuance can put an investor’s objective tantalizing out of reach.

What is an investor relations department to do?

  1. Remember multiple terminology – just because someone who works around investors all day long knows that report and results often mean the same doesn’t mean that everyone does.
  2. Make It Obvious and Then More Obvious – don’t just put “Contact Us” on your site, let people know why to contact you.  An investor FAQ can do wonders.  Anyone looking for info is likely to read a section called Frequently Asked Questions.  Inside, they can find and answer like, “Use the Contact Us link to request any printed materials.”
  3. Link It More Ways – Just because the link is there on the landing page doesn’t mean the same info can’t be linked from more pages.

Keep these concepts in mind, and you can have less confused shareholders every day.