11 ways communications links to organisational performance
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#11ways Part II - Does communication really make a difference?
Research Conducted by Michael Ambjorn, Dana Poole and Stephen Welch
#11ways via Twitter
125 respondents covering over 100 organizations with over a million employees
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Who we are
Michael AmbjornPassionate about helping leaders achieve purpose-driven impact - and willing to cross oceans to make it happen.
Chair @IABC, Founder @alignyourorg, Director-at-Large @NearDesk
Twitter: @michael_ambjorn
Dana PooleHelping communicators understand the digital landscape and deliver business strategy and goals through Digital Literacy.
Internal Communications and Social Media Consultant at Unilever
Twitter: @dana_poole
Stephen Welch Helping organizations improve their communications to support culture change, innovation, communication, leadership development.
Leading the development of the Communications Department at Dialog Semiconductor
Twitter: @stephenwelch11
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#11WAYS RESEARCH INSIGHTS & TRENDS
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#11ways Benchmarking ReportMichael Ambjorn, Dana Poole and Stephen Welch
High performers think “impact”
Our research – covering over 100 organizations with over a million employees – tells us that there are some clear differences between high performing organizations and others in terms of their communications. 89% of high performers align communications and strategy, but only 58% of
average companies do.
High performing organizations are 3 times more likely to rate their communications as excellent or very good.
A clear theme emerges in high performing organizations – a theme which is absent from the others: They think about impact, not just output.
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#11ways Benchmarking ReportMichael Ambjorn, Dana Poole and Stephen Welch
High performers understand “business”
In a high performing organisation, communicators are twice as likely to claim that they have strong business know-how and operational understanding.
Less than one in five communicators in an average organization would say this.
Those that do: Find it easier to get senior leader buy-in for budget and resources
Show more agility in responding to change: adopting new technologies, influencing culture change, managing competing agendas
Navigate complex and siloed organisational structure to achieve their goals
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#11ways Benchmarking ReportMichael Ambjorn, Dana Poole and Stephen Welch
High performers think “audience”
53% of communicators surveyed keep their language simple and jargon free
The high performer organisations are more likely to keep their language simple, make emotional connections, and think about communication from the audience’s point of view.
In these organizations, we also see stronger connections between the communications team and the rest of the business: In an average company, only 12% of communicators rate the
communication skills of line managers and business leaders as excellent or very good. This figure is 3x higher for high performing organisations.
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#11ways Benchmarking ReportMichael Ambjorn, Dana Poole and Stephen Welch
High performers are fast adopters
Most communicators surveyed have adopted new tools and technologies during the past year and almost 70% said this has been very helpful when engaging with stakeholders.
We see the emergence of messaging apps (Microsoft Lync) and wider spread of webex/video conferencing (Skype for business, Google Hangouts)along the more traditional channels: intranet, social networks, online newsletters
High performing organisation have developed staff capabilities and talent to not only adopt new tools and technologies but embed them through new ways of working and cross-silo governance models
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#11ways Benchmarking ReportMichael Ambjorn, Dana Poole and Stephen Welch
High performers align communication to strategy
89% of high performing organisations align communications and business strategy
Only 8% of the communicators surveyed said they measure the strength of their communication activities by organisation productivity. Perhaps is unsurprising then that the biggest barriers to improving
communication were seen as:
Lack of senior buy-in
Leadership does not value comms
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#11ways Benchmarking ReportMichael Ambjorn, Dana Poole and Stephen Welch
Trends
Since our 2014 survey, we’ve seen some positive trends: 71% (from 54%) now say they align communication strategy and goals
53% (from 32%) now aim for simple and jargon-free language
47% (from 31%) now have processes for creating great stories
53% (from 34%) now claim to regularly make emotional connections with audiences
But the overall level of business knowledge and operational understanding of the communication professionals has worsened: 25% (from 31%) now claim to have an excellent or very good business
knowledge
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#11ways RESEARCH PURPOSE
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#11ways Benchmarking ReportMichael Ambjorn, Dana Poole and Stephen Welch
Why conduct this research?
Good communications practice and organizational performance are inextricably linked.
Our 2014 survey of 81 organizations, across 10 countries with approx 390,000 employees identified 11 challenges that today's communicators are facing.
We saw a link between some of the 11 factors identified and organizational underperformance.
This year are updating the data in order to analyse year-on-year trends.
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#11ways2015 RESEARCH
DETAILED RESULTS
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About the organisations surveyed
No of employees No of employees in Communications
100 organizations with over a million employees
0-5 6-10 11-20 21-50 51-100 101-300 300+0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
39%
16%
6%8% 7%
11%8%
Less
than
100
101-
500
500-
1000
1001
-5,0
00
5,00
1-10
,000
10,0
00-5
0,00
0
50,0
00-1
00,0
00
100,
000+
0.0%
5.0%
10.0%
15.0%
20.0%
25.0%
14.0%
7.0%5.0%
9.0% 10.0%
23.0%
18.0%
14.0%
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#11ways Benchmarking ReportMichael Ambjorn, Dana Poole and Stephen Welch
About the respondents surveyed
Strategic Advisor - You coach and support business leaders, and are seen as a true partner to the business
Generalist - You have a management role in your function to deliver programs and initiatives, working across channels and approaches
Specialist - You work in a particular area of communications and are an expert in your organization
Business Leader - You lead your function, have a view across the organization, and a role on the management team
Foundation - None of these apply to you. Perhaps you have just started your career in communication
30.3%
28.3%
28.3%
9.1%
4.0%
What role best describes your career at this point?
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#11ways Benchmarking ReportMichael Ambjorn, Dana Poole and Stephen Welch
Q1 - How would you rate?
Excellent + Very Good Good/Fair Poor/Terrible0%
50%
100%
150%
200%
250%
23%
66%
10%
20%
61%
18%
25%
66%
6%
The overall effectiveness of communications in your organizationThe general communication skills of the leaders and managers in your organizationThe overall level of business knowledge and operational understanding of the communication professionals across your organization
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#11ways Benchmarking ReportMichael Ambjorn, Dana Poole and Stephen Welch
Q2: How much do you agree or disagree with each of these statements about communications in your organization?
April 17, 2023
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Strongly /Tend to agree Neutral Tend to/Strongly disagree Don't Know
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#11ways Benchmarking ReportMichael Ambjorn, Dana Poole and Stephen Welch
Q3: What new technologies, if any, have you introduced in the last year for your communication activities?
Social M
edia N
etwor
k
Intran
et
Web
ex/T
elec
onfe
renc
e
Email /
Onlin
e ne
wsle
tter
Inst
ant M
essa
ge a
pp
Onlin
e po
rtal
Social M
edia
Apps
Mea
sure
men
t too
ls
Mob
ile p
hone
s
Vide
o
Blog
s
Digita
l mag
azin
e
Digita
l sig
nage
E-co
mm
erce
Podc
ast
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#11ways Benchmarking ReportMichael Ambjorn, Dana Poole and Stephen Welch
Top 5 Tools & Technologies adopted by communicators
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#11ways Benchmarking ReportMichael Ambjorn, Dana Poole and Stephen Welch
Q3: What new technologies, if any, have you introduced in the last year for your communication activities?
April 17, 2023
New devices for teams in every store, a global digital magazine, an online portal for recognition, an online repository for information
Messaging apps - Microsoft Lync is being extended to all countries
Intranets – SharepointOffice 365
New integrated intranet linking formerly unaligned parts of the organization. Leadership video and written blogs and messages (tweets) for internal audiences. More collaboration groups online to connect geographically spread out teams. More online newsletters. Also moved a magazine to a digital format w/ rich content and interactive tools and links.
More use of Google Hangouts with our executives
Social networks - Yammer, Chatter
Email - Newsweaver
Social Media Apps
Shorter, professional video
Webex - Townhalls
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#11ways Benchmarking ReportMichael Ambjorn, Dana Poole and Stephen Welch
Q4: How helpful have these new technologies been in helping you to engage with new or existing stakeholders?
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#11ways Benchmarking ReportMichael Ambjorn, Dana Poole and Stephen Welch
Q5: What methods do you use to measure the strength of your communication activities (internal and/or external)?
Web
site/
Intra
net a
nalytic
s
Surv
ey re
sults
Socia
l med
ia m
onito
ring
Numbe
r/gro
wth
of T
witt
er fo
llower
s / F
aceb
ook
likes
Email o
pen
rate
Reput
ation
benc
hmar
king
Awar
d pr
ogra
ms (w
on/e
nter
ed)
Employ
ee re
tent
ion
rate
PR "Ad
verti
sing
Value
Equiva
lent
"
Sales & p
rofit
Organ
izatio
nal p
rodu
ctivity
22Q6: What would you say is the biggest obstacle to improving the performance of your organizational communications?
“Lack of Management buy-in, lack of investment in new channels.”
“Too much noise/too many initiatives both in the business and communications teams, internally and externally.”
“Getting line managers to become better communicators.”
Time - people just don't have time to read, absorb are where necessary act on the communications. The sheer volume of messages also doesn't help.”
“1a) Apathy/participation amongst audience 1b) "I'm good at it, it’s everyone else".”
“Most members of the Communications and Social Media teams have no background in Communications; they've been simply growing inside the company. The age-range is also older, and non-updated, leaving most of the team counting on outdated tools and strategies.”
“To prove the ROI of communications to executives, managers and investments decision makers.”
“Head of organisation dismissive of involving staff, senior advisers not trusting staff.”
“Managers who think they are doing a good job of communicating but in actuality, they have a different perception of themselves than what others have. Also, outdated technology plays a part in ineffectiveness. (We still use pagers, flip cell phones, computer based telephony that is not very reliable...)”
“Even our communications team-leader and director don't understand the need for communications planning. We just do stuff. Even for advertising, we buy ads without any sort of goals in mind or understanding what the need might be.”
“As a board member for a not for profit - lack of easy communication KPI's”
“Seeing the opportunities not obstacles. Most discussions end up repeating what is wrong or what won't work rather than trialling solutions. We need less pilot programmes and more experiments.”
“The complexity of our organisation often means we have to communicate to the masses vs. communicating clear messaging to the right audience, this will improve as we implement a better process for managing our people data. Change fatigue is also a challenge, we've had so much change over the last 3 years people are growing weary.”
“There is not enough belief in the purpose this would serve, it can't be expressed in extra income..”
“Lack of exec buy in, not enough face to face comm.”
“Capabilities and talent of our Communications team.”
“Having everyone on the same level of technology. Not everyone was given the tools at the same time. While some are enjoying the great benefits, others are frustrated.”
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#11ways Benchmarking ReportMichael Ambjorn, Dana Poole and Stephen Welch
Lack
of b
uy-in
- Bud
get,
reso
urce
s, v
isio
n
Lead
ersh
ip d
oes no
t val
ue com
ms
Compl
ex a
nd silo
ed o
rgan
isat
iona
l struc
ture
Capab
ilitie
s an
d ta
lent
Compe
ting
mes
sage
s an
d in
itiat
ives
Social
, dig
ital &
tech
nolo
gy a
dopt
ion
Lack
of t
ime
0
4
8
12
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Q6: What would you say is the biggest obstacle to improving the performance of your organizational communications?
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#11ways Benchmarking ReportMichael Ambjorn, Dana Poole and Stephen Welch
Q7: Finally, compared to the strategic goals for the year, how would you rate the overall performance of your organization in the last 12 months?
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#11ways Benchmarking ReportMichael Ambjorn, Dana Poole and Stephen Welch
Copyright
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More about #11ways
TwitterSearch for hashtag #11ways
Articles 2015
• 11ways Part 2
• We are all storytellers
• 11 ways to get comms wrong and achieve underperformance
• Do you really make a difference?
• Are you dazzled by comms bling?
• 11 ways strategic communications impacts organizational performance
2014
11 ways session at IABC 14
Do you create or destroy value?
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