Recent Recaps

Low-cost, high-impact ways to measure communication effectiveness — September 3, 2009

By Carl Zangerl, College of Professional Studies, Northeastern University

Angela Sinickas kicked off Yankee IABC’s program year with a bang! She engaged a roomful of communicators –  IABC members and guests –  in a dynamic workshop titled ‘Communication Measurement on a Shoestring Budget.’

Before sketching some of her key points, I must make a disclaimer: I use Sinickas’ manual, How to Measure Your Communication Programs, in my Communication Assessment course at Northeastern University. So I’m a true believer!

That said, Sinickas made a compelling case for the proposition that we should measure the impact of what we communicate. When we measure communication effectiveness, we’re able to make fact-based decisions on how to improve our communication vehicles and campaigns. We’re also in a much better position to demonstrate the value of communication to our organization’s leadership.

The first part of the workshop outlined a straight-forward method for setting measurable communication objectives. Sinickas argued that we should go beyond measuring our communication activities, such as the quality and number of messages we’ve sent, for example. That’s certainly important. But we also need to assess the impact of those activities on the perceptions and behaviors of our audiences. Do they remember our key messages? Are our channels credible? Does their behavior change in the desired way?

Where to begin? First identify the current attitudes and behaviors of specific stakeholder groups. Then describe the ‘ideal’ attitudes and behaviors that you hope to influence through communication. This step links communication with organizational performance.

Once communication goals are set, we can consider a wide range of measurement tools to assess the extent to which we’ve achieved those goals. Sinickas provided dozens of examples of tools that cost little or nothing to deploy. These include observational measures, informal “pizza-lunch” focus groups, and informal surveys. She also noted that behavioral data, such as productivity, turnover, and web usage, are often available somewhere in the organization – we simply have to ask for them.

At the close of a dynamic session, spiced with anecdotes and real-world examples, Angela Sinickas urged workshop participants to adopt a measurement mindset.

Check out Angela’s website, http://www.sinicom.com, for excellent free measurement resources and case studies.

By Saul Wisnia, Senior Publications Editor/Writer, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

“Now be a strong lion, go over to the watering hole, and seek out a wildebeest that isn’t part of a pack.”

This may seem an odd way of suggesting you strike up a conversation at a refreshment table, but etiquette expert Jodi R. R. Smith is right on when it comes to the challenge of interacting with strangers or even peers at large meetings or events. Many people find this a daunting task, but Smith, president and founder of the Mannersmith etiquette consulting firm, had some simple steps to pass on to Yankee IABC members at a recent networking event – tips designed to both make a great impression and get the most out of your encounters.

• Do your homework: Before the meeting, set a goal for who you want to talk to and why.
• Dress for success: Always dress one notch better than you think the event calls for; being well-dressed earns you respect.
• If you’re shy, get there early: An empty room is less threatening; walk around and make yourself comfortable in the space. If some-one else comes early, say hello.
• Always wear nametags – and on the right side: Nametags identify you as part of the group; people tend to avoid those not wearing them. Right-side placement is best – so when you shake somebody’s hand your nametag will be closer and more easily readable.
• Use “snippet starters”: After introducing yourself (slowly, clearly, and with confidence, and a firm, quick handshake) add a small piece of intriguing information that engages the other person and encourages a reply or question. Make it fun; “Hi, I’m Jodi Smith, I teach confidence” is better than “Hi, I’m Jodi Smith, I teach etiquette.” If you’re at an event away from home, try “Hi, I’m Jodi Smith. I’m from Boston.”
• Leave on a high note: Don’t talk too long to one person; five to eight minutes is best. You want to leave the person wanting more, giving you a reason to follow up.
• Avoid the ‘three Bs’ of escape: When ending a conversation, never say you need to go to the Bar, Bathroom, or to talk with somebody else (Better). Simply say, “It was nice to meet you.”

“We do business with people we like,” says Smith. “You want people to walk away after meeting you thinking, ‘Gee, that was a dynamic person.’”

For more information, go to www.mannersmith.com

On Oct. 31, members of the IABC MetroProv group were hosted by FM Global, on-site at its headquarters in Johnston, R.I., to hear about the company’s submission to FORTUNE® magazine’s “100 Best Companies To Work For” competition.

Johanna Hetherton, assistant vice president and manager, communications services for the global commercial property insurer, opened the presentation; she and her communications and HR colleagues shared their insights into their first-time experience with the grueling submission process.

According to the FM Global project team, preparing the entry is an arduous task in and of itself, with all the characteristics of a challenging project: it has to be carefully planned, meticulously executed, creatively ingenious, and there’s almost no time to get it done. But get it done they did, and the result of their submission represents an “all-hands-on-deck,” but “let’s-have-fun-while-we’re-at-it approach,” which helped keep the team motivated and focused.

The submission process consisted of an employee survey and a two-part culture audit—the first part focuses on the objective characteristics of FM Global including demographics, benefits, and perks, while the second involves a narrative question-and-answer exercise. The employee survey, administered by FORTUNE’s research partner and sent to 400 randomly selected employees, measures employees’ perceptions about their workplace—the nature of their work, the tangible and intangible rewards, and their feelings about and attitudes toward working with their supervisors and colleagues. As the most objective component, the employee survey is given the most consideration in the submission process, representing two-thirds of a company’s overall score. The second part of the cultural audit is less weighty in terms of overall score (one third), but, for the project team, it represents the primary component of heavy lifting. A series of 11 questions, focusing on benefits, compensation, management philosophy, internal communications, and workforce diversity, are answered in a narrative format, with each question comprising one to several pages in length.

As with any quality product, the right packaging is often the key to getting noticed; Hetherton and her team seized the opportunity to showcase FM Global as a fantastic place to work by packaging the hard-copy submission in a creative, “get-your-attention” kind of way. True to FM Global’s risk-averse nature, the shipping box containing their entry information was designed to look like stainless steel, with contents kept under lock and key; a sprinkler hung inside the box to further protect the contents from fire. Additional “advice” was provided to the recipient to shield the contents from other natural and man-made disasters, like flood, wind, ice and general human failure.

More than anything, the entry underscores the fact that FM Global is not your average insurance company. And that’s exactly the message Hetherton and her team hope to send to current and prospective employees should they be honored by FORTUNE in 2009. “Based on the employee surveys we conduct on a regular basis, we already know FM Global is a great place to work,” said Hetherton, “but having further validation from FORTUNE would certainly help us spread the word.”

On October 20, more than 35 people, including a sizeable student contingent, gathered at the Northeastern Alumni Center in Boston to learn more about how they can connect with a global audience. The evening provided a mix of history, theory and practical application.

Professor Tom Nakayama, Chair of the Communications Studies Department at Northeastern University, kicked off the event with a history of cross-cultural communication as a field of study.As part of the Foreign Service Act of 1946, President Truman created a Foreign Service Institute to help government workers get ready to serve overseas. The institute focused on the international, interpersonal and interdisciplinary aspects of communications; thus, the field of international communication was born.

Nakayama then traced the movement from international communications to intercultural or cross-cultural communications, pointing out its importance in not only preparing people to serve overseas but also in integrating them upon returning home. He also discussed more current issues, citing case studies of segregation, such as the linguistic border in Belgium, and integration, as seen in the Polish communities springing up in Phoenix, AZ.

A good communicator knows his audience, and Nakayama seemed to understand that both students and practitioners were gathered together. He ended his talk with five tips for business communicators who are working cross-culturally:

1. Avoid ethnocentrism
2. Avoid zoo approach (don’t treat people like lions)
3. Increase your motivation
4. Increase your self-knowledge
5. Think dialectically about intercultural interaction (things are opposite of how they appear)

A panel discussion, ably moderated by Julie Pierce, White House Writers Group, followed the presentation. The panelists – Ginger Kuenzel, director of employee communications at Thermo Fisher Scientific, Linda Megathlin , manager of worldwide communications for Sensata Technologies, and Alison Davis, founder and CEO of Davis & Company (all Yankee IABC members) — described how they face the challenge of communicating with global audiences daily. Their no-nonsense advice includes:

• Senior management themselves are part of a culture, many times a culture that is at odds with employees. Use data to overcome this barrier. Bring demographics and research to leadership; they are used to getting research about our customers, bring it about employees too. Use information to make your case.
• Understand your audiences. You have many audiences, so communicate to them in many ways. Use formats that vary and keep different tools going and use them all appropriately. And recognize that communication styles are influenced by culture – just try facilitating an interactive meeting with participants from Sweden and the U.S.!
• Use local context. Keep the content and messages consistent, but create a local employee support team to add context and help translate information. Measure the effectiveness.
• Be wary of how you measure effectiveness! Focus groups are not necessarily a good intercultural forum. Measurement and feedback all have local biases and you need to be aware.

Overall, the event was a success. People walked away with a better understanding of both the history of cross-cultural communications and some current application in the field. Participants gave the event high marks, and one person noted how “the interplay of theory and practice deepened my insights into the ways I can communicate more effectively in a global context.”

Communication CAN—and does—make a difference.

That was an overriding theme at the 2008 Heritage Region Conference, held October 12–13 in Hartford, from opening speaker Peter Prichard of the Newseum to closing speaker Carol Kinsey Goman. More than 20 IABC members from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Maine registered for the conference.

Prichard’s visual tour of the Newseum made most conference participants think about a trip to Washington to tour the interactive museum of news. Goman provided thoughts about the “silent language” of leadership.

In between, about 150 attendees enjoyed the wit of Mark Twain, honored 2007 and 2008 Silver Quill winners and attended multiple learning sessions. Topics ranged from business writing to reputation management and from media relations to brand building. Many of the participants also enjoyed getting to know one another at a Dine Around.

Here are highlights from a few of the sessions:

Keynote speaker Bob Dilenschneider, president of the Dilenschneider Group, gave a thought-provoking and timely address about ways that communicators can help restore confidence in turbulent times like we’re now experiencing (project a sense of calm, take early action on personnel, make sure what you’re communicating is accurate, and manage yourself first).

IABC Vice Chair Mark Schumann, managing principal of Towers Perrin’s Houston office—and who will be speaking at our Yankee IABC program in March—offered tips for “the care and feeding of a CEO.” He identified specific warning signs, described foundational things communicators can do to help CEOs (including coaching and advising) and mentioned seven tips to tell CEOs—including that they are not alone and cannot hide.

IABC President Julie Freeman outlined how organizational change is affecting communicators, noting that organizations are becoming more global and more diverse, using technology more, and under demands to become faster, better, and cheaper.

John Finney, a senior consultant with Watson Wyatt, summarized the latest ROI study completed by that firm. Results show that effective communication is a leading indicator of strong financial performance and that high-performing companies use communication to engage employees.

The region also hosted the first-ever student conference, which featured speakers from corporations, agencies, and colleges/universities.

Next year’s conference will be held in Cleveland, Ohio.