short thoughts

One-minute reads about communications, change + creativity in management. This is a companion site to www.sabguthrie.info

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Economic growth is best understood as the rate in which firms solve problems. 20th century capitalism worked by efficiently allocating existing resources. 21st century capitalism works by efficiently creating new solutions to human problems.

Every company is the sum of its knowledge. It has the ability to be useful to existing and potential customers.

Much company communication is stuck in SOS mode though. Sending Out Stuff. Many firms look to how they can tell their story differently through content. Instead they could do better by listening and determining how they can answer questions and solve customer problems.

In his book Youtility Jay Baer says the benchmark for content marketing should be: is this useful enough that people would actually want to pay for it?

These are short thoughts. For longer, more fully-formed thoughts covering business, public relations and change visit www.sabguthrie.info or sign up to email updates.

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We all know that we are driven by speed. Deregulation and the internet have made competition global. Technology makes more technology. So speed-of-change is only ever going to accelerate.

Competitive advantage is fleeting. Firms need to continually generate new sources of advantage. Industries are constantly evolving; recreated by competition.

Competition is a dynamic process. One in which firms jostle with each other to create competitive advantage only to see this lead vanish overnight through rivals’ innovation and imitation - or by customers making a substitution. Travelling via Uber rather than hailing a black cab. Staying in a spare room or apartment found via Airbnb rather than in a hotel sourced through a travel agent.

The importance of bringing new products and services to market or adopting new processes at speed is well-trodden ground. But what about perseverance?

It takes sustained commitment and often steely nerve to develop new skills and capabilities. Especially when you - and your shareholders - can see that your ‘traditional’ competition isn’t spending the same amount of time and energy - and therefore money - on developing these new skills.

In an increasingly networked firm competing for the future means bedding down new competences at scale. Developing and using new skills at the level of the whole organisation and increasingly beyond the company walls throughout the network of alliances, joint ventures and key suppliers.

Today’s successful firms know well their customers’ needs … of today. But, focusing too closely only on these desires can all the needs of tomorrow’s customer to be missed. So overlooking the cues to develop new capabilities to service them.

These are short thoughts. For longer, more fully-formed thoughts covering business, public relations and change visit www.sabguthrie.info or sign up to email updates.

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CEOs may thump the boardroom table and demand “a new game changer … a disrupter” but usually their firms aren’t structured in a way that can create radical innovation.

Often big ideas aren’t as competitive as incrementally improved ideas either. Constantly-nudged ideas take a collective state of entrepreneurship - sometimes called intrapreneurship.

Organisations should build and rely on the talent and creativity of all employees - not hang on the words of the few who have climbed the top of the hierarchical pyramid.

A continuous process of change and adaption generates new and improved products and services. It motivates through accountability and collective ownership. 

With all employees having one foot in the needs of the firm today and the other foot straddled into the possible needs of the firm tomorrow. Entrepreneurship becomes a capability. An attitude diffused into the firm’s culture.

Twenty years ago two Japanese professors, Nonaka and Takeuchi described knowledge management as:

“The capability of the organisation as a whole to create new knowledge, disseminate it throughout the organisation and quickly embody it in key products, services and systems.”

To accomplish this firms need to push responsibility down through the organisation. Empower staff with a view to developing an organisation capable of continuous learning.

These are short thoughts. For longer, more fully-formed thoughts covering business, public relations and change visit www.sabguthrie.info or sign up to email updates.

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When it comes to doing favours all of us has one of three styles: backscratcher; one-way-streeter; or give-a-holic.

Backscratchers

These are the most common. Backscratchers will scratch your back - like offering you assistance or making valuable introductions - just as long as you scratch their back, too.  They’ll help you out only on the understanding they’ll get something from you in return. They’re tally keepers: I helped out Steve, now he’s on the hook to me.

One-way-streeters

One-way-streeters try to get other people to serve their ends while carefully guarding their own expertise and time. The traffic is all one way with this style of person. It’s best for our mental well-being to give these people as wide a berth as possible. They take without giving. They’re sometimes cynical, often bitter and always self serving.  

Give-a-holics

The give-a-holics offer assistance, they share knowledge, and make valuable introductions. They do it to be helpful and don’t keep a tally. Often being around give-a-holics makes us better sharers inspiring backscratchers to become give-a-holics, too.

Give-a-holics are good for business. They promote problem solving, collaboration and build cohesive, supportive cultures.

Business owners need to cultivate give-a-holics. Culture cultivation requires consistency. This means re-structuring the way we are rewarded at work.

Business declares a hatred for departmental silos - yet often rewards and promotes based on individual performance metrics. In a structure where one guy gets to be called manager. Does that promote the collegiate embrace of peers or the sharp elbows of self interest?

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The enemy of success isn’t failure; it’s inertia. Albert Einstein said: “a person who never made a mistake never tried anything new”.

In science there’s no such thing as failure or success, merely disproved hypothesis. So, in order to fail you need to do something: collect information, test information, turn that information into knowledge. If you’re not doing that you’re not failing, you’re doing worse than failing. You’re doing nothing.

If you do fail. Fail fast. Use your new-found knowledge to tinker, nudge and put right. It’s a continual cycle of doing.

Be guided by a line from US motivational speaker Tony Robbins: ‘What you know doesn’t mean shit. What you do means everything’.

These are short thoughts. For longer, more fully-formed thoughts covering business, public relations and change visit www.sabguthrie.info or sign up to email updates.

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At work we often don’t have enough information from which to build an accurate picture. But we’re programmed to make meaning where there is none.

Information contradicting cherished beliefs can be disturbing. When we feel threatened we draw on experience. The tried-and-tested methods that have worked in the past. We apply old rules mindlessly. We easily miss new approaches.

When stressed it’s harder for us to operate outside these mindsets. Our thinking becomes rigid.

A new idea comes along we swat it down with ‘yes but’. We don’t nurture it with ‘yes and’. We fail to focus on its strengths. We refuse to overcome its weaknesses. So we overlook the bits it’s got in common with what we need to achieve.

Shame. We’re missing opportunities. We think we’re unconscious competents but turns out we’re often unconscious incompetents.

Instead we should keep our minds and opinions open. We should look for the best solution not pounce on the first solution.

As communicators we’re perennially under the time cosh. But making snap judgements can lead to timely unpicking of situations in the long run.

I’m not pushing procrastination. Just a little deliberation via divergent thinking ahead swooping down on convergent thinking.

These are short thoughts. For longer, more fully-formed thoughts covering business, public relations and change visit www.sabguthrie.info or sign up to email updates.

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How PR can help business innovate

“Innovate or die” declared Peter Drucker- management consultant, educator, and author.  Of course this is easier said than done. First you need to agree what you mean by innovation. Then you need to breathe life into it.

As a nation the UK struggles with pinning down innovation meaning. There are 40,000 UK Google searches each month for “innovation definition”, “define innovation” and “define innovative”.

According to a survey by Wazoku, a collaborative idea management software company, over half (53%) of British managers believe innovation is little more than a buzzword. Largely meaningless in the day-to-day realities of work.

Worse still, 70% of front line workers said they didn’t completely understand their organisation’s definition of innovation and innovation strategy and how it fits into wider corporate goals.

This represents a golden opportunity for communicators. Internal comms practitioners provide the link between the leader, who can see what needs to be done, and the doers who have their hands on the levers of change but who may need help in seeing the big picture.

Making this connection means providing everyone with a shared understanding of the organisation's strategic business issues and ensuring that they understand the 'whys' as well as the 'whats'. Done well internal communications results in every employee believing they can make a difference, having the relevant tools to make a difference and, crucially, wanting to make that difference.

To enable this internal comms practitioners need to build communications plans which create a clear line of sight between corporate strategy and employees’ daily work. They need to provide direction, build understanding and establish priorities. 

These are short thoughts. For longer, more fully-formed thoughts covering business, public relations and change visit www.sabguthrie.info or sign up to email updates.

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Communicators: co-create, collaborate & co-operate

Today’s successful communications plans are integrated communications plans. Plans which need collaboration and co-creation. Where paid media sits cheek-by-jowl with earned media. Where content is created and shared with engaged publics who are pulled to an organisation’s owned media.

This means breaching the barricades. Smashing down the walls between public relations, marketing and advertising. 

Instead of ‘sticking out our elbows’ and obsessing over ownership we should be demonstrating leadership. Pushing skill sets forward. Embracing new ones. Tinkering with the old ones to make them relevant for today. Learning to creatively solve problems for our clients and employers rather than promoting our own specialties to the exclusion of others.

Creativity isn’t all about beards, tattoos, craft beer and ethically-sourced quinoa. It’s about mental flexibility and adaptability. Creativity is about the ‘appropriateness’ of an idea. Being different is not enough – you must also be apt. 

To problem solve creatively we can do worse than to develop our sense of curiosity and play. 

Play is a kind of grounded fantasy. It’s neither completely real nor completely fantastical. When my five-and-a-half-year-old daughter plays with her younger brother in a cardboard box the box changes at their will. A boat instantly transforms into a car, or a shop or just a box to store toys.

As communicators when we have one foot in reality and the other in fantasy the tension between the two can be very productive. In fact this is the basic principle behind many creative methods.  

These are short thoughts. For longer, more fully-formed thoughts covering business, public relations and change visit www.sabguthrie.info or sign up to email updates.  

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25 posts!

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Short Thoughts are one-minute reads covering communications, creativity + change. For longer, more fully-formed thoughts visit www.sabguthrie.info or sign up to email updates.

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Existing change management methodologies treat change as initiatives: projects with defined start and end dates. 

We prepare people for the change initiative. We build support for that specific change event. We make the change happen. We reinforce the change. We institutionalise the change.

We think about change in terms of timelines. When will it start? When will the change initiative be over?

The simple truth is: change is now continual. It’ll never be over. For this reason change must become part of a firm’s DNA; embedded as an organisational competence.

Alvin Toffler the American writer and futurist has said: “Technology feeds on itself. Technology makes more technology possible.” The speed of change is only going to increase further, not decrease. Business has to adapt; to be restructured to respond to this immediacy.

Change is the new business as usual. Firms need to find ways to adapt to continuous change.

These are short thoughts. For longer, more fully-formed thoughts covering business, public relations and change visit www.sabguthrie.info or sign up to email updates.

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Managers have moved from knowledge hoarders to knowledge pumps. The moniker: ‘knowledge is power’ is being replaced with ‘power belongs to the network’.

Writing in the Harvard Business Review Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms describe a growing tension between two distinct forces – old power and new power:

“Old power works like a currency. It is held by few. Once gained, it is jealously guarded, and the powerful have a substantial store of it to spend. It is closed, inaccessible, and leader-driven. It downloads, and it captures.

“New power operates differently, like a current. It is made by many. It is open, participatory, and peer-driven. It uploads, and it distributes. Like water or electricity, it’s most forceful when it surges. The goal with new power is not to hoard it but to channel it.”

To survive today’s VUCA environment the managers who will succeed are those who build creative, learning organisations populated with fast-acting, empowered workforces of multi-disciplinary teams. Team members who can ‘look around corners’ and make the connection between the work they’re doing and the knock on effects to others both inside and outside the firm.

These teams rely less on procedure and more on awareness of different perspectives held by different stakeholders.

These are short thoughts. For longer, more fully-formed thoughts covering business, public relations and change visit www.sabguthrie.info or sign up to email updates.

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Today public relations practitioners help leaders guide their firms; helping them make good decisions. 

Decisions based on listening. And listening not just to shareholders. But to the web of stakeholders who hold the power to sustain firms into the long term. Decisions based on understanding the differing contexts of each stakeholder group.

Public relations used to be about conversation. Building relationships through listening at least as much as talking.

The industry made a misstep in the mid 20th century. PR became pre-occupied with communicating with its employers’ and clients’ publics via the proxy of media relations. This was to the detriment of direct public engagement.

Today consumers demand to be engaged with - not talked at. Fragmenting media caused by technological advances and changing consumer behaviour has forced a return to Eric Goldman’s Two-Way Street.

There’s an increasingly participatory way in which we consume news and information today.

For PR this necessitates a shift from SOS comms (‘sending out stuff’) to pulling intelligence in. From information broadcast to intelligence acquisition.

Once inside the firm PR practitioners help ensure the right areas of the business have access to this intelligence and so make the right decisions.

These are short thoughts. For longer, more fully-formed thoughts covering business, public relations and change visit www.sabguthrie.info or sign up to email updates.

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Giving new ideas the run of the house.

New ideas can be like anxious guests – worried about putting their hosts to too much effort. But ideas need to be welcomed. Given the run of the house. If not, they’ll quickly make their excuses and leave.

In hierarchical organisations there’s a tendency to keep our new ideas to ourselves. To be inhospitable hosts to them so they leave quickly.

We do this because bureaucracies often dance hand-in-hand with blame cultures. Each management layer covers its back in turn cementing the status quo of ‘the way we’ve always done things around here’.

Instead we should be trying to foster creative thinking which welcomes new ideas. Building open climates which appreciate that not all ideas will work out but that the alternative to fresh ideas is extinction.

These are short thoughts. For longer, more fully-formed thoughts covering business, public relations and change visit www.sabguthrie.info or sign up to email updates.

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Yesterday Seth Godin, the father of permission marketing, wrote about people’s differences. In a post titled: When in doubt, draw a bell curve Godin mused:

“We're puzzled when we see uneven acceptance or uneven performance, because it's easy to imagine that any group of people is homogeneous. But they're not.”

Like me Stephen Waddington, partner and chief engagement officer at global communications firm Ketchum, is a fan of Godin’s daily posts. And, in a Tweet laid down the gauntlet for me to “get all over this.”

Here’s my response:

A good analogy for how people deal with change is how we approach fire. There are some who run as soon as they see it. Others who will only move when they feel the heat of the flames. Many will sit, waiting to see what the others do.

When faced with change all of us split into one of three camps. I call these the Yays, Sways and No-Way-Josés.

The Yays

The Yays are the poster boys and girls of change. They embrace the change. And, best of all they embrace it visibly. They become change agents and push the initiative forward. They use either their hierarchical authority or their social network, or a combination of the two in order to influence the change positively.

The No-Way-Josés

At the other end of my bell curve lie the No-Way-Josés. Former UK Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, once famously said “Turn if you want to. This woman’s not for turning.” Similarly this group of employee will not consider participating in the change at any cost. Consciously or not they have just begun an exit strategy.

The Sways

Lying in the middle of these two poles are the Sways. They are hesitant about the change.

It is probable that of the three groups the Sways will need the most of a change manager’s time and attention.

The good news is that the Sways’ change ‘vote’ can be secured with effective change management skills. They just need a reassuring ‘nudge’ in the right direction.

Bell curve shape

Don’t expect the groups to be evenly distributed either. The size of each group will depend on many inputs like the size, type and personal impact of change.

These are short thoughts. For longer, more fully-formed thoughts covering business, public relations and change visit www.sabguthrie.info or sign up to email updates.

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Technology, consumer behaviour and market demand are all shifting sands along the social age’s tide.

Firms have to be nimble to survive and prosper. This is a state-of-mind shift. An ethos. It means becoming a learning organisation. One which recognises change as the only constant.

Here are five pillars on which a firm can build learning and agility as a core competence and so change the way it behaves and operates

#1 Self design

People throughout the organisation figuring out for themselves how to make their teams, units and departments function more effectively, efficient and economically.

#2 Co-creation

Building a behaviours and belief-led firm requires organisational members to help to create the kind of organisation that fits their values. A place where corporate and personal values co-exist.

#3 Failing forward

Failing forward. But failing fast. Trying out new approaches throughout the organisation, learning what works (and what doesn’t). Sharing learning. Not just crowing about departmental successes and burying failures.

#4 From Hierarchy to Networks

Sideways learning among the people who have to learn to work together in different ways.

#5 From events to routines

Make tailoring, innovating, and experimenting ongoing processes throughout the organisation. Constantly nurture new ideas. Tinker with - don’t accept the status quo.

Change is never ‘done’ in this new view of change. Today’s world set marked by its volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. The sands are forever shifting. Firms need to move alongside technology, consumer behaviour and market demand to compete in this new world.

These are short thoughts. For longer, more fully-formed thoughts covering business, public relations and change visit www.sabguthrie.info or sign up to email updates.

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Stuck in a rut?

No?

Even worse, perhaps you are stuck in a rut but don’t yet realise it.

“Habitualization devours work, clothes, furniture, one's wife, and the fear of war”. So said Victor Shklovsky in his 1917 essay ‘Art as Technique’.

Shklovsky uses the example of holding a pen for the first time in comparison to the 10,000th time. We don’t consciously think about holding the pen. That makes sense. It would drive us bonkers thinking about the act of holding a pen on top of expressing our thoughts in writing.

But this becomes a habit of passive thinking and action.

In our work lives sometimes things become so ingrained that we no longer see them. Our organisational culture (‘the way we do things around here’) is built on solving yesterday’s problems. Not tomorrow’s.

‘We’ve always done it that way’ is often a stock answer to questions. But, have we always faced the same opportunities and threats? Have we always had the today’s access to data, methodology and thinking?

Sometimes we need to be jolted out of this blind (perhaps bland) spot.

A consultant can act as a change catalyst bringing with him/her a fresh pair of eyes.

New employees can also use their newness to challenge the status quo and ‘blame’ asking obvious questions on their ‘intelligent naivety”.

Or, we can just ask: ‘why?’ Why do we do it that way? Why not that way?

Shklovsky’s remedy was defamiliarization. Making the familiar unfamiliar. Not to confuse us further but to challenge us to see again.

These are short thoughts. For longer, more fully-formed thoughts covering business, public relations and change visit www.sabguthrie.info or sign up to email updates.