Tag: internal communication

Internal Communication Strategy

Four dimensions of internal influence: ambassadors, influencers, advocates and followers

mikeklein

One of the enduring memories of my undergraduate education at the University of Wisconsin is a comment made by an otherwise forgotten Statistics professor: “There are two kinds of people in this world – those who think there are two kinds of people, and those who don’t.”

When it comes to organizations and their social dynamics, I tend to think there are four main kinds of people, each of which has distinct roles and needs to be addressed in distinct, yet integrated ways:

  • Ambassadors: formal representatives of the organization or specific initiatives.
  • Influencers: employees/members of the community informally sought for advice, knowledge or support
  • Advocates: individuals who voluntarily share opinions or facilitate initiatives or courses of action
  • Followers: those who have to be asked to take part in initiatives, activities or courses of action

Ambassadors

In recent years, organizations have become more and more aware of the role of social dynamics in driving the success of initiatives and overall performance. For the most part, they have focused, with few exceptions, on intensifying the ambassadorial dimension in the form of line manager training and incentives, and in organizing and orchestrating “ambassador” and “champions” programs where employees below manager level are formally designated as initiative representatives or behavioral role models.

Rarely, however, has the ambassadorial role been integrated with an explicit appreciation of the role of informal influence in driving the success of initiatives and behavioral change, likewise the role of influencers in shaping and circulating knowledge and opinion.

In some cases, the selection of ambassadors is even intended to usurp the influencer role – to the point where an organization would call its representatives “influencers” without any evidence that their opinion carried any organizational weight.

Implicit in the focus on ambassadorship is a focus on control. Executing a formal organizational role, as a manager or a champion, requires the individual to stick to official channels, messages and interpretations in promoting the agenda.

Influencers

Recognizing the limitations of hierarchy and control in driving change and performance, some organizations have invested in research to identify “influencers,” the group which research has identified as “the three percent of employees who drive 90% of the conversations” in a given organization. Through methods like organizational network analysis (ONA) and snowball sampling, it becomes possible to identify the credible individuals who are sought out by their colleagues for knowledge, advice and support.

According to Innovisor, the Copenhagen-based market leader in ONA for large organizations, there is a massive disconnect between those whom managers see as influential and those who employees actually seek out. “When as part of our research, we ask managers to identify whom they see as influencers, there is never much overlap between the manager view and the employee reality.”

It is rare that organizations actively find ways to integrate a real understanding of organizational influence when they adopt an ambassadorial approach to driving messages and initiatives. Much depends on finding appropriate ways for ambassadors and influencers to interact with each other – depending on influencer attitudes towards an initiative or the extent to which they are willing to be exposed publicly.

Advocates

So far, a third group, advocates, has been given little attention as drivers of organizational change and performance.  Ambassadors are selected by the organization and influencers by their peers and colleagues, whereas advocates are self-selected. Some choose to engage out of a commitment to organizational well-being, and others out of sense of opportunity, while those who advocate contrarian positions may do so out of a sense of grievance.

Even though their credibility and levels of authority may be lower than those of key influencers and ambassadors, advocates are nonetheless a critical and often underrated piece of the organizational puzzle, particularly if they are passionate, committed or acting independently. If they can be recruited to participate in the most appropriate ways, the effort involved in identifying them and channeling their activities can be highly beneficial – integrating their energy and enthusiasm and enabling them to be focused in positive, constructive, and efficient ways.

Followers

In most organizations, the percentage of ambassadors, influencers and advocates is dwarfed by a mass of employees who are none of the above – followers.

Followers are a huge percentage of most workforces. But mass mobilization of followers, especially relying solely on ambassadors or on direct internal communication, is often ineffective and generally inefficient.

In part, this has been because the prevailing approach to employee engagement treats all employees as equal, failing to distinguish and legitimize the normal role of a follower – which, simply put, is to amicably accept ABC and to execute XYZ.  Good followership is valuable in ways that are entirely compatible with good ambassadorship, influence sharing and advocacy. But the ways in which internal communication and employee engagement are generally managed and incentivized often leave followers inundated with irrelevant information and bewildered by calls for greater commitment and attention to matters outside of their immediate work scope.

The first step towards success

To bring success back into focus, the first step is to recognize that every organization is comprised of ambassadors, influencers, advocates and followers in varying degrees. Accepting that reality, the next step involves questioning the authoritarianism of ambassador-only interventions and the laziness of one-size-fits-all approaches to communication and engagement. Then, replacing these with an approach which respects the natural roles of employees and harnesses their interest, energy and leadership.  Doing so will maximize the value of organizational influence by integrating its different forms, and create a pathway toward real, systemic and sustainable organizational engagement.

4 Dimensions ICK

Courtesy of IC Kollectif

FREE BOOK OFFER: For deeper insight into the social dynamics of organizations and communities, download, From Lincoln to LinkedIn.  Invoking ancient principles of political communication articulated by Abraham Lincoln in 1840, I look at how identifying, connecting and mobilizing informal leaders can drive social and business communication and results. For a free download, click here.

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It’s time for conversations

mikeklein
tub
Geothermal hot tubs are among Iceland’s most popular places for conversations, and can be found in places busy and isolated. 

 

I started blogging about internal communication more than ten years ago. Changing The Terms started as a blog in 2014, and as a business last year.

It’s been a great way for me to raise questions and promote challenges to standard internal comms practices.  And, the interaction has been a bit one-way.

Changing The Terms has had 1226 visitors this month.

I know, maybe, who 50 of them are.

So, between now and the IABC World Conference, which starts in Washington on 11 June, I’m going to rest a bit from blogging, and focus on starting real conversations.

Conversations about what I can do to help businesses deliver better outcomes. and about how we can improve future prospects for internal communication more broadly.

If you’d like to start a conversation with me, I’d be delighted.  And if you see my number pop up on your smartphone, don’t be surprised.

[wufoo username=”mklein818″ formhash=”q1ofxmdu1bnolbd” autoresize=”true” height=”520″ header=”show” ssl=”true”]

Live from Iceland has been a series of short blog posts written against the backdrop of Iceland’s amazing scenery and culture, sponsored by Iceland by Helgastina, which offers personal travel planning to this unforgettable place.

 

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Are town halls “worth the paper they are printed on?”

mikeklein

Amerika-Haus Köln - Town Hall Meeting Peter Ammon

One quote famously misattributed to Hollywood titan Samuel Goldwyn was “a verbal contract isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.”

Now, town halls are the main official form of corporate verbal communication. They are where senior executives speak to large crowds of employees, and are such a stable fixture in the internal communication world that they might be a contractual requirement of sorts. But are they worth the effort to organize, much less the total hours of attendance that they mandate from those in attendance?

I admit that I haven’t done exhaustive research, but I have organized and participated in these events for a double-digit number of years. It has struck me that these events seem to suck more value out of an organization than they add to it.

Here’s why:

  • High execution risk:

    A mistake in the execution of an event – a dead microphone, out-of-sequence PowerPoint slides or inappropriate snacks – may prove far more memorable than the actual content that is shared, or even than the presence of the leader(s) themselves.

  • Low audience relevance:

    Unlike those face-to-face events that are aligned with major organizational change activity, traditional town halls tend to be timed to align with quarterly or annual financial results. I have seen many organizations take the view that all employees should be motivated by and interested in the overall financial numbers, and use the town halls to force-feed the numbers to the assembled throng.  But the discussion of the previous quarter’s numbers that the financial markets require often offer little of relevance to employees, who tend to be more interested in what to do in the next quarter and beyond.

  • Limited and stifled dialogue:

    Although I have never been to a town hall that doesn’t have a Q&A section, I don’t remember when many questions were asked.  Indeed, as the communications “bod,” I found myself doing the asking, to the point where the CEO would see me in the elevator afterward and thank me for the question.  As much as I enjoyed the fifteen seconds of fame such encounters offered, it underscored the reality that town halls are lousy environments for stimulating leadership-employee discussion. Something more disempowering happens afterward.  Most town halls end with little left to discuss, and generate little post-event conversation about organizational momentum and direction.  The CEO or leader presents a view, it lands undiscussed, and employees are left to accept it as given or treat it as marginally relevant.

  • The royal box tick:

    In some cases, the CEO sees his quarterly performance at the town hall as his ticking of the “communication box,” and isn’t seen until the following results town hall.

What to do about it?

Although there are a lot of ideas out there about how to improve town halls, most notably from Alison Davis in the US (who is one of the strongest experts and advocates for all-employee communication), I would go farther. I personally would like to see the town hall disappear as a regular communication tool, and instead be reserved for extraordinary announcements and events.

Instead, I would like to see leaders have smaller meetings with well-chosen groups of influencers and/or randomly selected members of staff, with no direct managers present.  This makeup would drive two things: channeling real feedback to leaders from real employees and stimulating those employees talk about their experience with their peers and colleagues.

The tricky thing about town halls is that they are but one of the many tasks of the internal communicator that has little to do with strategy or outcomes, but exists to meet stakeholder expectations.  When communicators can effectively make the case that town halls don’t actually help the cause in their current form, there will be some leeway to change the script or even to take them off the schedule.  Otherwise, they will persist, even if they aren’t “worth the paper they are printed on.”

 

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Your hope is my nightmare: which way for business communication?

mikeklein

Two of my favorite people in the internal comms world are Lise Michaud and Stephen Welch.

Lise—I have massive appreciation for her launch of IC Kollectif, the emerging Center of Excellence in the internal communication field, and I eagerly await the often-outstanding content that comes from “ICK’s” various channels.

For the holiday season, Lise asked the question of “What is your greatest hope for the Internal Comms profession in 2017” to a variety of IC pros and thought leaders.  Stephen, whose answer appeared this morning, is a fellow North American-turned-Brit who shares my passion for Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, so I am generally inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.  But reading this sentence in his answer after my morning Starbucks, I had to strap on the gloves:

“Internal Communication professionals should become more coaches and strategic advisers to senior management, not people who actually “do” communication. Every time an internal communications person actually ‘does’ a communication, a leader somewhere is not doing his or her job”

I get this may be Stephen’s hope.  Indeed, I have been hearing this complaint/advice since my time starting in IC in the late ‘90s.  I reject it – and actually find it nightmarish –  for two main reasons:

  • We often have better and clearer vision of the big picture and what resonates about it than do many of the people we work for, and generally a better way of articulating it than they can.
  • We should not despise our own skills and talents: as communicators our strategic, empathetic and craft skills are all interconnected, and are reflected in the “communications we ‘do’”.  We should not tie one or both of our arms behind our backs as a matter of principle, or withhold helpful contributions to make some kind of point.

Indeed, while some think that leaders taking full ownership of communication delivery is some kind of a dream outcome, I prefer to dream of a more dynamic relationship between leader and communicator—one of dialogue and discussion which empowers communication professionals to deliver the most resonant, best-targeted and highest impact communications we can deliver.

Leadership positioning, Uncategorized

Leadership Positioning: amplifying the impact of the ambitious leader

mikeklein

When people hear about “business communication,” they often think it’s about “the business”: numbers, institutional announcements and soulless statements.

In my experience, it’s stories by and about individuals that get the attention, shape ideas and accelerate the flow of influence. I’ve found this to be true in organizations and even in communities and markets.

The business world is not monolithic. It is populated with individual leaders at all levels with objectives, visions and ambitions. These leaders have unique perspectives, personalities, interests and future plans which, when shared appropriately, can help provide traction – for their business initiatives, their desires to move onto new career tracks, and for efforts to rejuvenate relationships with internal influencers.

Leadership positioning has been a big part of my years of internal communication experience.. Indeed, through profile articles, opinion pieces, social media posts, and rich feature articles putting initiatives and future plans into context and amplifying the role of leaders, it’s where I’ve had the most impact in the companies where I have worked.

It’s also increasingly interesting from an external communication perspective – particularly to support senior execs in making making their cases for taking on new challenges, and establishing their credibility as experts and advocates beyond their current networks.

As we move into a period of likely economic uncertainty, leadership positioning also has the potential to give individual leaders in transition the opportunity to differentiate themselves in what could become a crowded market.

From an internal communication perspective, a strong approach to leadership profiling delivers three additional benefits. Two are fairly obvious. It can humanize senior management, it can surface and showcase emerging leaders and initiatives.

The third is pure ninja: it’s one of the best ways a communicator – and a communication team – can get a senior leader to see the power and value of a serious communication approach.

The main thing – writing and communication strategy are not core competencies of most C-suiters or senior managers, who are otherwise very strong and powerful in other disciplines.

So when these leaders are willing to seek and accept help, we can elevate their storytelling and messaging to the level of their own core competencies.

When we do that for them, we don’t have to be as defensive about ROI (Return On Investment). They start to believe in our LOI (Level of Impact). And when we succeed on that front, we literally change the terms.

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Are internal comms roles “dead”… or is IC heading for a renaissance?

mikeklein

In the nearly 20 years I have been an internal comms pro, Internal Communication has been prematurely pronounced dead on a number of occasions, to be subsumed into “sexier” or more exalted specialties.

In his blog post earlier this week, London’s Dillan Shikotra makes a similar prediction:

“My prediction is that Internal Communication will evolve into ‘employee experience’. It will look more holistically at all the touch points an employee has with the organisation, starting from offer, onboarding, training, right through to offboarding & beyond. Job titles such as Internal Communications Advisor/Manager/Director will be replaced by Head of Employee Experience, Employee Engagement Manager and Employee Experience Executive. And we are seeing this already, with companies like Sky, Vodafone and Airbnb appointing their very own ‘Head of Employee Experience’. “

Dillan adds:

“What does this mean for us IC practitioners? It means we must evolve like Pokemon Go characters. It will require us to have a deeper understanding of employee needs, be subject matter experts on digital/social media channels, challenge the leadership team more and stay current on new ways of working. We will need to move from a channel based approach to an employee experience approach. It’s not going to be easy, but then change never is. We’ll also need to start working more closely with our HR, L&D and IT colleagues to ensure the first interaction with the company is positive (strong employer brand), that everyone has a positive onboarding experience, that 2-way communication channels are in place from day one and that the employee’s voice will always be heard.

Those who embrace this change will be the ones who will drive & shape the next phase of this evolutionary journey of internal communications.”

What made me take notice of the piece was that it received a large number of likes and positive comments—somewhat more than the usual for an opinion piece about internal comms.

But the enthusiasm for having the adoption of sexy nomenclature by trendy companies portend “the new future” for internal comms needs to be tempered by a few realities:

  • The “Head of Employee Experience” and related job titles themselves, with their focus on employee touchpoints with tangible processes as well as communication moments, sounds much more like an IC-savvy HR roles rather than a defining evolution of internal comms, because IC serves other key purposes and stakeholders than HR departments and their current pressing need to keep millennial (and other) employees happy.
  • Political upheaval, especially in the West, will create unprecedented demand for internal communication to drive and sustain perceptions of organizational stability and resilience in the face of what is happening in the larger context.
  • If the political upheaval leads to economic turmoil, and internal communication has been able to demonstrate its value to a given organization, IC may play a key role in helping the organization retain and connect key people even it shrinks or merges.
  • Even if the impact on business of the current political crises is relatively painless, organizations are unlikely to subsume the change communication, employee advocacy, operational support and leadership comms that IC professionals currently lead into a function with an unrelated or even a conflicting purpose.

I bring these points out not to scold Dillan – whose piece raises valid points and who has opened up a potentially critical conversation about the future of the profession. But I encourage IC practitioners to consider an alternative view, that rather than being on our deathbed as a profession, Internal Communication’s best days may soon be to come.

Already, we add value across a variety of crucial organizational activities.  And as our world looks turmoil in the eye, we may find ourselves playing many crucial roles in enabling our organizations to survive and even thrive.  We may need to adapt, but there is no need to surrender.

 

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The rise of the angry voter: observations and questions for business (UPDATED)

mikeklein

2016 continues to shape up as a year of the “angry voter” in the West, as evidenced by such phenomena as Donald Trump’s unexpectedly high poll numbers at this late stage of the U.S presidential campaign, the narrow victory of the “Brexit” referendum to take the United Kingdom out of the European Union, and strong electoral showings and polling numbers for anti-establishment political parties elsewhere in Europe.

With very little academic or practitioner research on the current situation, it’s difficult to tell directly what the current trend towards voter anger means for businesses and for business communicators.  But it’s worth looking at the question – to what extent does a person’s political anger spill into his or her behavior as an employee or customer?

Here are some observations:

  • Angry voters are angry because they are insecure

Fears and dissatisfaction about economic standing and social status have long been recognized as drivers of voter anger, and that insecurity will almost certainly manifest itself in customer and employee behavior.

  • Not every voter is an angry voter

Even with the surge in popularity for anti-establishment and anti-immigrant parties and candidates in the West, they are not the majority.  Even support for Brexit was barely over 50%.  So voter anger is a strong trend but not the whole picture. It’s something to account for, but not something that is yet overwhelming .

Some practical questions:

1)   Should you adjust your tone?

Brand voice and internal leadership tone often reflect a one-way flow of power in the relationship, but employees and customers who are challenging the establishment at the voting booth may well bristle at being talked at, or in the case of the use of the “corporate We,” spoken for without their explicit consent.

2)    Is there any shared dissatisfaction that can be used to build common ground?

Although angry voters have been presented as being driven by such factors as racism and xenophobia, there may be issues of common dissatisfaction where businesses can tap into and get ahead of voter and employee anger and be seen as making a tangible contribution to address matters of common interest

3) Is this a time for organizations to be brave and challenge misconceptions?

The idea of diversity in societies and organizations is implicitly being challenged by the tone of the current political climate.  But studies show that diversity benefits organizations even when feared by some employees. Could this be the right time to make that case in a fact-based and emotionally resonant way?

4) Is it time to change the messengers?

At a time when mainstream corporate leaders as well as political leaders are being viewed with increasing suspicion, could this be a good time to think about making better use of mid-level employees and trusted peers as advocates of organizational messages? This year’s version of the Edelman Trust survey has some interesting insights in this regard (see slide 21).

OPPORTUNITIES

Recognizing that the dissatisfaction among voters has the potential to color their relationships as customers and employees is a step that can help safeguard organizational credibility in volatile times. At the same time, the current political climate presents an opportunity for organizations to address pressing issues that could strengthen their relationships, and draw more heavily on the credibility of line employees as channels and advocates. Organizations should not ignore the changes in the political environment, and there may be opportunities to seize by looking at the broader picture.

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Dethroning managers, demystifying movements: two great pieces via LinkedIn

mikeklein

As an internal communicator who has been working on building a constituency to challenge traditional thinking in our profession, the flow of articles through LinkedIn has often been interesting but rarely essential.

So I was very surprised last week to see two posts that weren’t just great but really important: a piece challenging the centrality of line managers to internal communication, and an article providing a methodical approach to turning an idea-based business into a full-blown movement.

In their post titled “Do Women Have Fewer Teeth Than Men?, my friends at Innovisor in Copenhagen first challenge the idea of revealed truth (the idea that women had fewer teeth than men was first raised by Aristotle and then not formally questioned for many years).  They then take dead aim at the idea that managers have a central role in employee engagement and internal communication, and fire away at Gallup’s popular but controversial Q12 survey for having 11 of its 12 questions subject to the direct control of these line managers.  Then, comparing these surveys with social analytic research on the real world influence of peers on engagement, Innovisor claims that peers are actually four times more important in terms of providing support, guidance and inspiration to employees than managers actually were.

Whether Innovisor’s social analytic data is really applicable globally, it nonetheless represents the first real data-based challenge to the idea of line manager supremacy as it comes to internal communication, an idea hardwired into many of the metrics communication pros have to live with, as well as the (often flawed) strategic assumptions they are expected to fulfill.  As these findings are epic, this article is important.

Another important LinkedIn article is Sharon Savariego’s “Seven Habits of Highly Effective Movement Leaders,” which aims to help organizations make the leap from being merely commercial businesses to purpose-fuelled “movements” combining employees, customers, advocates and activists onto a single platform. Even thought Savariego’s piece aligns well with her current product, an organizational communication platform called mobilize, its collection of considered, methodical steps and its ability to get readers to think beyond the traditional notion of the organizational firewall makes her piece a worthy read that changes the terms when if comes to defining an organization.

Seen anything great about internal communication, organizational software, or power and politics in the workplace? Please share your ideas in the space below.

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Taking aim at conventional “employee engagement” thinking on ICology podcast

mikeklein

My “six forms*” of engagement approach, challenging traditional employee engagement thinking, takes center stage with my first ever podcast interview.  The interview, part of the popular ICology podcast interview series hosted by Chuck Gose, can be found on the Podbean service here. It is also available via iTunes and other popular download points.

*Nominations have come in for two additional engagement forms–employees who focus on being part of a workplace community, and those focus on creating community in the workplace.  Others may surface – but in the meantime, the willingness to challenge the idea of employee engagement as a linear, one-size-fits-all and numeric concept is highly appreciated.

 

 

 

 

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Can #internalcomms become a “weapon of mass disruption”?

mikeklein

For the last two years, the most prevalent words I have seen in the communication world have been “digital” and “disruption.”  For the most part, the talk about each involved extolling the virtues of “digitalization” and “disruptiveness,” with much less tangible said about how to bring these qualities to life in a way that adds meaning or value.

Having recently set out on my own as a consultant focusing mainly on internal communication, my primary aim has been to disrupt commonplace notions about “how to do” #internalcomms.  But in a short but memorable moment, my thoughts drifted towards how internal comms could itself become a force for disruption, holding the key to scaling, driving and delivering disruptive interventions on an enterprise-wide scale.

The key to seeing internal communication as a “weapon of mass disruption” is really to look at the nature of both of these terms, “mass” and “disruption.”  

Mass

Internal comms embodies “mass” from an enterprise perspective in a number of crucial and complementary ways.  The first, the way leaders commonly see internal communication, involves “mass delivery” of messages to all employees.  The ability to “seize the radio stations,” harmonize the telescreens, and instantly distribute centrally-initiated messages in text, video, and/or audio formats remains one of an organization’s core tools to set, reinforce, or introduce changes in tone and direction.  

But traditional “mass delivery” is not the only “mass” capability that internal communication can offer an organization with some appetite for disruptive interventions.  Today, “mass selectivity” and “mass connectivity” can both amplify and target the power of interventions and new ideas.  And “mass standardization” can make interventions and the wording of their definitions clear and consistently understood.

“Mass standardization” accelerates mass delivery by applying consistent terminology (and, in some cases, narrative and imagery) to specify and shape a favored idea and frame its intended impact.

“Mass selectivity” involves the ability to identify, connect and mobilize the “right” people to enable a particular disruption to spread.  Whether using social mapping, influencer research, or ad hoc analysis to form a core group that connects the hierarchy with the important informal “tribes” and connective functions in an organization, the ability to select and build a core group allows a disruptive idea to incubate and generate emotional power and commitment among those who are responsible for its initial spread.

The contagion of this emotional commitment can often be accelerated by means of “mass connectivity.”  Mass connectivity combines natural word of mouth as it spreads orally within teams, organizations and communities, and the networked power of external social networks and, where functioning, enterprise social networks inside the company firewall.

Disruption

Internal communication’s ability to reach organizational populations through mass distribution, orchestrated influence and active agitation and connectivity is matched, if not exceeded, by what #internalcomms can do to shape, and even create, disruption itself.

What is disruption? Let’s look at what American dictionary Merriam Webster has to say. The verb “to disrupt” means “to cause (something) to be unable to continue in the normal way: to interrupt the normal progress or activity of (something).”

So, what does that mean for internal communications? Webster’s definition underscores the importance of internal communication in spreading disruption, so that disruptive changes stick and processes and practices are “unable to continue in the normal way.”  Our understanding of our enterprises, markets and communities with our fluency in unleashing the mass dynamics of what make disruptions accelerate and stick makes us a formidable, perhaps even indispensable asset.

But our involvement isn’t simply limited to spreading disruption.  We are also in a position to initiate it, to cause it.  Rather than simply act as a vehicle for leaders who have disruptive agendas and need their ideas spread, we can identify, shape and even invent disruptive ideas on our own, and work with stakeholders to  accelerate the flow of these disruptive ideas to the net benefit of our organizations.

New ideas, new practices, new promises, new words, new rules.  We can spread them, and we can create them (and then spread them).  We have the capability to commit mass disruption.

And mass disruption offers us a massive opportunity to change the terms.

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Changing The Terms is a communication consulting practice focused on helping organizations improve alignment, differentiation and performance.

* For insights into how internal communication can address internal influence, differentiation and employee activism, sign up for a free guide at https://changingtheterms.com/internal-communication-guides/

* To download my book, “From Lincoln to LinkedIn – the 55 Minute Guide to Social Communication” visit https://changingtheterms.com/book/

* To schedule a free 30 minute consultation, visit https://calendly.com/changingtheterms/30min

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Six Forms of Engagement now on Ragan.com

mikeklein

Ragan.com, the popular site for communicators of a variety of professional persuasions, has picked up the latest version of my piece on “Six Forms” of employee engagement.

In challenging the notion that employee engagement is a single, all-encompassing, one-size-fits-all measure of employee positivity, proactivity,  anticipated longevity and other associated virtues, the Six Forms of Engagement offer the opportunity to tap into the different ways people engage with their organizations and work to get better outcomes.

The article can be found here, at the Ragan.com site in the USA.

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Selective engagement: now in the Journal of Internal Communication

mikeklein

My effort to promote the idea of “selective engagement” as a central way to increase the effectiveness of internal communication has found another outlet, with the Journal of Internal Communication posting my latest piece on the subject.

To find my piece, along with a dozen other articles on internal comms practice from the fine folks at Gatehouse, please download the current edition.