Driving Corporate Culture: The State of the Art

Working with the Volume Off

Gary Grates

Is anyone listening when companies try to share corporate strategies with employees? Gary Grates would argue that they are not, or at least they have turned down the volume. And one reason for this is that employees are drowning in information that they consider irrelevant, conflicting and confusing.

The average employee, Grates said, receives up to 60 faxes and between 500 and 1,500 e-mails every week. They are inundated with news releases, newsletters, brochures, videos, presentations and every other form of communication, much of it unsolicited. "Is it any wonder that managers say they are unable to handle the volume of information they receive?" he asked. "And that they find it a waste of time and distracting from their primary responsibilities?"

As president of GCI Boxenbaum Grates and managing director of GCI Consulting North America, as well as a prolific writer and frequent lecturer, Grates has earned a reputation as the thought leader in change management communications and effective employee-management relations. His expertise and reputation are currently being put to the test in an unorthodox way at General Motors where he was named the de facto head of internal communications with all of GM's internal communications staff reporting to him.

But there is nothing orthodox about Grates' approach to internal communications. He eschews the traditional, time-honored ways of communicating with employees - the newsletters with bowling scores, recipes and want ads, for example - because he knows they are no longer relevant. He also doesn't believe in focusing on just the "why" in communications. "Don't give them a punchline; give them the story," he said. "But don't keep piling on information, telling them more than they need to know so that something which is very simple and easy to understand gets bastardized and the message is lost. All employees really want to know is, 'What should I do to help this company survive so I can keep my job, send my kids to school, pay my mortgage and feel good about my life.'"

Internal communications, Grates said, "is not about advocating and creating noise, it's about listening and hearing and acting. To paraphrase Peter Drucker, it's not about being a trumpet, it's about being the organization's ears."

What does this mean for senior management and communicators? "For one thing," he said, "it means they should stop using cliches like teamwork, loyalty and empowerment. Employees are actually concerned about being able to do what they need to do to get the job done, not fitting within a box. They want respect. They want privacy. They want recognition."

To capture employees' attention, Grates said, "you have to affect and influence what they see, help them connect the blocks. If the company's goals are understood, then communications can begin to provide context and relevance to what the employees are doing. We can then begin to talk about the why, not the what. Why is it necessary that we do this and why is it necessary that you do that?"

By looking for common themes or platforms, Grates said, you begin to create a "story" that people can understand and relate to. "You talk to them about strategy, about what's happening in the marketplace, about what's happening with competition," he said. "You get them ready to accept what the company is trying to accomplish."

In all of this, don't overlook the power of external communications on internal behavior, Grates added. "Jack Welch used to say that his best internal communication was The Wall Street Journal. If you're looking at a major shift in strategy, let the employees read it first in a major trade publication or business journal. Although it goes against the grain of telling employees first, remember that employees don't believe you like they did 10 years ago. They will believe it, however, if they read it in an outside publication."

Communications can provide the context for management decisions. "Time and time again," Grates explained, "employees will say I understand the decision; I don't understand how we arrived at it. What went on? What were our options?" Middle management in particular needs to know this because they're trying to make sense of their day while being bombarded by people who are asking the same questions.

As communicators, Grates said, "We have to try to impact the actions rather than the messages. We have to help employees understand and believe in the company. We have to encourage employees to be engaged in more ways than just being there. And if we can prove that we care about them, that we're meeting them halfway, they will want to help us out because they want to win as much as anyone. Instead of their working with the volume off, we can turn up the volume."

Grates concluded with what he described as "my absolute truths" about internal communications. "It is a leadership priority. It is more about behavior than communications; it's really about giving employees a voice. And finally, effective internal communications is the result of acquired expertise and experience. Senior level people have to take the responsibility for internal communications."