Deconstructing Larkin

Dedicated to posts addressing Dr. TJ Larkin's comments at the IABC international conference and his premise that CEO communication to employees is fundamentally worthless.

Saturday, May 20, 2006

Trust in leadership worth half a million

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Regular readers will know that I believe senior leadership communication is a vital element of internal communications at all times, whether significant change is occurring or not. I’ve received two more pieces of evidence to support this notion.

Angela Sinickas sends along the first in the form of research by Warren Shepell, a global leader in employee assistance programs. According to the firm’s research, seven things are required for maximizing employee engagement. At the top of the list, according to the research: “Trust in senior managers.” Trust in supervisors was high up on the list, weighing in at number four. Ranking above that, at number three, though, was, “Understand their organizations’ vision and strategic direction,” just the kind of big-picture issue senior leadership would communicate; supervisors would interpret that information to localize it and help employees understand how those big-picture vision and strategic direction will affect their work.

The second research study comes by way of Malcolm Ruddock, director, Employee and Advancement Communications at Canada’s University of Western Ontario. Ruddock forwards along an item appearing on the website of the Vancouver Board of Trade regarding research conducted by John Helliwell, one of the world’s foremost researchers on people’s happiness and well-being.

To illustrate his results, Helliwell put a dollar figure to give a recognizable value to how important certain factors are to well-being. Factors measured were engagement (how connected people are with others); employment (paid or not); family, friends and neighbours; good health; high quality of government at all levels, and adequate income (relative to expectations).

Trust toward management was worth more than any other single factor, whether at work or at home, worth half a million dollars in Helliwell’s dollar-valuation equation, “when the most-trustworthy and least-trustworthy managements are being compared. This shows that even a modest change in workplace trust relations can significantly affect life satisfaction.” That half-million stacks up against the $125,000 it’s worth to have more time with family and $100,000 to have more time with friends.

Don’t let anybody convince you that there’s no value to leader communication. 

Friday, March 17, 2006

Frontline employees wanted to hear from CEO

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For reasons I cannot imagine, I’ve been assigned to judge the “Electronic and Digital Communication - Skills” entries at the IABC Gold Quill Blue Ribbon Panel. Among the entries I’ve been reviewing so far is one from a well-known global company with many tens of thousands of employees. The company is going through evolutionary change wrought by global markets, new technologies, and new demands from existing customers. Communicating the change to employees has been high on the list of priorities for the company’s internal communicators, who conducted employee research to help them craft the efforts. A key bit of research that drove a major decision (and led to the Gold Quill entry) as described in the work plan:

A majority of employees wanted to learn more about (the company’s) goals and direction, and they wanted to hear this information from the CEO.

It’s important to understand the nature of this company: The vast majority of employees are unionized, blue-collar laborers. Yet they wanted to hear about the company’s goals and direction from the top. Yet more evidence that the CEO plays a pivotal role in communications within an organization.

Thursday, March 16, 2006

Analysts expect CEOs to communicate with employees

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If you reject all the other research and rationale for CEOs to communicate with employees—especially during times of change and stress—you should pay attention to the recently released ”Return on Reputation” survey. Hill & Knowlton released the study, conducted by MORI, revealing how financial analysts view corporate reputation management. As much as you may dislike the amount of power financial analysts wield over organizations, that power is very real. And analysts expect CEOs to communicate with their employees.

The authors of the study found it “unsurprising” that analysts need to lead organizational change (an opinion held by 76% of the analysts responding to the survey).

Nonetheless the ability to communicate (66%) and motivate employees (60%) are also important factors which perhaps too many senior executives ignore to their detriment.

Another strong piece of evidence tipping the scales in support of direct leader communication with employees. I wouldn’t want to be the CEO of a company that got a negative analyst recommendation because I was listening to the voices arguing that leader communication with employees is a waste of time.

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

Hay research supports importance of leader communication

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In his rebuttal to my argument that executive communication is critical during times of change, Dr. T.J. Larkin wrote, “In this context, the book concludes that the type of communication most likely to change employee behavior: targets frontline supervisors, relies on face-to-face communication, and deals with issues relevant to the future of the local work area.  Our book supports this conclusion with a review of 254 studies.” In fact, Dr. Larkin’s thesis—that communication not aimed at immediate supervisors and local work areas is a waste of time—is supported almost entirely by the research Dr. Larkin cites. In recent months, I have been reporting equally valid research that supports the importance of leader communication.

Colleague Craig Jolley points to yet more such research, this study conducted by the Hay Group, which surveyed 1.2 million employees at 400 companies (not a bad sample) and determined that leader communication is “a leading factor in employee motivation, morale and even loyalty,” according to CIO magazine’s report on the study. Hay’s research also indicates that “keeping workers informed is not something executives do well.” Probably because they’ve been reading Dr. Larkin.

Okay, that’s not fair. Any number of reasons account for poor executive communication. It is the job of the internal communication department to help improve—not ignore—the leader’s communication role. Otherwise, their organizations risk high turnover from employees who don’t understand where their organization is headed. Not their own department’s role in achieving company goals, a critical role for immediate supervisors and managers. It is the executive’s job to communicate the big picture to the entire workforce. When that doesn’t happen, employees who don’t understand the big picture feel more inclined to provide their services elsewhere. “One of the most important predictors of employee commitment, and ultimately loyalty, is the connection between the individual and the big picture,” according to study author Mark Royal, senior consultant at Hay.

Among study findings:

• Just 49% of employees are satisfied with the openness and honesty of communications in their companies
• 42% were not satisfied with the company’s ability to keep them informed about how the business is doing
• Among those employees who indicated they were inclined to stay with their employer, 57% were confident in the direction senior leaders communicated
• Among those employees inclined to leave the company within two years, only 27 percent said they understood where their companies were headed

There’s plenty of evidence to support the importance of communication between workers and immediate supervisors. But every study I see indicates that executive communication is the dominant factor. You’re wise to employ both.

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

More support for leader communications

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The more I talk about the communication role of senior leaders during times of organizational change, the more supporting evidence I get. Take, for instance, the following excerpt from a book called “Organizational Surveys” (1996, Jossey-Bass). William A. Schiemann penned Chapter 4, “Driving Change Through Surveys: Aligning Employees, Customers, and Other Key Stakeholders.” He wrote,

From my familiarity with many firms who have conducted linkage studies, i have found that one of the best predictors of financial and operating performance is employee rating of management capability, followed closely by employee perceptions of supervisory support and capability. Over the years, I have come to believe that if I could measure only one dimension, it would be employee ratings of management. Those ratings often account for the most variance in customer and financial performance.

The italics are Schiemann’s, not mine. The excerpt appeared in my fax machine courtesy of Angela Sinickas, one of the leading thinkers in terms of employee communication measurement. Angela appended the paragraph with this note: “And employees can’t rate leaders highly, or even at all, if there’s no communication between them.”

To underscore the point, Angela also sent along the results of some research she conducted for a client. In the study, Angela reported, “The greatest predictor of (the client’s) employees’ overall satisfaction with communication is how they feel about senior leaders’ communication behaviors, accounting for over one-third of the satisfaction.” Supervisors’ communication behavior and employees’ level of information each accounted for just over 20% of the variations in overall satisfaction.

In this study, Angela recommended that senior leaders focus on the communication behaviors with the highest inerpretational weights that were rated low by employees responding to the survey. These included…

• Senior leaders explain the reasons behind decisions
• Senior leaders clearlly explain the direction the company is heading
• Senior leaders keep employees informed about things we need to know

One other question was included in the study—“Senior leaders provide information that is believable.” In this case, employees were reasonably positive. The point, though, is that these behaviors are important to employees, despite assertions that senior executive communication is irrelevant, boring, and a waste of time as far as most front-line employees are concerned. Clearly, from the Towers Perrin research to Schiemann’s body of research to individual in-house studies, that’s simply not the case. When communicating to employees during change, supervisors are important but nothing is more important than the communication behaviors of senior leadership.

I’m open to more research, if you care to share it. And thanks to Angela for this round of evidence.

Friday, September 30, 2005

Research says leader communication is crucial to change efforts

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I must live right.

I was preparing to conduct a post-session interview for a Conference Board podcast when I heard a remark from one of the panelists that made me sit up straight and lean forward. Afterward, I approached the speaker and asked to interview him for the conference podcast series. Of course, the focus of my interview was this one remark.

The speaker was Charles Watts, principal of Towers Perrin and leader of the consulting firm’s Change Implementation practice. Watts notes that the practice focuses on reseach and communication around change management. Watts referred to a study Towers Perrin conducted among 40,000 workers in large companies. The researchers examined nine items that comprise employee engagement and compared the results to the other 100 or so items included in the survey. The result: The item that best explained whether an employee is willing to invest discretionary effort in the company’s success is the one that reads, “To what extent do you believe senior leadership takes an interest in your well being?”

As Watts put it, if employees have a sense that their welfare matters to senior management, they are more willing to invest in the company and do good work.

The channels for this communication do not involve the immediate supervisor. Interestingly, face-to-face engagement with senior leaders is the most popular form of communication, according to another major Towers Perrin study, and technology plays a significant role through video and webcasts. The results did not vary among different employee groups; even the employees on the factory floor indicated that they “want to hear from the source that the right things are being done to build the success of the company,” Watts told me.

This does not mean there is no role for the immediate supervisor; it’s just a different role, Watts said. “Am I getting the rewards I deserve, am I developing my career, am I getting the learning and development opportunities I should. These kinds of basics” are what employees seek from their immediate supervisors, the “bread and butter” issues, according to Watts.

In his reply to my critique of his belief that the immediate supervisor should be the sole source of communication during change, Dr. T.J. Larkin suggested that I believe that “communicators should do a little bit of everything.” I believe no such thing. Rather, I believe communicators should use the channels that will, in combination, produce the desired results. In communicating change, it is clear that employees want and need to hear from senior executives for some messages and immediate supervisors for others. It’s not a matter of picking one over the other, but instead a matter of ensuring the complete message is delivered through each channel.

Incidentally, Angela Sinickas sent me some additional research that supports the importance of senior leader commnication during change; I’ll post it next week after I return to the office.

Saturday, September 17, 2005

We get letters

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I just got a copy of the Sept. 12 issue of the Ragan Report, which includes some letters to the editor from readers who read my analysis of Dr. TJ Larkin’s talk at the IABC Research Foundation luncheon and Dr. Larkin’s response. A couple snippets and a couple responses follow.

From Jeffrey Brooke, ABC, director, Employee Communications Office, United States Government Printing Office:

Larkin gave a lecture that was not only compelling and backed up with exhaustive research, but one that was gracious. Holtz’s slanderous and rude statements were entirely out of bounds— especially for an IABC Fellow.

I’ve reread my original item (which was a post on this blog that Ragan reproduced in an email newsletter I write for them), and while I was abrupt, I couldn’t find a single piece of slander. Jeffrey, if you read this blog, could you let me know where you believe I slandered Dr. Larkin? In fact, I thought some of Dr. Larkin’s comments in his reply were far more egregious (e.g., “To some degree, Mr. Holtz denies that generalizations can be made about employee communication.  We think Mr. Holtz believes sources and channels are basically equal.  Mr. Holtz thinks that what accounts for differences in effect is simply the quality of the execution.” This is so far from the truth that I feel my long-held and well-documented beliefs on communication have been assailed.

Late Addition: I forgot to note before I clicked the “post” button that slander is spoken; libel is written. Of course.

As for Dr. Larkin’s “exhaustive research,” I would point Jeffrey to Tudor Williams, ABC’s (another IABC fellow, by the way), note (also from this blog):

(Dr. Larkin had) almost total dependence upon studies that are not referenced in terms of who did what and in what context. I guess they are in an appendix but I would like to see whose findings support the specific assertions he makes. I can find 256 studies from which I can extract what I want to support the proposition I am pushing. At no point does he cite any expert in our business let alone an IABC study or expert opinion. The problem with many of these studies is that they study a very small variable, test it to exhaustion and then draw hypotheses as to cause and effect. The problem with many academics is that they bounce off the trees in the forest and rarely ask what forest are they in. I find Larkin’s views are examples of academic arrogance and isolation without the professional practitioner’s skills and experience.

Angela Sinickas, ABC, who (along with Tudor) is one of the most renouned communication measurement experts in the business, has also sent some references my way, which I’ll be adding to this thread shortly. (I’ve already mentioned it on The Hobson & Holtz Report.) Jeffrey also questions whether he and I were at the same presentation. Yes, Jeffrey, we were, as were several other communicators with whom I spoke who shared my reaction. Jeffrey may also want to read some of the comments I got when I first posted the item to my blog.

One more thing: I have nothing against Dr. Larkin personally. His presentation was compelling, and entertaining to boot. I’d love to have a beer with the guy. We just disagree strongly on this issue, which is entirely the focus of my comments.

Next, Angela Diamond, director of Diamond Communication Services, Sydney, Australia:

The most annoying thing about this argument is that it’s happening at all. Surely we’ve gone way beyond arguing about channels. I think this is most disturbing. I feel embarrassed even having to point out the most basic approach to any communication issue — change or otherwise — diagnosis. What happened to strategy?

Hmm. As I recall, that was my point exactly. While Dr. Larkin wants us to begin with the tactic of isolating change communication to the sole channel of the immediate supervisor, I would start with identifying goals, assessing the situation with the audience, and making communication choices that will achieve objectives in the specific circumstances.

Finally, this comment from Marc Wright, publisher, simply-communication.com, UK:

Larkin can argue that that human interaction in small groups is the most effective way for people to communicate, and I would agree, providing that the person who is leading that group is a competent communicator and therein lies the rub. A sizeable slice of supervisors hate the communication side of their job; they just are uncomfortable in that role, and no amount of training is going to substantially change that. By putting all your resources in this channel you risk at best boring a third of your staff and at worst alienating them completely. At least senior management have to engage with their own communication skills and do something about it; in today’s environment they won’t get to be senior executives otherwise.

Spot on, Marc.

Of course, these are excerpts of the complete letters. To read the entire items, you’ll need to get your hands on the Ragan Report.