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Communication comes in two flavours: Communication and communication. Communication with big ‘C’ refers to the formal, planned communication programmes; the ‘big splash’, so to speak. By communication (small ‘c’) I am referring to the informal means of communicating with people: word of mouth, role models, mentoring, on the job training, one to one meetings etc. In organisations, we need both types of communication for communication to be powerful and most effective.

An interesting article in the New Scientist magazine, considers the transmission of communication through informal networks. Whilst this article puts an interesting slant on these ‘transmissions’ considering anything from moods (happiness, depression) to habit patterns and illnesses, what is interesting is the subconscious and rapid way that our peers influence our behaviour.

Recent research shows that our moods are far more strongly influenced by those around us than we tend to think. Not only that, we are also beholden to the moods of friends of friends, and of friends of friends of friends – people three degrees of separation away from us who we have never met, but whose disposition can pass through our social network like a virus. The fact that, seemingly, friends and peer groups are more influential than relatives or partners and spouses is even more pertinent to the transmission of communication at work. And gender is important, so the research claims: women observe and are influenced far more by other women and vice versa for men.

So what does this mean for organisational communication? There are two sides to this: the first that we need to recognise how powerful this transmission of ‘influence’ is in the organisation’s informal communication system. If employees are influenced more by those around them – in terms of attitudes, thoughts and behaviour – we need to know how to use this for positive influence in communication and change programmes. We also need to understand that this social influence can both hinder and help change communication programmes. And of course, what applies inside the organisation through informal social networks, applies even more powerfully outside the organisation. Think of the informal influence, negative or positive, that your salesmen, engineers and customer service staff have on your customers every day.

This influence is spread through a process of unconscious imitation – like the reflex action of our nervous system, this imitation by passes any conscious process and is performed highly efficiently by our brain and nervous system without any conscious interference or even awareness. Remember how infectious a smile is? I often walk around with a smile on my face, and I notice other people – complete strangers – smiling at me for no reason at all! I think they are nutters until i realise that they are simply and unconsciously copying me. This process of unconscious imitation – copying of behaviour – that we humans are so beautifully ‘wired up’ to do – facilitates in the ‘modeler’ (the person doing the copying) the experience of the emotion of the model. By copying that person’s smile with my body (facial expression, posture) i experience a ‘pale reflection’ of my model’s emotions. So by copying behaviours, I start to experience the attitudes, emotions and even thoughts of the person I am copying.

And what of the implication for organisational communications? By tapping into the ‘collective intelligence’ of social networks in the organisation we can ‘engineer’ the adoption and spread of new behaviour and cultural change. Viral Change (TM) offers a process for this, but it does require careful planning and facilitation (and an understanding of human behaviour) behind the scenes. Coupled with a strong ‘Communication’ programme, this can be a very powerful way to effect change and communication in organisations.

And what about applying this yourself? Whilst we might not be in complete conscious control of the process of social modelling, our brains take the shortcuts before we even know it; we can choose who we have around us who are likely to influence us. In 2009, do you want to be more happy or more depressed? More successful or more lazy? Whichever you prefer, think carefully about who you have around you – they might be more influential than you think!

Talk to us at Changeworks to find out how we use traditional and new media as well as behavioural change techniques to turn around performance and communication in organisations: info@changeworkscom.co.uk.

This is one of a series of regular guest posts that I am running at Changeworks Blog. Today’s post is from Stephen Billing and provokes thought as to the effectiveness of vision for driving behavioural change.

Guest author: Stephen Billing, Management Consultant, New Zealand. Stephen is a facilitator of organisational change. He has significant experience in implementing dramatic change keeping business performing as usual. He helps his clients to be successful in restructuring, changing company culture, introducing new technology or new ways of working, and developing leaders, development of sales and sales management capability, and people development and training.
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Developing a sense of vision is seen by many as a key leadership task. It is commonly thought that a clear vision will drive behaviour if people buy into it. A vision is said to help people to tap into a higher sense of purpose and bring inspiration that will guide their behaviours and their ‘discretionary effort’ in support of the company’s goals.

It is also thought that employees can align their behaviours to a shared vision and this will lead to better results for the company. Some also say that if you have a vision, employees will synthesise this into their own personal vision that is in harmony with the organisation’s vision and their behaviours will then align with the company’s vision.

Famous gurus like Tom Peters and Peter Senge along with many others advocate that a shared vision has an almost mystical ability to motivate employees – to galvanise them – to bring not only their skills to work but also their hearts and minds, if not their souls.

In terms of tapping into the discretionary effort of employees, it is thought that individuals who are committed to a vision beyond their self-interest find they have energy not available when pursuing narrower goals. Organisations that tap this level of commitment will then be able to access from their employees more energy for achieving the company’s goals.

I might be going against the advice of A list gurus and common managerial thinking, but I have to say that I think that shared vision is overrated as an explanation for successful organisations. More often than not, creating a shared vision simply enables the senior managers to feel satisfied that they are following ‘best practice.’ In other words, everyone else is doing it so we should too.

It does not take much to realize that the actions of employees are driven by much more complex and individual things than the organisation’s vision, such as their individual backgrounds, their interactions with others in the organisation and their own intentions. Not to mention the specific situation they find themselves in at the time. The leader’s vision, whether or not it is created through a process that has wide involvement from the employees, can not become a ‘shared vision’ and drive employees’ behaviour. As a leader, you can only interact with a limited number of people during your day. Even when you do large-scale road shows to present your vision, your speech amounts to an intention, a provocation to your staff, and you cannot control how they will respond, what themes from your presentation they will take up and which themes will be ignored.

Further, the most important conversations in the organisation are not those that occur in the presentation’s formal (and intimidating) large group arena, or through the other official channels you provide. The most important conversations are those the most senior people can not control – those that happen in the cafeterias and around the water coolers. The Chief Executive’s speech about the vision is only one of many things that influence the important everyday conversations through which employees make sense of their world as people working in the organisation. The things that are important to particular employees cannot be controlled by the CEO, whether it is family obligations, peer opinions, their manager’s influence or their personal values.

The vision represents an ideal, what George Herbert Mead called a cult value. The vision is an abstraction that can only have meaning as it is taken up in everyday situations. So employees are daily negotiating what the ideal might mean as they choose between, say, spending time to help the customer in front of them or hurrying on to the next customer to meet their targets for number of customers assisted.

Rather than waste time and money paying consultants to help you come up with beautifully articulated vision statements, leaders should discuss with people what their intentions are, what they want to achieve. And then encourage them to tell you about their everyday experience as they grapple with your intention. Listen and observe their responses closely. Then respond accordingly.

You may feel this is risky because you won’t have control of where the conversation goes. You are right, you won’t have control of the conversation – the employees may say difficult things that you find hard to hear. They may say things that are plain wrong from where you stand.

The reality is that even with the most well crafted vision statements and well planned change initiatives, 70% of them fail.

So don’t worry about it – you weren’t in control anyway.

by Stephen Billing, Management Consultant, New Zealand

Blog: www.changingorganisations.com

Whilst managers are important in the communication of change and in modelling behavioural change, they also play a criticial role in opening up dialogue within the organisation.  Managers do not always have the coaching skills to open up coaching conversations, even less so to encourage those crucial conversations (instead of shying away from them). If managers can be coached to open up such organisational conversations, dialogue, involvement and engagement will follow soon enough.

Coupled with this, viral change is an innovative and highly effective new approach to managing behavioural change in organisations.  Essentially, a small set of non negotiable behaviours are defined and a process to encourage and spread these behaviours is adopted. These behaviours are imitated, endorsed by a small network of people, and this spreads new ways of doing things, quickly and effectively.  Its strength lies in peer to peer networks, supported by dialogue and conversation, to create sustainable changes and spread and internal ‘infection’ of success.

The approach, masterminded by Leandro Herro, relies on the organisation behind the org chart.  75% of work conversations occur in the social networks and collaborative space that are active behind the scenes.  And relies for its ‘infection’ on the small number of people who have LOTS of connections (we all know one of those).

Coupled with use of metaphor, storytelling, logical levels of change and other tools, this is truly a powerful way of changing culture in a positive (and almost fun) way within a few months (honestly).

You can find out more at the Chartered Institute of Public Relations internal comms conference.  Go to our facebook event:
http://www.new.facebook.com/event.php?eid=37381415459

Or the CIPR’s event page: www.cipr.co.uk/internalcomms

Watch and listen to Leandro Herrero on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pNsgyFJNYU

Or visit Leandro’s blog: http://www.viralchange.net/

And let’s open up debate, argument, dialogue, share you approaches, thoughts to open up conversation about this topic.  Email me on sue@changeworksblog.com or simply post a comment.

When companies communicate their vision it can be somewhat one sided. The vision is pushed down the communication hierarchy in the traditional ‘command and control’ style. And often generalisations and nominalisations abound. For example: ‘To be the global partner of choice for the automotive components industry’, ‘to achieve customer service excellence’.

If they are lucky, and remember to communicate this message at least five times, organisations will at least have a chance of employees recalling the statement. But quite often this becomes a mantra, present in the headspace but empty of meaning or action.

The vision, if properly bought in to, will drive behaviour. And changing individual behaviour is the only way we change organisations. Ultimately we need vision statements to be absorbed into the ‘muscle memory’; it needs to be the fuel that drives the engine. Through a somatic connection to the intellectual understanding of the vision statement, a powerful vision statement will drive the right behaviours. It will run like the printing through seaside rock, running right through the individual; part of their core.

By getting employees to hear the message, picture the vision through their own filters and interpretations and feel the connection to its meaning we will tap into a higher level of purpose and this will help to organise beliefs, values and guide behaviours.

Communicating the vision in this way will make the vision come to life in employees across the whole organisation. Then people will live and breathe and behave the vision.

In communicating the vision leaders need to bypass their own filters and get out of their individual ‘maps’ of the world, and second position the employees. Also, by allowing a certain looseness in interpretation of the vision, letting go of control to some extent, employees will synthesise a vision of their own.

Essentially the communication of vision, and the ultimate purpose which is to change behaviour, is purposeless unless that communication has been allowed to be loose enough to pass through the filters of each individual for interpretation and absorption into the somatic/muscle memory.

There are some fun and highly effective ways to do this too. Contact sue@changeworksblog.com to engage in conversation!

or visit our web: www.changeworkscom.co.uk

“We must become the change we want to see in the world.”
Mohandas Gandhi

 Sir Alan Steer, headteacher of a school in Ilford in the UK, dared to raise his head above the parapet on Friday to say that adults are bad role models for young people. In his government-commissioned report on behaviour, Sir Alan states that adults set a bad example with behaviour that is greedy and aggressive.  He highlights the responsibility of adults in creating the culture of good and bad behaviour. 

Whether or not we agree with Alan Steer, it is true that as adults and as leaders we need to model the behaviour that we want others to follow. I believe that this is the quickest and surest way to organisational and cultural change.  Yes of course clarify your vision and write your mission statements.  Have your organisational values.  But, a word of warning, this will mean nothing if you fail to give your people a clear indication of the behaviours that you expect. 

Start with a small set of clearly defined behaviours.  This is easier said than done and often a good facilitation session with the MD and/or senior management group will be required to help you get there! Tools to help this include:

• Imagine If Frame
• Write the story/script of success/failure
• Translate into behaviours

Then all you need is people to model the behaviour.  This is where the ‘activists’ or change champions come in.  A number of people (from all levels, backgrounds etc) who already exhibit the behaviours that you are looking for.  Champion them and then let them loose.  Human beings are natural modellers.  It is how we develop from infancy.  I think it is a gift of evolution because we leave the womb way to vulnerable.  So we model adults and others behaviour as soon as we start breathing. 

If you have enough of these change champions (you need around 10% of your workforce) this will ‘seed’ behaviour and start to create catching behaviour.  They will need briefing and supporting and the programme will need managing, but the results are amazing: rapid, contagious change that brings you quick rewards.

As a quick exercise to discover behaviours, it might be useful for you to consider these points:
1. Describe in a few words the characteristics of your current culture.
2. Describe the changes that you would like to see being established.
3. Try to identify 3 behaviours that, if present in your company, represent exactly the culture that you want. And define what these behaviours look like.   

You can read about what Sir Alan said at the BBC Website.  

And here is a great book: Viral Change – The Alternative to Slow, Painful and Unsuccessful Management of Change in Organizations, by Herrero Leandro

Finally, Herrero will be talking about Viral Change at the CIPR Inside annual internal communication conference:

            WHAT Inside Story (CIPR/CIPR Inside)

            WHEN Monday, September 29, 2008
            WHERE  London, TBC

Please contact me for more info about this event:  sue@changeworksblog.com