Well, I see that Opening Day is one short week away, as is Holy Week, and both bring with them the promise of Spring and renewal.

My only take on culture is that we're all, without ever meeting, working on a great project, which will always be ongoing. To give it a name, I'd say "peace."

And I'd add that we have to do this through the social media, with occasional moments of face-to-face meeting, which are always full of the wonder of the unexpected, like your experiences in Des Moines and San Francisco, Steve.

But the road --the actual physical transporting of one's body -- has simply become too cruel. A good idea whose time has passed.

Pat

Hmmm. I'm not sure your ass is small enough for you to be handed it so easily, Steve (and that's coming from someone whose ass rivals yours in size and scope).

Mike's words are very nice, and on a good day I completely agree with them. To summarize: if you stay positive and open, and work really hard, and understand your employees, change in a big organization is possible.

But I didn't see Mike citing a whole bunch of compelling case studies of organisations that achieved profound, positive culture change through excellent employee communications (or through anything else for that matter). It takes a rare and exotic combination of enlightened leadership, skilled and sensitive front-line management, compelling (preferably extreme) external forces, superb training, and then, and THEN, great employee communications, to make real change happen.

It's very rare. And it's fleeting. And so much of it depends on the courage and the skills and the mood of the CEO that it's almost absurd that it ever happens.

Mike makes some good points. But you didn't get handed your ass. For all your cynical griping, you have just as much hope and faith as Mike does. Faith and hope keep you going, and they keep loyal readers like me (and Mike) reading.

So take back your big hairless ass and wear it with pride.

As a guy with no ass whatsoever (perhaps because I've had mine handed to me too many times, or perhaps taken and not handed back), I agree with Ron. We communicators like to think we hold the key to culture change, but the reality is that we are (also on a good day) just part of the equation.

Great communication in absence of effective leadership, sound infrastructure, excellent support systems, ample resources and myriad other enablers is just, well, great communication. In the presence of those other things, it can be a powerful tool for helping to solve real problems and, yes, change cultures.

See, if we claim communication has the power to change a culture, we get criticized for being too full of ourselves (or full of something else). But if we claim that communication relies on all those other factors to be truly effective, then we're criticized for hedging our bets and making excuses for our failure to change the culture. Thus it has always been and thus it will always be.

So, let's just do that voodoo that we do so well and fuggedaboudit.

Steve,

Usually, the only surefire way to effect change quickly is for the board of directors to hand the CEO his ass.

Will

Everyone makes great points, and I have to agree with “he who taketh asses”.

The last time a single piece of communication changed a culture, it was Germany and the book was Mein Kampf (MK).

And let’s be honest, if MK was just thrown out on Amazon.com and didn’t have the short angry douche bag hocking it at every rally, it would not have done so well.

Is anyone naïve enough to think that we can change a culture merely with our words? Even after attending 100 Ragan conferences, you will never change your organization solely with communications.

Why?

It’s the subject matter. We’re not writing about love, war, peace, exploration or any of the things that inspire the human soul to spread wings and take flight. We’re writing about the latest benefits program, or the CEO’s latest tussle with the board and an ornery stapler or why TPS reports are vital to the continued scalable growth of the organization. Ragan will help us take this mundane material and make it sizzle, but that is as far as their magic powers can extend.

The communications department is just one small facet of the larger cultural change picture.

First of all, I would like to thank Steve for his profoundly generous concession and for the totally unexpected plug of my site (http://CommsOffensive325.blogharbor.com)—which while by no means asked for, warrants a dinner at Mortons in Chicago after I find my next position.

I also accept that Steve does not wish to be referred as a “rock star”—and I will seek to find other terminology if I engage him again in on another topic (“cult hero” or “resident evil genius of the internal comms profession” come to mind).

But being the combative (at least by the standards of the internal comms profession) type of guy I am, I take issue with some of the comments about the power, or lack thereof, that communicators have to cause change in our organizations.

Words alone do not create change—not even the words of Mein Kampf as one poster stated. But when things which were once forbidden are now encouraged, words accelerate the change process when delivered to the right people at the right time. When behaviors are role modeled and word spreads through formal and informal channels, those words embed change. Even when the CEO is aloof and the HR director is recalcitrant, a story about ground-level improvements initiated by staff in a far-off division can have a huge impact if the word gets out in the right way.

While my Canadian Baby Back Basting friend speaks of my lack of case study evidence, I concede that I offer none. I believe that in the dialogue between internal communication leaders like ourselves (and I believe that anyone with an internal communication blog like Steve’s, Ron’s or even mine is by definition a leader in this profession), we need to be able to move beyond having to defend ideas with copious statistics and manifold success stories.

Instead, we need to move towards advancing new thinking, questioning “tired-and-true” approaches; raising issue with fads that, while popular with clients, could send our industry backwards; and challenging each other, mano a mano, when the comments or content call for it .

And that, ultimately, is why I love Steve Crescenzo. Because, ultimately, not only is he willing to challenge, he’s not afraid to be wrong. By not being afraid to be wrong, he is—intentionally or unintentionally--communicating that we should be less afraid of being wrong too. In my opinion, that’s the kind of communication that could change a culture—ours.

We face this dilemma constantly, with only varying degrees of intensity. Every so often, the execs get upset that some employees aren't buying into the corporate culture; they're not as enamored with the company as the execs are. Some employees don't seem to understand or even know the company's critical performance measures. The execs cry that communications is to blame.

But we put all the information out there that an employee could possibly need to understand corporate goals and objectives. It's accessible, it's easy to read and understand, it's in multiple formats to meet the needs of the print-minded as well as the electronically inclined. Those who WANT to be engaged (or whose managers and supervisors inspire them to be) and who WANT to understand the company and its place in the industry can easily access everything they need to do that. And those who DON'T WANT to do those things never will.

We lead the horses to water and even stick their noses in it by making the intranet the default home page. But if they don't want to drink, we can't keep them from being dehydrated. There will always be a significant chunk of the employee population that just doesn't give a damn; that only wants to put in their time each day and get that paycheck. The only culture they care about is at the local bar or on E!

Some employees have careers, and some just have jobs. 'Twas ever thus, and ever shall be.

Greg--

Have you ever found a way to TELL management this unassailable truth?

David

My experience is that management usually knows this unassailable truth, in their gut. The question is whether they choose to manage to the 80% who do give a damn or to the 20% who don't (or whatever the ratio might be).

(But I'm thinking, Greg, that the real problem is folks don't understand the gecko's cockney accent.) ;-)

Not functioning as a communicator, only as a lowly geek - I think I'll expand on what Mr. Patey said...

I know at least for me - no one cares about geek stuff until it affects them. I'm guilty of it as well...not necessarily in my geek life...but I didn't get involved with local politics until something affected me...affected my kids. Now I'm in there scrapping with the school board, sending letters to the editor, the whole nine. I'm submitting new plans of action, gathering community data for new ideas. But only because it personally affected me.

Same goes with the geek stuff. When a report fails, a process fails - the person most affected is the person in my office flowcharting with me and coming up with better ways, a better process to get the job done. Then they will go and train their peeps on the new way so that no mistakes are made in the future. BRILLIANT! I love it when the gen pop actually tells me what they do and how to make it easier! But they don't...not until it affects them.

How do you make people interested in something that they don't FEEL directly affects them, even if it does? Get them involved in the process? I guess that's called corporate communications...

So Steve - isn't it the very nature of your job to try and change the culture? Am I so naive to think that corporate communications is designed to reach out to everyone no matter their personal or cultural background and bring them into the fold of common ground?

Rebecca:
Yes, it's our job -- for better or worse -- to try to get them ALL to buy in, whether they want to or not. We just can't realistically expect to succeed with the ones who are only there for the paycheck. As long as nothing interrupts THAT process, they couldn't care less what else is going on in the company.
Greg