There are many great insights from the How Google Works book that Google book that I am sure that I will refer to on these blogs. One of the first is about communicating in fact the importance of over communicating.
I have been involved in organisations at both end of the spectrum. One that believed ‘we have told the staff the strategy why do we need to tell them again’ and one that investigated in communicating and over communicating. It was no surprise to me that the former had staff engagement in the lowest percentile and the latter was one of the best engagement scores in the country.
I think that Jack Walsh of GE summed it up well when he said “A vision is not worth the paper it’s printed on unless it is communicated constantly and reinforced with rewards”. I couldn’t agree more, and I firmly believe that people are trustworthy and want and can be trusted with information, it keeps them engaged and part of something bigger.
Below are some Top Tips from How Google Works
Top tips
- Be open with communication and strategy
- Your team want to belong to something: “all and I want to know is I am contributing to the company success”
- Therefore taking the time to explain the strategy and how they fit in this hugely important and motivational.
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“The mission or purpose of my company makes me feel my job is important” is one of the key questions in Gallup’s staff engagement.
- Don’t expect instant results this is an ongoing process as the new book how Google works- you may need to communicate 20 times before your team really embraces it. And just to make harder the how you communicate 20 times needs to be engaging and relevant.
- My blog How to inspire change in an Organisation gives some hints on how to get buy in.
- One of the comments I have had from a recent CEO is – ‘we tell the team the strategy and give them an opportunity to ask questions but none of them do. Aren’t they interested?” They are interested they are just scared of asking a stupid question in front of there peers. One way Google gets around this is by a very simple process using the Intranet. Any stuff can ask any question anonymously via a web form and other stuff vote on which questions they want answered. This means the most relevant or interesting questions get asked. Implementing this on your internet is very easy and will help drive up engagement and interest.
KS.
