Genius employee communication

Sorry I haven't blogged in a while. I've been busy crisscrossing the country doing some very interesting consulting and in-house seminar work. The good news is that I've had some very cool communication experiences—including sitting down with a real-live CEO for more than an hour!—which I'll be sharing here in the next couple of days.

Last week, I was in San Francisco, and I saw an example of superior employee communication in action.

I was wandering around the city, when I stumbled upon the iPod store down by Union Square. I was killing time until the bar at the Top of the Mark opened, and my iPod had been acting kind of goofy, so I thought what the hell, I'll go in there and see if they can fix it.

The iPod stuff is on the second floor of the massive store, so I walked up, and went to a guy who was sitting at a register.

'Can you help me?' I asked him. 'My iPod won't seem to hold a charge, no matter how long I charge it.'

The kid took my iPod, hit some buttons on it, asked me some questions, then said:

'Yeah, you're going to have to talk to a genius.'

At first I thought he was screwing with me, the little GenX bastard. Then I saw where he was pointing. Across the room was a long counter with five kids working away on iPods. Above the counter was a big sign that read:

'Genius Bar.'

'Just check in with the Genius Concierge,' said the dude at the register. 'They'll take care of you.'

And they did. In fact, I never even had to wait for a real 'Genius.' The Genius Concierge, even though his job was only supposed to be setting up appointments for the various Geniuses, fixed my iPod for me right there on the spot.

What a brilliant stroke by Apple. With just a clever change of a title, they take ordinary tech support people and turn them into Geniuses. And they take a customer support person and turn him into a Genius Concierge.

The workers feel better about what they do, the customers feel like they're in excellent hands . . . and everybody leaves feeling good about themselves.

Pure genius.

The right way to do a town hall

Last week, I saw a really cool Town Hall meeting. And no, that is not an oxymoron . . . though I've sat through enough boring Town Halls to start to believe it might be.

This CEO was terrific. Down to earth, funny, honest . . .and not afraid to tackle the tough questions. And he also did a couple of little things that really made a difference:

· He wasn't introduced. That's right, rather than have the plant manager (the Town Hall was at 5 in the morning, for about 200 third shift workers at a glass-making facility) get up and treat the CEO like a celebrity with a long, windy introduction, the CEO just grabbed the mic and started talking. Establishing right away as a down-to-earth guy.

· He swore a couple of times. That's right, he cursed. He said the occasional 'bullshit,' and referred to 'kicking the competition's ass.' Since that is exactly how most of the people in the audience talk, it really resonated with the crowd.

· He refused to ramble. In fact, he insisted that the audience not let him ramble. At the beginning of the meeting, he told the crowd he wanted to give them an industry update before moving to the Q&A—but he wanted a volunteer who would raise her hand if he took too long with his update. A woman volunteered, the CEO took too long, she raised her hand, he stopped in mid-sentence and started answering questions. What a brilliant masterstroke: give the audience power over the content of the Town Hall.

· He didn't play footsies with the local leadership. One of the tough questions came from a line worker who was pulling all kinds of overtime, working seven days a week. When he asked when it was going to end, the CEO kicked it over to the plant manager, who fumbled through a bullshit response about falling behind because two trucks got stuck in a snowstorm and blah blah blah. But he ducked the main question: when would it end? When the CEO took the mic back, he said, 'You sound like Bush . . . no exit strategy.' Then he made the manager commit to getting a hard date by the end of the day. And he did.

I don't know if these little things would have mattered if the CEO was a jerk to begin with . . . but I know that they helped make an already good communicator a lot better.

CEO gets dirty

On my previous post this morning, I talked about some of the things a CEO did right during a Town Hall meeting.

But I wanted to mention that one the most important thing he did happened after the meeting.

During the Q&A portion of the Town Hall, a woman stood up in the back of the room and said something like this:

'We talk about quality all the time around here, but we don't practice it on the shop floor. Machine 16 has been dripping oil on our heads for a month, no matter how many shop orders we put in to fix it. All we do is band-aid the thing and it breaks again a week later.'

The CEO, not being familiar with that particular machine, passed the question to the branch manager. He, of course, launched into a jargon-laden speech about 'Root Cause Analysis' and other Six Sigma terms.

The CEO listened to it, took back the microphone, and said:

'I won't stand for band-aid solutions. What was the number of that machine?'

The woman told him, he wrote it down, and the minute the meeting was over the CEO stalked out to the shop floor to look at the machine. And you better believe that the days of the band-aid solutions for Machine #16 were over for good.

There used to be a popular concept, back in the 70s and 80s, I believe, called Management By Walking Around (MBWA). Somehow, as executives got busier—and more full of themselves—that concept has gone way, replaced forever by e-mail and teleconferences.

So many problems in so many companies could be solved if executives would get off their asses, walk around, and talk to employees. Don't you think?

People still need writing training!

Yesterday, I was the keynote speaker to kick off PRSA's Southwest District Annual Conference. More than 150 people came to Albuquerque for the two-day event, and I had a lot of fun (and one truly excellent meal—a 'hunter's sampler platter' of antelope, wild boar and venison . . . I may be too much of a sissy to ever hunt an animal, but by GOD can I eat them).

Anyway, after spending some time at the conference, two things spring to mind:

Where the hell is IABC in New Mexico? They don't have a chapter there at all—despite the presence of a couple of urban areas like Albuquerque and Santa Fe.

Obviously, there's a need for it. If PRSA can pull more than 150 to a conference in Albuquerque in the middle of February, the folks down there are obviously willing to attend professional development events.

But I asked around and there is no IABC chapter. The typical response I got was:

'Oh, I'd love to join IABC, but they don't have a chapter here.'

Now, maybe they had one and it died . . . maybe they never had one . . . I don't know. But it's certainly worth asking the question.

The second thing that really hit home with me was how much people wanted conference sessions on writing. That's right, writing. This event had one session on writing . . . and it attracted so many people it had to be moved to a new room at the last minute.

Which is always what happens. When I go to IABC's International Conference, the sessions on writing by people like Ann Wylie and Don Ranly are always filled to the brim, and overflowing in the halls.

So why don't more conference planners get it? Ragan is just as guilty as anyone else when it comes to our conferences, but at least we offer Jim Ylisela and Mark Ragan's Advanced Writing and Editing seminar series, which, by the way, always sells out, too.

We may like to talk about strategic employee engagement and measuring the ROI of our strategic communication plans . . . but when you get right down to it, we're still just a bunch of writers, right?

I'd rather be blackballed than blackberried

It happened again. I got blackberried.

I was in the middle of a wonderful e-mail exchange with a colleague I've known for years. I had just penned a fairly elaborate note, asking her if I could do a story about this neat thing she's doing with her intranet.

I also asked her if she was going to be in Vegas for the Corporate Communicators Conference, because I wanted to have dinner.

In all, there were also about two or three other things in my last e-mail that she could have commented on.

But all I got back was a one-word answer, in all lower-case letters:

ok

That was it. After two or three long e-mails and a great discussion about many things, I get . . . ok. OK, what? OK we can have dinner? OK I can profile this feature on her intranet? OK she was going to be in Vegas?

Well, I did what I always do in that case: I started tearing frantically through our past correspondence, trying to see if I had written anything that could have offended her (I'm one of those people who is constantly, it seems, offending people without realizing it.)

But I couldn't find anything, so I immediately started worrying that maybe something had happened to her. Why did she shut down? Was she sick? Was she drunk? Should I get drunk in case she was drunk, so I could communicate on her level? Did she fall out of her chair? Was she having computer problems? Should I get drunk just in case?

So I fired off a message asking her if anything was the matter.

'Sorry about that,' she wrote back about two hours later. 'I got pulled into a meeting, and sent that note via my Blackberry.'

This has happened before. These damned electronic ball and chains turn smart communicators into GenX instant messengers, with all those irritating abbreviations, lower-case words and terse expressions.

There should be a law: Every Blackberry or similar device should automatically build in a tagline to go with every e-mail it sends. It should read:

'This message was sent by a wireless device with tiny little baby keys, which makes it very hard to type anything of substance. The sender should probably be listening to whatever is happening in the meeting, or having dinner with his family, or reading a novel, but is instead doing his best to manipulate these tiny little keys because it is SO important that he be connected to work every single minute of every day. So please excuse the jerky message. Thank you.'

You, too, can bullshit your way through Six Sigma!

I don't normally like to cover things out here that I write about in Ragan Report, but I can't help myself this time, because I have had the best idea of my career.

In my page seven column, due out next week, I talk about how communicators can harness the power of 'Six Sigma.'

You don't know Six Sigma? Well, it's real big right now. Nine out of the last ten consulting clients I've had use its principles. Basically, Six Sigma is a way to solve problems and improve efficiency. Here's an official definition I found on the Internet:

'A quality measure and improvement program developed by Motorola that focuses on the control of a process to the point of ± six sigma (standard deviations) from a centerline, or 3.4 defects per million items. It includes identifying factors critical to quality as determined by the customer, reducing process variation and improving capabilities, increasing stability and designing systems to support the six sigma goal.'

Woooeeee!! That's a mouthful, ain't it?

In my column, I go into great detail about how we need to learn Six Sigma, if we ever want to run with the big dogs in the organization.

And there are two ways we can learn it:

We could actually take the Six Sigma training. But it's probably real boring.

That's why I like option number 2, which I call the 'Crescenzo Method of Six Sigma.'

My method can be summed up in five words:

'Bullshit your way through it.'

After poring over Six Sigma materials, and hearing far too many executives bury employees with Six Sigma buzzwords and jargon, I have realized that in order to bullshit our way through it, we just have to learn some of the important Sigma terms.

Of course, there are many terms, and we don't have time to learn them all. But we can start with three. And these three are very flexible, so we can use them in all kinds of situations. Here they are:

Root Cause Analysis. Or RCA. In regular English, this is called, 'finding the cause of the problem.' When to use: Anytime you don't know the answer to a problem. Sample Usage: 'The thing I don't want to do, Dwayne, is band-aid the problem. We're in the process of establishing the RCA.'

Permanent Corrective Action. Or PCA. This is what you do once you establish the RCA. When to use: If a problem has been lingering for a while, and you can't seem to fix it. Sample Usage: 'Dwayne, the Six Sigma team has already established the RCA, but we're struggling with implementing the PCA because it represents a severe paradigm shift.'

Problem Solving Tracking Sheet. Or PSTS. I don't know what this is, but it doesn't matter, because I know how to use the acronym. When to use: 'Whenever someone is threatening to solve the problem without you. Sample Usage: 'That's a great idea, Dwayne. We should set aside a couple of hours next week to enter that into the PSTS. Can I get on your calendar?' That ought to be enough to take care of old Dwayne, right?

I'm in Denver right now, about to speak to the IABC Chapter tomorrow, and the gang is taking me out for margaritas in 15 minutes.

When I get back—or, depending on the quality of the margaritas, maybe tomorrow morning—I'll offer you two bonus tips for implementing the 'Crescenzo Method' of Six Sigma.

In the meantime, if any of you are using Six Sigma and can offer your own tips, in the immortal words of America's president, bring them on!

Yesterday, I revealed the basic premise of the 'Crescenzo Method' for using Six Sigma, which can be summed up in five words: 'Bullshit Your Way Through It.'

Once you start using my method, things will change dramatically for you in your career.

And to go along with yesterday's basic strategy, here are two bonus tips:

1) Try to combine the three terms I talked about yesterday—Root Cause Analysis, Permanent Corrective Action, and Problem Solving Tracking Sheet—as much as possible, because they are very impressive when used together.

2) Never refer to the full phrase if you can help it. Always use the acronyms. That way, there is less of a chance that someone will understand you. And, it gives you a chance to establish yourself as an expert and the other person as a doofus.

Let's say, for example, that you got drunk last week and forgot to send out the employee publication. A senior manager, whose picture was going to be on page one in an exciting grip-and-grin shot, is upset, and comes to see you.

Unfortunately for this senior manager, he has not taken the Six Sigma training, and is wholly unfamiliar with The Crescenzo Method.

Manager: 'What the hell happened to the publication, Murray?'

You: 'Mort, I've got a Six Sigma team drilling down to get to the RCA. Once we uncover it, we'll have several PCA options, and we've already implemented a PSTS in order to make sure we don't have a repeat occurrence.'

Manager: What? What's that you say? PRSA? PST? ACLU? What are you talking about?

You (in a sneering, superior tone): RCA, Mort? Root . . .Cause . . . Analysis, Mort? Hello? Six Sigma? Please tell me you've taken the training, Mort.'

At which point, Mort will no doubt slink out of the room, tail between his legs.

An 'engaging' event

I don't normally like shilling for various Ragan events . . . even though I do believe that Ragan seminars and workshops are the best in the business. It just seems odd to promote an event that I'm a part of. But I need to make an exception.

I have to use this space to mention an upcoming event in New York, because I really think it's on a topic communicators need to be aware of: employee engagement.

I know . . . I know . . . I was suspicious of this latest 'trend' too. Like any of the other flavors of the month, I figured this was just another way to make 'employee communication' sound more important.

But then I went out to dinner with some really smart people last week in Denver and all of them were talking about engagement. One woman, who works for Coors, has brought an organizational development background to her work in communications there, and she believes that employee engagement is the future—because it brings communications together with other company disciplines, such as OD and HR. And at Coors, they are actually measuring how engagement is affecting the bottom line.

In fact, everywhere I turn these days, I hear people talking about engagement.

That's why I think this event in New York is so exciting. The full title is: Employee Engagement: How to keep employees motivated and performance high.

It will be at The Roosevelt Hotel, May 18-20.

And it seems like Ragan has every heavy hitter in the business coming to this thing to discuss engagement: Shel Holtz, Les Potter, Brad Whitworth, Roger D'Aprix, Angela Sinickas . . . the list goes on and on.

I'll be there the entire time. Hope to see you there. We'll see if we can nail down this engagement thing once and for all.

A moment of silence, please, for Hunter S. Thompson.

The gonzo journalist passed quietly yesterday, after reportedly blowing a hole through his head with one of his beloved guns.

I owe Thompson a debt of gratitude. He is one of the writers who made me want to be a writer. He also made me want to drink a lot and do drugs, and he's one of the main reasons I flunked out of college the first time around, and didn't end up graduating until I was 26.

(The other main reason I flunked out was my roommate, Barzo, who over the course of our one semester together slowly sold off all of the furniture in our dorm room—including my clock radio and rented refrigerator—for drugs, until all that was left was the bare bunk beds. He even sold the sheets).

If it were not for Thompson, I would not have gained the valuable life experience of running a hot-dog stand, working as a truck loader, delivering pizzas, waiting tables, cooking on the line, working an assembly line in a factory, or dozens of other real jobs I accepted after washing out of Northern Illinois University.

Say what you want about Thompson, but nobody captured the fall of the American Dream better than he did in the late sixties and early seventies. I don't know that anyone better captured the pessimistic mood of the times, either.

His 'fiction,' or 'gonzo journalism,' or whatever you want to call it was very good. But I think his best writing came in his collection of letters. If you ever want to get a flavor for what young people in this country felt during the Vietnam War and Watergate era, pick up a copy of Fear and Loathing in America, his collection of letters.

Thompson was a prolific letter writer. And the letters—to editors, friends, family, politicians, celebrities—capture the era better than anything else, I think. And the frenetic nature of the man himself.

Here's an opening from a letter he wrote to Jann Wenner, publisher of Rolling Stone, from the 1972 campaign trail:

'Dear Jann—

Jesus, what's the other one? Every journalist in America knows the 'Five W's.' But I can only remember four. 'Who, What, Why, Where' . . . and, yes . . . of course . . . 'When!'

But what the hell? An item like that tends to pinch the interest gland . . . so you figure it's time to move out: Pack up the $419 Abercrombie & Fitch elephant skin suitcase; send the phones and the scanner and the tape viewers by Separate Float, load everything else into the weightless Magnesium Kitbag . . . then call for a high-speed cab to the airport; load on and zip off to wherever The Word says it's happening.

The public expects no less. They want a man who can zap around the nation like a goddamn methedrine bat: Racing from airport to airport, from one crisis to another—sucking up the news and then spewing it out by the 'Five W's' in a package that makes perfect sense.'

Indeed. Thompson always made perfect sense to me . . . even when I stopped doing drugs and went back to college. Though it wasn't necessarily in that order.

It's enough to make me believe in spirits and ghosts. I'd love to read Thompson's Fear and Loathing in the Afterworld, to get a sense of what it's like over there.

Beating the Habit

There is big news in the management consulting/self help industry:

Stephen Covey has come up with a new Habit!!!

Covey, of course, is the best-selling author of "7 Habits of Highly Effective People.' He is also a professional speaker, management consultant, corporate preacher, and, I think, a motivational speaker.

Now, I'll be the first to admit I never read '7 Habits of Highly Effective People.' I tried to, but it kept getting in the way of my own '7 Habits of Ineffective People Who Are Not Afraid of Life'—namely: drinking, eating, boating, traveling, going to Cubs games, teaching my son how to play baseball, and drinking.

With all those Habits firmly in place, I never had time for any of Covey's Habits.

And I never really felt like I was missing anything . . . until now. Because the man has come up with an 8th Habit. And this new Habit must be a doozy, because Covey has written an entire book about it.

Think about that. Covey was able to cram all 7 of the other habits into one book. But the 8th Habit gets a book to itself! Do you realize how important it must be?

The book lists at $26, and is titled: 'The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness.'

Hoo Boy!! I thought Effectiveness was pretty damned good to begin with, but Effectiveness is bullshit compared to Greatness! Who the hell would settle for Effectiveness when Greatness could be had for just $26 more?

And of course, the burning question running rampant through management meetings all over corporate America is this:

Does the man have a 9th Habit that he's holding back? Or, dare I even think it, a 10th?

I can only imagine the titles:

'The 9th Habit: From Greatness to Immortality!'

'The 10th Habit: From Immortality to Being God!'

How many more Habits does the man have up his sleeve? We'll have to wait until his next kid turns 19 and wants to go to Harvard, and old Stephen has to roll out another Habit to come up with the cash for tuition, I suppose.