Bringing the Inside In

One truth I’ve learned in my years in employee communications – a truth often cited here – is the value of bringing the outside in. For a business to succeed and thrive, its people must remain ever aware of how external influences impact their organization, both directly and indirectly.

Of particular importance are the shifting paradigms that can mean new competition, changing consumer tastes and unexpected economic forces that result in new demands on employees and their companies. It might also include competitors’ actions (new products, etc.), the state of the economy (a persistent recession), and regulatory changes and new taxes that can complicate business.

While that’s of central importance, equally critical is a group's ability to bring in other functions within the company itself, to cross-fertilize internally as well.

People in one function need to have an on-going awareness of what other functions are doing, particularly as they may impact their own area. At the same time, their own unit’s operation ought to be better understood across the business.

For instance, do people in marketing really understand the challenges faced by R&D, or manufacturing? And vice-versa? Do the people in R&D have a keen sense of customers’ desires and the kinds of features they may be expecting in the next product iteration? Is the product development operation conscious of the fiscal constraints that an ailing economy is placing on the company?

Does finance have an appreciation of why product promotion might cost as much as it does, or why procurement costs are rising? Does finance understand why the human resources department needs an increase in its recruitment budget during an economic recession?

No doubt the senior managers in those functional areas know, but what about the people within their units? Is everyone operating in a vacuum?

I'm reminded of this old Dilbert cartoon:

Communications professionals play a central role in helping create and open up the avenues between functions to assure that people understand what's going on in other parts of the organization; that they fully grasp the evolving internal dynamic and how what they do and the decisions they make may impact what goes on in other parts of the company.

In some quarters, this is referred to as “breaking down the silos” that exist in every organization. But it’s more than eliminating the silos. It’s reaching out across those natural divides, and not just at senior management retreats where the functional VPs share ideas, insights, challenges, and opportunities.

It must be a robust, ongoing dialogue at all levels. It needn’t be time-consuming. Maybe it’s no more than managers establishing the links and encouraging dialogue. Maybe it’s an occasional spur-of-the-moment lunch between a half-dozen people from different departments, just to shoot the breeze. It’s amazing what those informal, friendly conversations can open up, the kinds of ideas they stimulate.

When functions operate independently, it can only spell trouble. In September 2004, Oprah Winfrey gave away 276 Pontiac G6s to members of her audience. Pontiac scored quite a PR coup. But it was a short-lived coup. When intrigued Oprah fans went to their local Pontiac dealers hoping to test drive or buy a G6, they were disappointed. None were available, nor would they be for several months. What might have been a huge sales surge for Pontiac fell flat on its face.

Apparently, GM’s promotional gurus didn't coordinate their planning with manufacturing. Production of the G6 was not going to ramp up for another half-year. If they had postponed Oprah's give-away until the following year, Pontiac likely would have sold several thousand more cars. Need I point out what has happened to Pontiac in the intervening years?

This needn’t be overly complicated. It simply requires an attitude of curiosity across the organization, where people want to know what is going on around the company, not just what the guy in the next cubicle is doing.

There can and should be numerous ways to oxygenate the organization – no one way is right or wrong. An internal newsletter helps, as does a robust and frequently updated intranet news service.

But nothing can substitute for actively getting to know the other guys and what’s on their minds. It’s amazing what you can learn just by talking and listening.