Cultivate Your Internal Champions

Over the years, through numerous client assignments involving a range of industries, company size and business focus, I’ve seen a pattern repeated in virtually every sizable organization for which I've done work.

      In the course of trying to engage employees in the organization’s mission, vision and values, or a new initiative, people can be roughly categorized into one of three types. These types may be familiar to you. You may have different terms to describe them and feel that my percentage breakdown is a bit off, but I trust our views closely parallel one another.

      At the top of the hierarchy are those I call the Eager Beavers, the ones who “get it.” These are the ones you don't need to convince when it comes to enacting the necessary changes to make an initiative succeed. They readily understand the rationale and its links to the corporate mission.

      They know what underpins the organization, the imperatives that are driving it, and how they personally fit into the larger whole. They can readily draw the connection between what they do every day and where the company needs to go.

      Eager Beavers want to do well, and they want to progress in the company because they believe in it. Generally, because of their positive attitude, these people do in fact get promoted.

      Whether you realize it or not, these are the ones for whom you provide the bulk of the information you develop. When their manager explains a new initiative in a group meeting, he/she might refer their team to the company’s intranet where the background information is provided. The Eager Beavers are the ones who invariably go to that web page to learn more.

The Flip Side

Conversely, at the bottom of the hierarchy are the Disconnected. These are the employees you'll likely not reach no matter what you do. They rarely pay attention to a corporate message unless it affects them, such as layoff notices or benefit changes. They don’t care to stay abreast of the outside competitive environment and what’s impacting the company. They’re likely just showing up every day for the paycheck. You know the type.

      In most organizations, each of these two segments is roughly the same size, anywhere from 10 to 20 percent of the total employee population.

      I contend that strategic communications programs will have no appreciable impact on them, either in making the Eager Beavers more engaged – who, frankly, couldn’t be more engaged – or in finally connecting the Disconnected.

      Sure, our messages reach the Eager Beavers, and they likely gobble up every word, while the Disconnected ignore most of it. But even if our communications are lacking, count on the Eager Beavers to find out on their own, while, conversely, your best communications efforts will not reach the Disconnected.

      So our communications efforts should target the Big Middle, the 60 to 80 percent of the people who might be convinced of the value of buying into the new change initiative, the corporate mission, or a new strategy. Our challenge as communicators is finding the right messages and the right media to reach them in a compelling way at the right time.

Aiming for the Sweet Spot

It’s likely your Eager Beavers are your best, most effective means to engage the Big Middle. That's if you can get them to be your champions inside the company, leveraging their personal engagement in the company mission to connect to their peers among the Big Middle. Your communications efforts to connect with the Big Middle will be far more successful that way than if you rely exclusively on conventional internal communications tools and messages.

      The head of every unit in your company and every facility manager can readily identify their own Eager Beavers. They exist in all parts of the organization and at all levels. These are the first people you need to reach with critical messages, and then engage them to be your advocates among their peers.

      Another common characteristic of this employee type is that they are out-going and friendly. They generally have developed a high degree of trust among their peers. Naturally, because they stay well informed, they are the ones to whom others turn for news about company changes. Similarly, they are the ones best equipped to knock down false rumors.

      The Eager Beaver group likely includes a lot of supervisors – likely because their high degree of engagement means that you have promoted them. As a rule, supervisors are the most trusted people in an organization, and the primary source of information for most front-line employees.

      Due to this element of trust and their out-going nature, your change messages and breaking news should target these people. They immediately understand your rationale and are readily able to convey your message of change to their colleagues and to answer their subsequent questions.

      These advocates will rise to the extra attention you give them and appreciate the recognition. That has the added advantage of assuring that they will become your willing messengers. Of course, they are not the only means of communicating with the Big Middle; they are supplemental. But they just may become your most credible link.

      Instead of spending the bulk of their time fretting over the nuances of the punctuation of a particular written message or the effectiveness of the latest new media, communicators would be far more successful if they focused more of their energies on identifying and cultivating their internal champions among their most engaged employees.