Test your message against reality
15 July 2009
Test your message against your many realities
An effective implementation gets everyone aboard; lets the organisation develop harmony, reduce friction, enhance respect and improve understanding through better communication and the demonstration of sustainable strong commitment. This leads to improved employee engagement and this in turns leads to more satisfied customers and better profit for the organisation.
So lets test that in an example case study...
Scenario:
The top management has just finished the meeting, the decision has been taken: as we need to demonstrate we have a Corporate Social Responsibility Policy to win the large contracts we desire… Everyone will now have additional responsibilities to the environment (that might save us some money) & the community (that might help us recruit). A new initiative shall from this moment permeate the whole organisation...
Here is the real challenge:
How do all employees get to know, understand and live out this new initiative in their daily life at work?
To think and live and conduct themselves according to the new objectives and change the way they think and operate, in every meeting with the customers or with colleagues, enabling us in a years time to measure an improvement in our “Carbon Footprint” and our “Community Fund Raising” score?
Test the Message with Reality:
People working in one reality have formulated the message but the receivers of the message could be living in several different realities.
Success lies in the ability to formulate and deliver the message in a way that enables the recipients to accept it based on their own reality. Sure, it is the same organisation but irrespective if one works in the Warehouse, in the Reception, in the IT Department or Management one needs to accept the message based on one’s own reality.
Perception is projection.
My cynical comments in brackets earlier on are a simple version of that. If the foundations of the project are flawed or the origins of the project are suspect you already have the resistance army in full swing. Add in silo mindsets and cultural differences into the global corporate melting pot and you are really up the creek without a paddle..?
We might know where we want people to end up in there thinking and behaviour, it is just a shame we have to start from where they currently are…
How are you taking the many realities in your organisation into consideration?
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