There is an old saw that says that efficiency (or management) is doing things right, with effectiveness (or leadership) being doing the right things. I am sure you have come across this before.

I’m not enamoured of this simplistic bromide, having wondered before on this blog whether is in fact such a thing as leadership. (Search on "leadership," or click on the "leadership" tags or categories to find the threads).

I started to ponder on what this might mean in relation to communication.

If we took the idea of efficient communication, what would it mean? Email is quite efficient – it’s just a matter of typing it and sending it. Twitter and text messages are even more efficient. In this sense, being efficient equates with being "less effort." And then it occurred to me, that this refers to less effort for the sender of the message.

I have a friend though, who regards a phone call as more efficient than a series of texts or emails, say when trying to schedule a meeting. So after a couple of texts or emails about suitable times, he’ll call, saying it’s easier that way. Perhaps he’s also thinking about the effectiveness of the communication – in a phone call he can get it resolved and get a commitment to a time, coming up with alternatives quickly based on the reaction of the other person.

What about effective communication? What would that be? I guess from the perspective of the sender receiver model of communication, you would say that effective communication would be that in which the receiver gets the same message as the receiver intended. So, effective communication has much more consideration of the receiver than the idea of efficient communication, which seems to be more related to the sender’s convenience.

Thinking about this idea of effective communication, I think it is not so much a matter of the accurate transmission of a message, as it is about understanding the response you have received.

In this way of thinking about it, effective communication would be achieved when the parties were satisfied that they had agreed on the meaning of the gesture and response involved.

In any one interaction, it might take several attempts to reach this point of both parties being satisfied that agreement on the meaning had been reached. Many of our interactions actually never reach this point – for example, I might go away from a fight with my partner convinced that he doesn’t understand me.

I think effective communication requires genuine attempts to understand each other, and so repeating yourself, paraphrasing and summarising are all used in the process of coming to understand the meaning of what you are negotiating. When people are coming to grips with proposals for organisational change, effective communication requires methods like paraphrasing, that employ redundancy or duplication, rather than efficient communicating of a message in the shortest time or least amount of effort possible.

Efficiency of communication and effectiveness of communication are certainly not the same thing in organisational change. Further, quests for efficiency in communication may well work against the effectiveness of your communication about change.

How do you communicate something that is likely to be unpopular? For example, how do you tell your team that they are going to have to give something up because of a cost cutting measure that is going to be implemented?

I remember when I was a manager in a large corporate how, in the second half of the financial year we would regularly be told that our travel budget was being reduced by 25%, 50%, or once even 100%.  We got to expect it, and started to build it into our budget at the start of the year. No more travel for the rest of the year, even though you have staff and colleagues in Auckland and you live in Wellington, a 1 hour flight or 700km drive away. How are you supposed to keep a team going in those circumstances?

How do you break the news that there is going to be a review of the organisation’s structure and it may affect many people’s jobs?

How do you tell staff that you need to reduce the number of cars in the fleet, and that the pool cars have to go?

If you have a large number of people to tell, it is tempting to go for efficiency and send out an email – write it down once, send it out, job done.

It is readily apparent that such an approach is not really job done. You have to continue to work with these people, and so you cannot just do anything. You will need them in the future. If they think you’ve done the cowardly equivalent of dumping your girlfriend by text, then it’s likely you’ll get some unanticipated consequences – resistance perhaps, or ignoring the new policy. They decide they can’t trust you, thereby making it difficult to get anything done in future.

Perhaps you go for the more personal touch and tell everybody face to face. Do you do it individually or in group meetings? How do you deal with any resistance? What if people reject the idea, reject you, or even attack you?

I think that for unpopular decisions, the more personal the communications method, the better. The scale and geographic spread of your organisation will have a big influence, but the nearer you can get to a face to face communication, the better. So, phone is better than email. Videoconference is better than phone. In person is better than videoconference.

It’s useful to think about unpopular decisions from the point of view of the decision itself (unpopular outcome), the process of coming up with the decision (fair process), and the opportunity to deal with the consequences of the decision (work arounds).

My suggestion is to use the following structure as your starting point.

1. Summarise the issues relating to the decision.
2. Outline the process you went through to arrive at the decision.
3. Say what the decision is.
4. Provide opportunity for people to tell you the implications of the decision from their perspective.
5. Ask them to identify possible actions or solutions in response to the implications they raise.

Of course it’s even better if you already know what the implications of the decision are before you announce the decision. But beware. The implications for you in your position as manager can be quite different from the implications for your people in their positions as direct reports to you.

So it’s more powerful still if you get to your people before the decision is finalised, tell them what you are contemplating and then ask them what the implications are from their perspective. (Don’t assume you know what their perspective is, even if you now them well and used to do their job yourself.) You can then problem solve with them about how to alleviate the negative implications they’ve identified. And you never know, they might identify some positive implications or opportunities you hadn’t thought of.

Approaching the end of 2009, it is a bit of a shock to realise that this newsletter has also been going nearly a year now! Also, the milestone of finishing my doctoral degree two years ago is starting to retreat into becoming part of the “recent” past rather than the “immediate recent” past.

This year I have learnt a lot from six new clients I’ve not worked with before. Here are eight things I have learnt or had confirmed this year, in no particular order.

1. There are multiple perspectives on any issue. Many times the people involved don’t know what the other perspectives are. Sensitive topics are often discussed only “in the shadows,” i.e. in private settings with certain trusted others. People see the shouting which has a great impact (“unprofessional”), but not the reason for the shouting (e.g. frustration built up over time). They see colleagues seemingly getting away with things, but don’t see the often laborious performance management processes happening (necessarily) in the background. Making these different perspectives known more widely can help people see the situation differently and thus respond differently. This allows the possibility for people to move out of “ruts,” deeply habitual or “stuck” patterns of relating. I have seen many examples this year of how people’s view of the “facts” can change, with discussion, some time to reflect, and further discussion. It seems important to me in organisational change not to close off the opportunity for further discussion, even with someone who seems entrenched, vocal and angry about an issue.
    
2. Misunderstandings often occur – people will make mistakes, including me and including you. When this happens, the sooner you spot the mistake, apologise and clear the air, and provide correct information, the sooner you can move on in some sort of working relationship. The other person may not “get over it” straight away, but in many business settings people are willing to give you another shot if you clean up any mess you make as you go along. Especially if you can demonstrate what your intent was and that you have acted as soon as you recognised there was a problem.
    
3. Power is not an absolute. Even the most powerful and feared of managers cannot “decree” that all problems will be fixed. It is how people respond to these decrees (or intentions of the manager) that determines how effective these intentions (instructions) will be. This means managers have to take the time to negotiate with their people, what their intentions mean. I have seen a number of examples this year where managers have not spent time discussing genuinely with their people how the desired changes will impact on them. There is a tendency for the power of the position to lead the manager to say “here’s what needs to happen” and then expect their people to adapt. Doing this, the managers dissociate themselves from any potentially unsavoury consequences of these actions. For example, it is much easier to say to a team leader that they should change the schedules of their team than it is to listen carefully to the team manager and help them to work out how to change the schedules without upsetting everyone. After all, what if the manager cannot work out how to do it?
    
4. Power is a function of the relative need that each party has for the other. This relative need is in balance and shifts over time. At some times, e.g. when it comes to performance reviews, the team member might feel a greater need for the manager. By contrast, at times of staff shortage or additional workload, the manager might feel more need for the team member. Power is not so much a matter of one person holding absolute power over another. This means you have to be thinking about the relative need people have for each other when you are in a change situation. It is valuable to take the time to analyse the effects of power relating in your organisation – where has the balance of power been in the past, and what direction is it moving in now?
    
5. Communications processes are often considered as “what the most powerful want to tell the others.” This is often encapsulated in the idea of “key messages” that is so seductive to communications professionals and project teams. By default this approach ends up being one way communication. After all, in the term “key messages” there is no concept of “key responses.” As the manager of a change initiative of whatever scale, provide opportunities for people to tell you what they really think. Make sure you listen to them. And make sure there aren’t any inadvertent punishments (from their point of view) that will be incurred if they tell you their real thoughts. For example, if they tell you that they have doubts about the effectiveness of the issue, don’t write them off as “resistant” and then avoid giving them interesting projects that you would have previously given them. After all, the alternative is that they will tell others what they really think, and not you. Believe me, it’s much better for you, if they tell you. So seek to understand and explore with them those things that appear as resistance.
    
6. Things done poorly by predecessors or others in the past can leave legacies of mistrust. Sometimes, people can say things that make you wonder “where did that come from?” I’ve had two projects this year in which people have attributed to current managers (“management”) sins that were actually related to past managers, rather than the incumbents. People sometimes do not seem to separate out past wrongs done to them by managers who are no longer around, especially if they feel that somehow you have done something that is unfair to them. If you are a manager with a predecessor who has left a legacy of unfulfilled promises, then you have to work much harder with your people to create the kind of mutual trust you desire.
    
7. I hope that you have not been in a workplace where accusations of workplace bullying occur. I have consulted to several such workplaces now. Where people are in deep seated conflict, then the situations are often accompanied by each party accusing the other of bullying them. My perspective is that organisational politics consists of the daily exercise of power, involving people negotiating, discussing, being polite or impolite to each other, revealing, concealing, pulling rank, delegating and so on. This is how humans in organisations negotiate what they are doing together. When these day to day negotiations break down and it becomes apparent to one party that they cannot go on together, this is experienced as violent. Hence the accusations of bullying that accompany intense organisational conflict. These political processes enable organisations to flourish and get things done. The breakdown of these political negotiations is experienced as violent. When bullying accusations arise in deep seated or long standing conflict situations, the challenge is to find ways for the parties to continue to work together. This is an area where services such as mediation or EAP can really add value, if they are seen in this way. But the challenge is nevertheless a political one. It’s not a matter of attempting to “rise above” politics, which is simply not possible.
    
8. As well as my usual experience of goodwill from managers and staff in the projects I’ve been involved in, I’ve also found myself in situations this year where people have been very upset by organisational proposals, addressing their managers or me with varying degrees of hostility, often in open forums, but sometimes one on one. Misunderstanding and personal threat are behind such reactions. It can be quite challenging when this happens, so it’s no wonder so many consultation processes for restructures or other contentious proposals omit any requirement for face to face discussion and rely on written proposals and written feedback to say they have fulfilled the requirements for “consultation.” This written approach is much more comfortable for the “coalition of the powerful” and the project teams and HR people they hire. Nevertheless, I have found that fronting up to staff about contentious proposals or issues and being calm when others are not is very powerful. Remaining calm, rather than becoming activated by the emotions of others, and continuing to discuss the issues raised rather than reacting to attack has had great results. I’ve later had feedback from people who initially shouted or attacked me or the ideas I represent saying how they can now see what was intended, but couldn’t at the time. This confirms for me that people’s feelings change over time, as their perspectives change. Therefore it makes sense to work with the range of different perspectives of issues. And believe me, with any complex issues, there will be a range of perspectives you can work with.

As a final thought, there are often situations where people are questioning your change proposal, sometimes in very sharp terms. While it appears they may be trying to undermine or challenge your proposal, this is not necessarily the case, even if they seem highly critical, are angry or divert discussion to seemingly irrelevant issues.

They may also be genuinely thinking about how they will take up the proposal, how it will affect them and what they will have to do with their teams to maintain their relationships and get the desired results. And it might seem quite difficult or even impossible to them, at that moment, to see how the change proposal could be successful.

I faced several of these situations this year, where people were upset and seemed unable to address the issues I was raising on behalf of my sponsor in the organisation. It has been confirmed for me that it works best to assume that questions about your desired change are genuine enquiries into the change, and to respond accordingly. This has enabled me to respond graciously and facilitatively to what could be seen as personal attacks. If you treat such questions as resistance and respond as such, then you are assuming that the other party is damaged, that there is something wrong with them. You immediately appear defensive and it then becomes very hard to work together with the other parties to achieve your organisational change objectives. Again, it becomes apparent that there is value in remaining calm while others around are not.

I am struck by how many corporate change initiatives focus on the set pieces such as road shows, documents and deadlines. The change team prepares a plan with these events set to occur at certain intervals. This is very similar to preparing a series of three course dinners over the course of the project.

The trouble is that while it will produce a number of lovely meals, it ignores the other nights when there is no meals planned by the change team. On those nights, the troops have to make their own meal out of what’s in the cupboard. In other words, your people have to make sense of what is going on by themselves, informally, and they do this in the tea rooms, at breaks and over drinks. 

Your people can enjoy a lovely restaurant meal, but the restaurant food makes up only a relatively small proportion of their calory intake. In the same way, your road show events and documents you produce as part of your change project provide some opportunities for making sense of the change, but far more of the sense-making takes place back on the job. As a leader, you cannot be present at every sense-making opportunity.

But instead of providing only formal events driven by your project plan, you can pay attention to the informal communication that is going on, perhaps creating opportunities for genuine conversation with your people. This will assist their sense making process and you are more likely to get your change through with less resistance.

Looking at the whole context of your group’s dynamics over a month or so can help you to identify the natural flows of interaction and how your team meetings can best contribute to and shape it.

What kinds of interaction does your team need? in a month? Most teams need opportunities for the following:

• Understanding what is going on in the organisation that may affect their work.
• Working on ideas for improving your operation.
• Catching up on new developments or information that affects the team.
• Knowing how the team is performing.
• Acknowledging / celebrating success.
• Letting off steam.

Some team meetings rather unrealistically try to achieve all these things in one session – no wonder no one ends up being satisfied! Please don’t think that the team meeting has to accomplish all these things. Think of the other avenues you have for the different kinds of interaction that are required.

For example, do you have Friday night drinks, or a regular day when you have morning or afternoon tea together? If so, then that can provide an opportunity for people to let off steam. You can couple that with acknowledging success. One company I know puts up their wins for the week on a whiteboard at their Friday night drinks – this practice began when they were first starting out. Facing some tough times they decided to use this as a way of focusing on some of the positive things that tended to get buried during a difficult period.

In one group I know, everyone comes to work 30 minutes early (not because they’re super-motivated – it’s so they can get a carpark) and this time before work is where they catch up on how things are going in their personal lives, let off steam and develop their informal relationships with each other.

Even if you don’t have this kind of opportunity for informal group dynamics to take place, you could consider having an ‘informal’ meeting every second time you meet, where there is a much more informal agenda.

Or you could allocate a section of the meeting for informal checking in, perhaps at the start for example. There will always be new developments in your organisation and so it’s good if you can keep this on the regular agenda.

As far as team performance goes, if you are reporting monthly, then you could include this as part of your meeting once a month around reporting time, so it doesn’t have to be on every agenda.

The thing with team meetings is to consider the overall flow of your team’s work and how the team meetings can assist in facilitating the group dynamics your team requires to accomplish its work.

Recently clients, friends and participants in my management development workshops alike have all been talking with me about team meetings. What are yours like? How frequent? Do you and your team look forward to them? Or are they in the category of “necessary (or unnecessary) evil”. 

When it comes to making team meetings more productive, there is plenty of advice out there about improving team meetings by tightening up control of the meeting.

The following, for example, are all ways of attempting to gain control of the meeting in order to make it more productive:

• Having a preset agenda. 
• Rotating the chairing of the meeting.
• Establishing ground rules.
• Assigning strict amounts of time to each topic.

Of course, these are all attempts by the facilitator to control the meeting in the interests of achieving the predetermined outcomes.

Needless to say I have a different approach.

I think it is useful to consider team meetings in the context of the overall patterns and flows of communication throughout the course of a week or a month.

What do I mean by that? More about this in my next post.

The poor regard in which politics is held, and the view that it is bad to engage in politics are both indicative of a way of thinking in which it is implicit that people can either choose to engage in politics and therefore be labelled “bad” or they can choose not to engage in politics and be “good”.

Politics are also commonly seen as part of conflict, uncertainty and situations where the formal channels break down or are not effective.

However, I think that politics are an inevitable aspect of the social nature of being human and working in organisations.

I often hear people say "I don’t get involved in the politics." While this seems like an admirable aspiration, all humans are involved in politics because we all have intentions that we are trying to manifest in our organisational lives. The results of what happens in your organisation is a result of the interweaving of all the different intentions of the many people who are involved in the organisation. 

Hidden in the view of politics as the result of conflict, uncertainty and lack of effective formal communication channels, is the implication that people would not need to engage in political behaviour if there were no conflict, if the environment were predictable or if formal means of resolution were working effectively.

Like it or not, conflict, uncertainty and formal channels that break down are a part of human existence in organisations. It ain’t going to go away. Everything is political (or interpreted in a political way), including the actions of people who are not interested in organisational politics, or who think they are not being political.

Sue Tupling over at Changeworksblog focuses on communication and organisational change.

She has recently posted an article I wrote for her blog. In it, I argue that leaders should be less concerned about communicating their vision and more concerned about communicating their intention. Read the article here.

Change consultants are all the same aren’t they? Change is change. Consultants are consultants.

I think not. In the real world, all consultants are NOT created equal. Consulting is not a commodity like flour or sugar. So much depends on the background of the consultant, specific skills for the job and the chemistry with the client.

Here are ten ways that you can tell if a change management consultant has the technical skills needed for a complex change project. Look for someone who has the ability and experience to do all ten. Your change consultant should be able to:

1. Help you prepare to talk to managers and staff about the change. Your change consultant should be able to help you work out what say, what not to say, and craft your message.
    
2. Facilitate meetings with managers and staff. However, having a consultant facilitate does not mean that you do nothing, nor can you sit back and watch the proceedings like watching a movie. Your participation as leader is still important. But having a facilitator means you can participate as a leader without needing to orchestrate the whole meeting. Someone else can take care of timings, logistics and directing the activities.
    
3. Make sure people have the opportunity to respond. Your consultant should make sure that everyone gets the chance to have a say.
    
4. Deflect criticism. Your consultant should be able to handle it when people are critical about past experiences.
    
5. Assist with formulation of strategy. Your change consultant should be able to lead the establishment of the approach to bringing about the change. They should also be adept at changing tactics in response to emerging events.
    
6. Debrief with you and your team at different stages during the change initiative, for example, after key milestones.
    
7. Explain what is happening in such a way that you and others see the situation differently. When everyone has a different way of making sense of what is going on, when they see things differently, they will be able to respond differently. This means they need to be confident and have enough experience to offer alternative ways of understanding what is going on in the organisation, and in the change initiative.
    
8. Contain anxiety. Help everyone continue to participate and continue on together, especially in the presence of anxiety.
    
9. Help explore misunderstandings. Misunderstandings offer the opportunity for new understanding to emerge. Your consultant should have the capacity to be able to stay with and explore misunderstandings with all players in the initiative so that the group can reach a point of having a different understanding of what is going on. They will then be able to act and react differently with each other.
    
10. Be provocative. At times, providing something to react to can stimulate a shift in people’s understanding of what is going on. Your consultant should have the ability to be provocative.

HR is concerned with the formal lines of communication in the organisation. HR advice follows the organisation chart. What I mean by this is that in the HR world, communication happens in cascades. It trickles down from the managers to the staff through channels that follow the formal reporting lines of the organisation chart.

And in the world of HR and corporate communications, "communication" has come to mean "key messages" that the powerful people want to give to the less powerful people. The key messages are delivered through the formal channels of communication. These key messages are usually about the more powerful people wanting the less powerful people to do things differently. If the less powerful people question this, it is called "resistance."

And yet it is also common knowledge that the informal networks of communication are so important that they can destroy even the best-executed planned communications programme. The grapevine can destroy or subvert initiatives from head office. These informal networks inhabit the white space of the organisation chart.

As a CEO or manager of an organisation undergoing change, I think you must make sure your change initiatives take account of the white space in the organisation chart. In times of change you should be considering the informal communication networks in your organisation as well as the formal reporting lines.

The question is how to do this. I have found engaging in two way conversations rather than one way presentations to be the best way. The danger is that things will go out of your control if you truly engage with them. Don’t worry about that. After all, you never were in control any way. Right?

Comments welcomed.