Wow, I'm flabbergasted ... I would be interested in reading the entire column.

Obviously, part of a corporate communicator's job is to support the company he works for and the employees who work for his company. And obviously, that will include some degree of cheerleading.

But to say that employees have "nothing but undying love for Wal-Mart"? What about all the employees who are fighting to unionize?

To say "So why all the negative press? Nobody can truly answer that"? Surely no one in the company is unaware that Walmart has numerous business practices that are controversial, including where much of their product is manufacutered to pricing policies they have for their suppliers. (FYI, I happen to enjoy shopping at Walmart and I don't think they're the "evil empire" that many do. But I also don't think the company is perfect.)

As for the actual content of the meeting - sure, it's nice to convey the excitement of the big-name entertainment and the enthusiasm of the crowd, but what did the CEO actually SAY? What were Walmart's accomplishments and challenges last year? What are they doing to continue those accomplishments and overcome the challenges? What were their "hits and misses" last year?

As an employee, I would completely discount everything in an article with this tone. As a corporate communicator at a Fortune 500 company (a specialty retailer) with 32,000 employees, I would be embarrassed to publish such schlock -- and our employees would let me know what schlock it was. (Fortunately, my boss would never let me get away with something like that, even if I tried.)

Andrea

My thoughts exactly, Andrea (except, shopping in Wal-Mart is, for me, a stern psychological survival test).

I shared with you most of the first half of the letter. Here is the rest (warning; it doesn't get any better):

By the tone of the Shareholders' Meeting, Wal-Mart is changing and growing everyday to make sure the public knows our customer is always #1. Not too long ago, walmartfacts.com was launched to give the facts about the company to anyone interested.

Mr. Sam once said, "Wal-Mart's business is 75 percent people. Those wonderful associates out there, they're all mission-bound to take care of our customers." This continues to be true and reminds me of every associate that attended the Shareholders' Meeting, especially Jeff Clark, co-manager of Store 3463 in Brandon, Fla. ...

Jeff was recognized at the opening general session for rising to the occasion and saving a 16-month-old child after he had stopped breathing. This is just one of the many stories that sets Wal-Mart associates apart from the competition. Lee Scott says he is most touched by listening to associates tell their stories, and it helps to share the real story of Wal-Mart, not what is misconstrued in the press.

If you have a story, don't keep it to yourself, tell us what Wal-Mart truly means to you. The more those heart-felt stories get out, the quicker the public will see the true story of Wal-Mart.

OK, I should have said that I like shopping at Walmart once in a while, when it's not busy. (Walmart on a Saturday afternoon? Ugh!) Plus the one I go tohas the best photographer I've ever taken my son to.

In terms of the column, I see a couple of kernels of what Mr. Schrag could have talked about. For instance, he talked about the negative press the company gets, then later mentions walmartfacts.com. Why not turn this into "one of the challenges our company faces is a negative image, and one of the things we're doing to fix that is our new web site, walmartfacts.com, targeted at so-and-so. We believe this new site will allow us to blah blah blah by blah blah blah... "

I would also ditch the line about "By the tone of the Shareholders' Meeting, Wal-Mart is changing and growing everyday to make sure the public knows our customer is always #1."

I think it really damages this communicator's credibility by implying (true or not) that because of the tone at the meeting, he knows that Walmart is changing and growing. Shouldn't he know that anyway? As a general employee, I would expect a communicator to already know this - to know more than I do. And speaking of changing and growing, HOW is Walmart changing and growing?

I'm sure we could go on and on about this. And it's possible that some of these kinds of topics are covered elsewhere in Walmarts employee communication vehicles. But somehow I feel like these "cheerleading" articles are the norm at Walmart.

It's funny because I read this post two minutes before I read Robert Scoble's latest post: http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/2005/08/23.html#a10952

"I'm more excited about Microsoft than I have been in a long time. Going to Silicon Valley really turned my crank. Got me going. Steve Gillmor has a little bet with us that Pandora won't succeed. Hey, Steve, I'm still listening! And it still is cool."

See any differences? Didn't think so.

MS

Good Lord. No wonder people not in the business speak with such disdain of "rhetoric." That's truly awful. But of course, we all already know that, so I won't expound on the hideous hilarity of it all.

>> if you were to advise young David on how and why to stop cheerleading and start communicating, what would you say? <<

Well, let's start with goals. What is David trying to accomplish? Two things it seems: stoking company pride and humanizing a company that is dangrously close to becoming Public Enemy #1. The goals are both appropriate (perhaps not the first ones I'd choose, but they're not horribly off target), it's the methods that are ludicrous.

Cheerleading in this fashion is a cop-out, bandwagon attempt to fan the embers of company pride, requiring almost no effort at all. It's like the last day of the political conventions: Everybody loves balloons, right? The trouble with that approach is twofold: First, it relies on an extremely weak motivator (the old "your friends are jumping off the cliff" bit that most people outgrow by their early 20s), second, it's an oblique admission that the embers need stoking at all. Better, I think, to *assume* that company pride is high, or let that thought grow by enthymeme. Angela already remarked on the absence of evidence of company accomplishment. That would be the first thing I would tout. Treat the employees like the intelligent people you desperately hope they are, and share with them the goals and triumphs. Dry facts and figures aren't going to enthuse much, of course, so don't go that route. Profits up by X%? How many other companies did that well? (Implication: We're part of an elite group.) Customer loyalty of X%? How many other retailers can claim that? (Implication: The people we're really working for truly do appreciate us. Could also feed the Elite line if it's on a par with organizations like Bloomingdale's and Sacks.) In other words, distinguish the company, and the employees will begin to feel distinguished. This is particularly true if you emphasize the ways in which low- to mid-level employees directly contribute to those accomplishments. An anecdote or two directly illustrating that causality couldn't hurt. The best part is that it does so without ever acknowledging that The Organization might have lost it's luster for some, and it might even serve to polish up the dull spots for some of the doubting Thomases.

The second bit, humanizing the company through the life-saving accomplishments of individual employees, is not a bad strategy for confronting the public demonzation of the organization. Unfortunately, it only works if you assume that such anecdotes are unique to Wal-Mart. Who would NOT "rise to the occasion and save a 16-month-old child" if they were at all capable? Surely that sort of life-saving heroism does not exist solely in Wal-Mart associates. It's not central to the store, it's not something unique to Wal-Mart's mission, so how does it humanize Wal-Mart (as opposed to Wal-Mart employees, whom we already assume are of the human persuasion)? Humanizing the company means focusing on something uniquely Wally. What does it mean to be all about the customer? How is Wal-Mart as a whole making people's lives better, and how are Wal-Mart employees aiding that mission? Surely there's a family out there with some tale of woe that was eased by the presence or even intervention of Wal-Mart. Most large organizations sponsor scholarships or internships, community advocacy, grassroots efforts in local branches that somehow assisted local youth, ... something quietly dramatic, rather than the momentary and obvious heroism of saving a child's life. The former is personal. The latter is undeniably important, but also unfortunately generic.

Any discussion of community involvement will of course require addressing the bad press that "young David" brushed away so blithely. (I might add that's a fatal statement. "No one really knows." Is he serious?) It may even require admitting that in other areas, Wal-Mart has made mis-steps. Acknowledging the controversies, however, provides opportunities to directly address them and to explain the company perspective. Pre-emption trumps dismissal. At the very least, you can trivialize complaints by outnumbering them with success stories. Perhaps even consider discussing (in whatever approved, cloaked terms are required by the cloak-and-dagger execs) how Wal-Mart is planning to make amends for past errors in corporate judgement.

And then, only at the end, after building a solid, subtle case, can you drop the balloons. Better to stick with just one, though. If ever there was a company in need of quiet dignity in the face of the whirlwind, it's Wal-Mart.

Scoble: Hey, Young David, you've got some brown stuff on your nose.

Young David: Kettle-black, Scoble.

To DeAnna's thoughtful post, I'd become convinced--before I read Young David's column--that Wal-Mart was basically deciding not to talk one bit to its people about its complex relationship with the modern societies in which it's doing business.

I agree with you: If he's going to bring this up, he's got to be willing to go farther than this.

As it is, his column is:

Happy Birthday, To You.
Happy Birthday To You.
Happy Birthday. Dear Mommy-Who-Sometimes-Drinks-Too-Much,
Happy Birthday To You.
Hoorraayyy!!!!!!

His column does more harm than good, and the fact that it went out at all is the first good argument I've ever heard for a MORE stringent approval process.

And if Wal-Mart communication managers actually DID approve this? Then the company has gone slightly insane.

And here I thought I was the only person in the world who becomes totally disoriented any time I walk into a Wal-Mart store.
I've been inside one exactly twice in the last 18 months, and one time doesn't count -- I was in the automotive center, trying to buy new tires for my car, but left after one of the much vaunted Wal-Mart associates managed to insult me twice in the space of 15 seconds.

I haven't seen anything like the editor's column in a long, long time. You can find similar examples if you go back into corporate archives from roughly the 1930s to the 1950s. That doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad column, just that it resonates more with an earlier era.

What hit me was the vision of thousands of associates sharing their undying love for the company. At a shareholders' meeting, no less. This doesn't describe a company where people like to work and who want to serve customers the best way they know how; this describes a cult. Someone decided that the Wal-Mart shareholders meeting needed to be a total reaffirmation of the employee experience, no matter what anyone outside the four walls thought or did. For the editor to focus on the enraptured experience of employees was a mistake -- he should have talked about the customer experience -- that should be the ultimate reaffirmation of the employee experience.

Wal-Mart management probably loved the column, though. And that should tell them something important right there, and provide a hint as to why they're having the problems they're having.

Glynn

8am, and I'm *still* choking on the hyperbole of a euphoric stockholders' meeting. Seriously. Who gets excited about that, if it's actually a stockholders' meeting? Isn't that just about the most boring fair on the planet? (spelling intentional)

i'm not an employee communicator by profession, but i am an employee of a large corporation. if i were to receive a communication like his, it would be passed around the office like wildfire with people adding their two cents about how this guy is such a tool.

outside my corporate profession, i am an activist and would have the following advice for dear david: checkout www.wakeupwalmart.com for the latest info on how walmart discriminates against its employees (a class action lawsuit was filed in 2003, on behalf of all women employees since 1998 www.walmartclass.com). Walmart also has violated Child Labor Laws (in our own country!), and supports companies that use overseas sweatshops to produce their goods.

i would guess, however, that his company has internal blocks to accessing those types of websites. his comments wreak of corporate brainwashing.

i hope you all will take a moment to read the dish on walmart (and sam's club!), and stage a boycott of your own against the company. the employees are counting on you!

I love it when my loathing of a business's services or products so beautifully dovetails with a boycott request.

Would that McDonalds tasted any less good to me now than it did when I was 10.

Can someone tell me what wal-mart issue of wal-mart world talks about the 16 month old child that was choking? I was the employee in 2002 who received the hero award "above and beyond" for saving the life of a baby girl who was choking to death.I was an optician, ABOC and certified First aid/CPR instructor at the time. I WAS TERMINATED BY WAL-MART 3-17-2008.I would like to know who David Shrag is talking about and how current this info is. please, someone e mail me asap.I have an appt with my attorney 4-21-2008. Thank you:) Pam