CONVERSATIONS, UNLIMITED

Much of today’s pop non-fiction is obsessed with conversations.  That is, the lack of them.   The face-to-face type.

Blame quickly shifts to the Millennials who grew up with technology in hand.  And then extends to everyone and anyone who works for a living, over-relying on social media and smartphones, on apps and e-widgets.

Yet it ain’t all the fault of IT.  Nor can we point fingers to specific cohorts, because, truth! everyone indulges.  It’s just easier to communicate with things other than our mouths, our voices, our hearts.

In a recent Wall Street Journal article, a Yale professor of computer science, half tongue in cheek and half not, proposes a Talknet for seniors.  That is, a 365/24/7 system that allows elderfolks the ability to tune into any dialogue going on around the world.  His plan is simple:  Five choices on screen, each with no more than ten participants.  Start your own conversation.  Or wait for others to leave.  Or, quite simply, listen in with computer speakers.

It’s an imaginary concept that could work, quite well, in corporate settings.  And not just for seniors.  It would train employees in the art and craft of talking.  It might be a good substitute for some learning and development courses (with apologies to those professionals).  And it could replace the communities of practice, the Yammers of the world, and corporate jam sessions (among others), helping workers realize that there’s much to be gained in connecting and relating live.

The fault, dear Brutus …

OLDIES, GOODIES ... AND TODAY

Critics love to bash the now.

Trashing the au courant simply means that, whatever the medium, whatever the solution, it can’t stand up to the tried and the true.  Like “melts in your mouth, not in your hands.”  J&J’s response to the Tylenol tamperings.  The magic of Apple fans.

We don’t buy it. 

Sure, Mad Men and the ever-increasing wave of nostalgia for past songs, themes, and content is one trend.  Yet the richnesses of our collective experiences and our tech obsessions are way diverse, and way too numerous to say “yesterday was better.”

Today is a time that calls for innovation in the face of eight-second attention spans.  It cries for strategic thinking when confronted with employees who are overloaded with messaging and conflicting priorities.  And it clamors for changes in behaviors when, on the surface, all seem calm and unperturbed.

And that’s why the now is so exhausting to those of us who try to drive actions inside and outside.  Figuring out cohorts and developing and measuring campaigns that will make that needle move are the 21^st century’s challenge.  We’ve got to juggle roles as psychologists, market researchers, brand protectors, and premier communicators to succeed.  We need to study up on learning methodologies, software programs, and visual motivation (among many other topics) to ensure that our clients and our companies work well in this confusing and complex world.

Would you have it any other way?

ADVICE ... AND CONSENT?

Time magazine recently crowed:  “We have entered a new golden age of advice.”

We beg to differ. 

Opinion-givers like Deloitte and McKinsey have prospered for years (depending on the economy), providing corporate America recommendations and hands-on work for everything from downsizing to strategy, benefits to supply chain re-jiggering. 

Individually, and for quite some time, many of us have sought career direction and personal coping ideas from not only the famed columnists but also from live chats, videos, podcasts, and one-on-one/group conversations.

One truth remains:  No matter what the reason for the help search, it’s sure difficult to figure out who’s right, who’s a bit off-kilter, and who might be in it just for glory and dollars. 

That’s where the advice (and consent) factors in.  Business wise, consultants are referred; references checked; and work scrutinized.  Beyond those preliminaries, the guidance sometimes gets a bit, well, squirrelly.  Many a company has launched a project with a brand-new Sherpa/group, finding (perhaps years later, perhaps in a few months) the relationship has gone south.

It’s happened to all of us.  Yet true advisors are not a dime a dozen; they’ve got to put your interests above theirs.  Here are a few good telling signs:

• After one recommendation is nixed, your consultant provides two to three other options – with factual pros and cons.
• When asked “what do you think,” your guide tells the truth (okay, it needs to be delivered with politesse).
• Secret means secret.  And cone of silence.

We’ll open this to our readers.   What have you encountered in the advice column?

WHOSE VALUE?

Jack Welch was wrong.

But at least he admitted it.

The notion of shareholder value, espoused by this former CEO/chairman, was first ponied up in the early 20^th century by two accountants, expressing that corporate books should be prepared from the perspective of corporate proprietors.  Milton Friedman furthered that idea in 1970, with his epic New York Times magazine headline:  “The social responsibility of a business is to increase its profits.”

The rest is, simply, old news.  Now many businesses are struggling to balance short- with long-termism, to weigh market demands with younger employees who no longer work solely for money but also for meaning and social value.  That change will take some time.

But why not begin to introduce, in concert with Cornell Law professor Lynn Stout, the concept that shareholders are contractors?  As are debtholders, suppliers, and employees.  In her viewpoint, the only special considerations to shareholders are during times of takeovers and bankruptcies.  In other events?  Take a card, please, and call us in the a.m.

Seriously, the employee value strategy is one we’d embrace, 150 percent.  Answer these questions:  With little or zero motivated employees, how likely are positive returns?  Given limited business understanding (and a tenuous link to the bottom line), could associates truly contribute to the best interests of any corporation?  As possible individual investors, do company workers also belong to the “shareholder value” class?

In these days, there are a number of companies who still slavishly follow the “owner is king” philosophy.  But not for long.

THE 70 PERCENT RULE

Shame on us communicators and advertisers and content developers (ad nauseum).

Our learning and development colleagues know this principle of knowledge acquisition by heart:  10 percent relies on actual training, 20 percent, from others.  And the 70 percent?  From on-the-job experiences.

Recently, the experiential part of learning has been ramped up. 

Thanks in no small part to start-ups and tech businesses, blackboard-painted walls and tables on wheels act as inspiration and experience vehicles. 

Software developers, eager to understand why clients do what they do and what they want, hold what’s been called ‘participatory market research.’ 

And august institutions such as Harvard regularly conduct hands-on courses, from a prison studies project learning about criminal justice (in tandem) with prison inmates to re-engineering medical devises with doctors close at hand.

Why don’t we practice first-hand learning?  In other words, when there’s an issue that demands not just awareness but also the action to do something, communicators and colleagues need to seriously consider increasing the do-it-yourselves and how-tos. 

Take performance management, for instance.  A number of today’s more progressive organizations are killing the old ranking system and mid and year-end talks, replacing both with ongoing dialogues between boss and individual, team and individual.  At the same time, our high-tech reliance means many employees aren’t accustomed to conversations, with many preferring text, Instagram, Twitter, and email over traditional face to face.

The solution?  Show them how to talk, to handle difficult encounters, and to really listen and hear and learn.  It’s as much our goal as it is our L&D colleagues.