The What Goes Around Blog

Effective Communication and Social Media – Policy Not Required

Effective Communication

Effective communication matters right? Last time I looked there were roughly a bazillion articles and charts and other stuff available about effective communication. It’s important – we want to know our message is getting out there and being correctly understood, in order that it can be usefully responded to, and/or acted upon. And when communication passes through the filters of different people and teams, these filters apply distortion to the message. Kisu Kisu, or Chinese Whispers if you prefer, is an example of this many are familiar with.

Email versus Telephone

The channel you choose to use also has a bearing on effectiveness. I’ve used some data I found lurking down the back of the sofa in this little home made movie to illustrate how tough it is to correctly interpret a message. I made this little film partly in response to some tweeting coming from the Training Journal Winter Conference yesterday (search #TJ12 on Twitter for the backchannel). I got involved with some tweeting between David Goddin and Perry Timms about whether or not a social media policy is necessary, here are a couple of exerpts from the conversation:

I don’t think a social media policy is necessary, neither do I think it is helpful or productive. Via the #TJ12 I suggested that examples of where social media policy has enabled stuff would be helpful. Have you got any you can share please?

I believe a social media policy supports increasingly out dated hierarchical models, and I hope this film shows in part why I think this. I also made this film partly because I promised Erin I would make a talking blog post. Sorry for the delay Erin.

Effective Communication – Some Challenges

The tools we use impact our effectiveness.

The filters and hierarchies our words and sounds pass through create distortions, and this is partly why I think it is critically important to Tell Your Own Story.

A social media policy in part seeks to support the very hierarchy that social media is dissolving.

Social Media as an Enabler

If the culture is right for social, it’s a fabulous way to support better work, better business, better learning. If the culture is not right – I suggest you think about leaving social to one side until such time as you can fix the much more important stuff like why you don’t trust people where you work. Fix that, and a social media policy is not required.

Tell Your Own Story

Don’t ask other people to prepare your own story. If you want it to matter – do it yourself.

I’m following an interesting discussion on LinkedIn (yes – there are still a few of them happening amid the slew of self promotional spam) about presentations. It’s full of hints, tips and ideas. Stuff about keep it visual, tell stories, Prezi gets a mention as ‘an aid on the rapid journey to the vomitorium’ and a particularly smart bloke (thanks Alan Whitford) even suggests taking your guitar along and putting part of your story to music. And though it wasn’t me who suggested that, I accept that in replaying the idea I am guilty of the self promotion tactic I just derided. Ha!

I’d like to share a small part of the conversation that took place between Matthew Hudson and me. Matthew asks:

One thing that I am constantly struggling with is writing decks of slides for someone else, who I haven’t met, to present. Pass it up the line…..”he/she needs 5 slides that covers 2.1minutes on what the organisation aspires to over the next 20 years!!”

You know the stuff!! Any tips?

To which I replied:

Hi Matthew – how about something like….do it yourself dude/dudess? I hate that crap too, just as I dislike writing stuff for other people. When I feel I have no option I quite like doing it in a style that is so obviously not theirs. If they are lazy enough to use it – then the lack of congruence often shines through. That person may be too arrogant to notice – but others are not.

In response, Matthew offers:

Thanks Doug. I’ll tell that to the minister as I leave! 🙂

And I added:

I guess it all depends on how badly the minister wants to tell a compelling story versus puke up a bunch of vague, disconnected hairballs of soulless crappy data.

Tell your own story.

photo credit

Starbucks Paying Tax – Empty Threats?

Have you walked past an emptier than usual Starbucks lately? If yes, you’re not the only one, far from it. Since the news broke that Starbucks hasn’t paid corporation tax for fourteen of the past fifteen years, my timeline has been busy with tweets about people walking by and seeking out a Costa Coffee, Caffe Nero, or even an independent coffee shop. There are many alternatives to Starbucks on the high street. They’ve never been my preference – I think their coffee sucks, and maybe that’s another story…

But for now, hallelujah, happy days – Starbucks has seen the light and is deciding it will pay more tax in the future. More than nothing eh? Well I guess that is a start. I feel for the people on the Starbucks frontline, I doubt they knew of their bosses decisions to play the tax system for maximum corporate advantage, yet what little job security they have is being made even more fragile by the current absence of customers.

In its press release, Starbucks says, ‘We have listened to feedback from our customers and employees and understand that, to maintain and further build public trust, we need to do more.’ You don’t say?! And this admission implies to me that listening, whether it be to customers or employees, has not previously been a Starbucks strong point. So – looking on the bright side (ish), we now have a company willing to tip a few coppers into the UK tax system (at least until they’re sure no one is looking again), and they’ve had some kind of listening epiphany. I hope that this will make Starbucks a better place to work in future.

While all this plays out, other companies being criticised for similar tax avoiding practice include Amazon and Google. Neither of these companies has blinked yet. And why should they? Who do we order our online Christmas shopping from? And where do we go for internet searches? Hmm… Neither Amazon nor Google faces the level of competition that Starbucks does, and of course none of these companies is breaking the law as it stands, however morally repulsed by their decisions we are, or are not.

It strikes me that whilst customer and employee pressure should be given its due, the simplest way for Government to get a grip on this taxation fiasco is to act decisively and change the tax laws. We’re all in this together, right? In the meantime, I’ve booked a day off to go Christmas shopping in the real world, well Brighton at least 🙂