The question I most often get from communication professionals who want to make the shift from the current town crier role to one that’s more aligned with improving business results is, “How do I get started? How can I make a difference in our organization’s outcomes?” I recommend beginning by asking five questions. Here they… Read more
Sustainable Outcomes
Pilot Projects Create Big Successes
Want to produce results fast, minimize risk of failure, perfect a concept and create demand for more? Pick a pilot, improve results and replicate. Increasingly, organizations are adopting surgical approaches to improving performance, focusing on targeted segments (a branch office, manufacturing plant, laboratory, sales territory, or distribution center), making significant shifts quickly, creating stories around… Read more
Do You Know Why You Exist? Go Ahead, Tell Me.
I’m sure most people leading businesses know what they do, regardless of their organization’s size or industry category. Their people can probably describe the products and services they sell, and most know how they do what they do. But very few leaders can clearly explain why they do what they do. An increasing number of… Read more
Results That Last
How do we create results that are sustainable and become fully ingrained in the culture? Many organizational leaders make significant changes, smile at their work and walk away from the effort, naively assuming that the improvements will last forever. But over time, people sometimes revert to the old ways of the past because they’re more… Read more
Resolve to Form a New Habit
It’s a new year. Time for testing those personal improvement resolutions that we set for ourselves. Sometimes they are easy, sometimes more challenging, and sometimes we write a list of things we never intend to follow through anyway. But what about professional resolutions? What can you resolve to improve in your career during 2019? CEOs… Read more
It’s Getting Harder to Hide
Although there’s a group of business-savvy communication practitioners out there who understand the importance of adding value, there’s a huge contingent of practitioners who hang on to the traditional communication role—that of in-house reporters of news and information—all at a cost to the business. Why do they hang on to old ways? Some don’t know… Read more
Open for Business
Is your business an open book? Open book management is a leadership philosophy that’s grounded in the notion of creating businesses of business people where everyone in the organization thinks and acts like business owners. I’ve been taking clients to open book management pioneer SRC Corporation in Springfield, Missouri for more than 25 years. For… Read more
Win Big and Repeat! A Case Study
When a communication assessment at FedEx Express brought senior leaders and the communication department closer together, it paid off in a huge return on their investment. The assessment made it clear that there were considerable opportunities to improve results if the communication department could shift its focus from distributing news and information to improving business… Read more
Four Core Areas to Fast Track Comms Careers
Communication practitioners have access this week to knowledge that can help propel their careers. The world’s premier communication association launched its world conference in Montreal on Sunday. Since I became an IABC* fellow nearly 20 years ago, I’ve only missed speaking at this conference a few times before now. Unfortunately, I couldn’t attend this year…. Read more
From the Field: Improving Quality without Losing Productivity
You asked for more case studies. Here’s one. It was a big win for our client and it served as a pilot for even more successes throughout their company. The Challenge One of North America’s biggest logistics companies needed to reduce costs created by excessive damage in its supply chain. Most damage was occurring in… Read more