CWC 13: Ryan Williams on internal communications and measurement

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Chip Griffin: You’re listening to Chats with Chip on the FIR Podcast Network.

Hi, this is Chip Griffin, and welcome to another episode of Chats with Chip. My guest today is Ryan Williams. He’s a partner with Tekara Effectiveness. Welcome, Ryan.

Ryan Williams: Hi, Chip. How are you doing?

Chip Griffin: I’m doing very well, thanks. And, really looking forward to this conversation and bringing our two nations together because, you know, there’s all this tension that exists between the U. S. and Canada, right?

Ryan Williams: Well, we do amass around the border, that’s for sure. Yeah.

Chip Griffin: in any case, if you could tell people where they can find you online, and then we’ll start our conversation.

Ryan Williams: Certainly, so Tekara. com is our main website, but also TWI Surveys, which is another company we have, and that’s also a com, you can find me there, or on Twitter at willy26, and always happy to engage with folks there as well.

Fantastic.

Chip Griffin: so, surveys, you know, survey research is something that I think, you know, doesn’t get as much attention as it should, perhaps, in the overall mix for public relations pros as they’re doing measurement, but in particular, surveys of, internal communications, you know, we, we spend so much time talking about, you know, how’s our media coverage going, you know, how can we, you know, get better coverage, improve the messaging out there, but But there’s not as much time spent on internal communications and it strikes me that we probably ought to be spending more time, investigating the quality of our internal comms.

Ryan Williams: I would, I would agree that’s my passion. And, really there’s been an evolution over the last number of years where the importance of our internal communications to how we reflect to the world, has increased. And so now our most credible sources are those folks, you know, work in the boiler, that are on the front lines, that are in the storerooms, and they’re talking about us.

And how well we’re being able to engage with them and understand them and meet their needs, really dictates how well they’re going to represent us out in the community. And I said, secondarily to that, or maybe primarily, is actually the executive teams and the senior management groups. How well connected are they?

Are they actually open and transparent enough to be able to reflect our brands externally? and do they understand the communication environment we’re in now? So how do we as communicators influence them? And I think it really starts by us understanding them first. And listening very carefully, and so that’s where a survey is that, that wonderful tool where we can ask everybody.

And, and you know, everybody can get in the room. And if we do it well, they’ll feel heard, and we’ll get great insights from that information. So, internally, surveys are, are much more effective than what we have, in polling. And so we’ve heard a lot about polls in the last few weeks. polls are always scratching the surface.

They get a little bit of general, the, the, They have to have all these fancy formulas now to try to get at intention or reduce the bias in the poll. When we do internal surveys, we have very low bias. and in fact, you know, we, we know who our whole audience is. We can compare it to our HR demographics.

We can get fantastic data. And so the, the confidence level and the validity of the surveys of internal are much stronger than what we’re used to using externally. And for that reason, I think it’s low hanging fruit. you know, it doesn’t cost as much, we have a captive audience, and they want to share with us what they think.

And so it would be a shame if we didn’t ask.

Chip Griffin: And, you know, as we talk about quality of data, I mean, do you find that employees are generally honest in these surveys, as far as you can tell? They’re not, they’re not either afraid to alienate management, or perhaps they, you know, throw a few too many punches, because this is their opportunity to, to get a few things off their chest.

Ryan Williams: Hi, you know, methodology matters, you know, we have to communicate in advance what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, how we’re going to handle the data. I think there’s many things that can be done internally in organizations well and so if you’re surveying about, you know, what you’d like the next meeting or what’s for lunch, you’re going to get candid and honest feedback.

If you’re getting into, you know, is my boss good? Okay, well, having third party support and a lot of controls around how we handle data and confidentiality is incredibly important. Otherwise, you will get biased results because, you know, there’s a political reality to having a job and we don’t want to call our own security into question.

Chip Griffin: So, so what you’re saying is it would behoove someone who’s really looking for honest feedback to use a third party as opposed to say, you know, just setting up Survey Monkey and, you know, trying to get employees to be honest that way.

Ryan Williams: Oh, yeah. And then that’s really the topic driven, right? So I would encourage internal communicators to survey about many things.

You know, what’s the most preferred source of information? You know, what type of stories are you interested in this month? And, you know, there’s very low risk in that. People will be honest about those kind of topics. But if you’re going into more HR oriented, you know, how well do people communicate, What do I think of the CEO?

those types of things that need a much stronger and informal methodology. So people feel comfortable and then you need to get communication plan to go along with it. So they know that they can feel comfortable,

Chip Griffin: right? Right. But I mean, if I’m an organization and I, and I don’t want to deploy an outside consultant, either for budget reasons or, you know, who knows why?

I mean, is, will I get valid? Data if I’m using something like SurveyMonkey to talk to my employees or am I, you know, better off just sort of having Conversations with my employees and picking up anecdotal things at that point

Ryan Williams: I would probably use a metaphor akin to when would you have a manager write their own Material and when would you bring in the professional to make sure it’s clear and consistent and and and done well You know, it is a profession.

It does take a certain amount of skill set That being said, general surveys and general topics of interest. Everybody should learn that capability and that skill, but if it’s a strategic importance to the organization and there’s risk involved, and we can actually lose employees or put someone’s character at risk.

Then you need the professional help, because, you know, we don’t want to do harm and that should be, you know, the first rule. If we don’t think we can do this safely for the people involved, then we shouldn’t do it. And measurement involves that because people might disclose stuff, that they didn’t intend to.

And so we want to be sensitive to that as well.

Chip Griffin: As you, as someone who’s done a lot of, internal communications, analysis, survey research of employees, etc. Are there, are there trends that you’ve noticed over time, you know, particular areas that most organizations should be, you know, working on or looking at more closely at least?

Ryan Williams: Yes, and so there’s a couple. One, in just about every organization, people feel like they don’t have input into decisions that impact them directly. And so they may feel like they have a good relationship with their boss, that they get to ask the right questions, but they don’t akin that to, I have input.

And so we as communicators, the systems and things that we build around that give people the sense of input and influence will go a long way to them feeling empathy and trust within the organization. So that is, you know, we can do that on our intranets, we can do that through our town halls and our different meetings.

but that sense and feeling of having input and influence is incredibly important and it’s systemically a problem. The other question that we actually don’t ask as often anymore because it just became a static is, it’s safe to say what you think around here. Okay. And when we ask that question, it’s almost universally low.

And, and it’s always been a curiosity to me, because I thought, well, why can’t that be higher? And I think there’s a lot of reasons, even in very trustworthy organizations, that people say, well, no, you still can’t say everything you think. Right. It’s a work environment.

Chip Griffin: Well, I mean, how many of us at home always say everything that comes to mind, right?

I mean, there is value in having that little governor on what you’re saying.

Ryan Williams: Yes. Yes. Which makes it a little more difficult to say, okay, do we actually have an issue here? Is it people just using common sense and they’re reflecting that in their answers? Mm-Hmm. . Yeah. And, and you know, ’cause we are looking for more open dialogue.

We are looking for more transparency and, and, you know, and having what you know, that, that saying, positive conflict. Mm-Hmm. that if, if we’re not actually having o open dialogue in the organization and some debate that we’re actually not making good decisions collectively.

Chip Griffin: Mm-Hmm. .

Ryan Williams: And so how do we, how do we actually create that environment and, Having that governor in your head still is important to that.

Chip Griffin: Right.

Ryan Williams: And so the surveys show us really a predominance around, are they open to that? How far away are they from that? And under what conditions would they actually. Share and engage in around our plans, our ideas, our operations, you know, what we can do for our customers.

Chip Griffin: I’m intrigued by the first point that you made about the sense of involvement in decision making and input in things that directly affect the employees. And this is something that certainly anecdotally I’ve seen in many of the organizations that I’ve worked for or with over the years, is that. Have you noticed a difference in that based on the size of the organization, or is that really something that no matter what size organization you have, people still feel that way?

Ryan Williams: You know, I’m getting to the point where I’ve done this for almost 20 years now. I’ve worked from the PepsiCo’s and the United Technologies all the way down to Mom and Pop shops and the local gym. And, you know, a little non profits government. And what I’m starting to learn is I think that’s just a human truism

that

we as people, if we can be in a room with two people, we still might feel like we didn’t get enough input into the decision that impacted me.

But that truism, while it’s universal, is also an important part of our communication process. Cause the more I feel like I have input, the more autonomy I feel, the more open I am to change, the more open I am to being involved and actually taking ownership of whatever the decision was. And so while it’s universally true that I’ll never feel like I have enough input, The more we can do to influence that feeling, the more effective our communications can be.

Chip Griffin: Right. And based on those decades of experience, would you say that the people saying they don’t feel like they’ve had enough input, is that simply a proxy for, I disagree with the decision? Or do you think it’s really a reliable indicator of how they, you know, do people say, I disagreed with it, but I felt I was able to give my input, I guess, is really the question I’m asking.

Ryan Williams: We do see in many instances where both those things happen, but we have is really effective communication going on there because the input wasn’t only sought, but after the input was given in the decision was made, there was a lot of effort gone back in to say, this is why we made the decision. This is how we use your input.

And we understood that you don’t like the decision and we’re going this way. Anyway, what happens many times as we do the consultation. The decision’s made and no one ever knows why the decision was made. And so then they say, you must not have heard me.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, I mean, it’s a challenge, right? Because, you know, ultimately, whether you’re a business or a non profit or a government, you know, it’s, it’s not, your organization is not a pure democracy, right?

So we don’t get to just raise our hands and say, oh, this is, this is what we want the policy to be or the decision to be. So, so somehow you have to be able to accept that input, but then communicate the rationale for the decision in a way to get buy in from even those who were opposed to it from the get go.

Ryan Williams: Well, I think you hit on a critical point. we don’t want a democracy in our organizations. Right. Our consensus doesn’t make the best decision. Right. Now the question is, are we having that nice tension where we’re actually seeking great information and understanding of each other? And those experts that we have in our organization, be it those that are closest to the customer, or those who are specialists in communication or legal or finance.

And you know, who should make the decision? And when the decisions are made, do we feel like they were informed decisions? And would we support the decision? Right. which is very different than did we all agree with the decision. And I think that’s a great bridge into surveys because many times when I work with communicators, they want to do a survey and then they’ll say, well, how did everybody feel?

Oh, I guess, you know, we should do more email because they said email or I wanted to talk, you know, mostly with my manager. So I guess we’ll, we’ll make sure that we do a lot of manager toolkits. Right. And so, you know, backup, that’s how they feel. Will that actually serve them well?

Chip Griffin: Right.

Ryan Williams: Do they already get too much email?

Are we already, have we already inundated their managers with too much information, too many responsibilities? What’s an effective communication strategy given their preferences for those two things? But it’s not possible to do that effectively or well. And so as professional communicators, we have to step back and say, well, we can’t just do what they ask for.

We have to have a really good communication plan informed by what they ask for. And, that’s a rare thing.

Chip Griffin: As you, as you look at, you know, doing, employee surveys, I mean, have you, developed sort of best practices on what the frequency should be? And if you do them more regularly, does that have a positive impact on the input question?

Ryan Williams: Yes and yes. and so, no, let me expand. So the first question is, you know, what frequency of surveys should we use? You know, if it’s relevant to the audience, high frequency works. And so, you know, if we have very targeted surveys about specific events and activities, and they go just to the audience that’s fully involved in those, You can do those weekly, as long as they’re short and easy to take and people love them.

Really? Weekly? No problem, because you’re talking about what we’re doing next week, you’re getting a feel, maybe it’s only one or two questions. Sure. That’s where, if you’re the internal person running a program, you’re a project manager, or you’re doing the change management along a program, you can go out very quickly to the people that are most impacted.

Now that group might only be 10 or 20 people. Right. But you’re regularly checking in with them and confirming what you’ve heard and where they are. You know, how you did last week, where you’re going next week, that frequency makes sense. Other frequencies are dictated by how long it takes for you to go through the system and the process of using the information.

So, in fact, like an employee engagement survey may be done annually. It may only be done every two years, because by the time people get the information, it goes through all the corporate processes, programs have changed, people have actually received it, you can actually get into two full economic cycles before you actually get to the end of the process.

In that case, if you did it quicker, people would start saying, well, you never hear my feedback, you never use my feedback. And so the question is, if you only can do it every two years, because that’s how long it takes you to do the whole process, What are you doing in between to make people feel like they’re heard, right?

And so that’s where you come in and say, you know, are we having open dialogue? You know, do we have iterations or ideation going on in our intranet? What other ways do we do this because the survey is just one tool. And engagement and listening should be happening all the time and just be part of any healthy culture in an organization.

Chip Griffin: Right. And that’s a great point. I mean, I think that one of the things that’s overlooked, you know, whether you’re doing survey research or other forms of measurement, internal, external, however, customers, it’s, it’s how you use the data that matters, right? I mean, this is not, you know, I remember in the old days when I started out in PR, you know, we used to assemble those giant clipbooks, you know, and binders, you know, and binders.

My first job in PR like most people, you know, young people in PR was taking the exacto knife and cutting out the, the story, putting on a piece of paper and putting a nice binder that quarterly we deliver to the client and say, look what we did, you know, but it would just sit on a shelf. Right. I mean, you’d go to the client’s office on a regular basis.

You’d see the shelf just gets, you know, heavier and heavier. but it’s really what you do with that. And so I think you’ve really hit a, a, a key point, which is, you know, particularly on internal communication where you’ve got people right there on top of you and they’re, you know, if you take feedback from, you know, media research, nobody really knows whether you ever acted on it, but your internal constituency certainly does.

Ryan Williams: Yes. Yes. And so that role of the research and what you’re trying to inform is incredibly important. So there’s times as a communicator, you would like feedback, but it’s about you and your programming. There’s other times as a communicator in the organization and you’re trying to facilitate internal dialogue, that your role is actually to enable others to have great conversations and decisions around the strategy, around the plans of the organization, where you’re going, and in that case, you’re partnering maybe with HR or other internal services to say, okay, how do we make sure localized discussions with managers and supervisors are happening?

And here’s, here’s some material that will help those conversations.

And

here, here’s a frame to do that really well. And here’s a channel for them to feed stuff back through, because all those groups need support, because they don’t know how to run the communication process. But they’re the ones who are going to make the operational change.

They’re the ones who are going to decide to treat each other differently, in a given situation or circumstance. And for us, we’re really trying to facilitate, you know, effective management conversations, and leadership conversations, and peer to peer employee conversations. Like we would see in social media now, that influence of how we feel happens more so at that localized level between the two colleagues after the meeting than it was in the message during the meeting.

And our opportunity is all, you know, where do we influence all those conversations? And surveys and survey data is one way of saying, okay, here’s the data, but this is what I’d like you to do with it. And here’s your opportunity, and here’s what I think you can benefit from.

Chip Griffin: How important do you think it is to tie together your internal measurement with your external measurement?

In other words, you know, should you be syncing up some of the questions you’re asking? I mean, obviously not from an HR perspective, you know, those kinds of questions. But, you know, sort of messaging values, all that type of thing.

Ryan Williams: In an ideal world, it would all be really simple, and they would all be the same.

And then we get into the macerations and complexities of our organizations, our structures, who owns what, and the diverse audiences that we’re meeting. And I think our struggle is always to, Try to come back to that simplicity of what is our, our, you know, our vision mission values and how does everything frame underneath those elements.

And, you know, if we have key priorities, you know, sometimes our management teams might give us 10 and we say, Oh, well, which two should we focus on this quarter? Right. Because if we try to communicate everything, we can’t. And I think that that just extends, extends that conversation, which is if your external and your internal match, you’re going to be more successful in both.

Otherwise, you always run the risk of looking like you’re not saying what you’re doing. Right.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, I mean, it’s difficult to make, you know, a prospective customer believe that you are something if your own employees don’t believe that that’s what you are.

Ryan Williams: And, you know, because I advocate for internal communications, I would say it says start internally.

If your employees don’t believe your brand, if they don’t live your brand, If everything’s aspirational, but nothing’s core,

it’s

going to be really hard to communicate to the world. That’s who you are. If it’s not. And so it does start effectively. Now you can’t wait. You can’t wait until all your people are on board before you start communicating to the world.

Right. Right. And so, so I also understand. That’s why I say it’s a tension. It’s dynamic. So in an ideal, It would be sent up and in reality, we’re always muddling between the two and trying to make sure that we get as close as possible to that.

Chip Griffin: We’ve talked a little bit about some of the trends that you’ve seen as far as, you know, results of surveys and, and internal communications research, but, are there specific internal communications tactics that you’ve seen as a result of these things that.

That work more effectively than others? I mean, are, are we, and, and obviously I’m asking you to generalize here, which can be a challenge. Sure. ’cause every culture is different, but, you know, is it, is it, is it email, is it in intranet? Is it some sort of a customized app? I mean, you know, we, we have all these different tools nowadays to communicate and, and we have different approaches, right?

We have all hands meetings, we have more one-on-one type thing. Are there sort of trends that you’ve seen along those lines that, that help with internal communications more so than others? In today’s day and age?

Ryan Williams: So the interesting part that I’ve discovered, and I’ve had the opportunity, so the International Association of Business Communicators for a number of years, was allowing me to, research their membership.

And so I went into topics like intranets, I went into topics like email, and then tried to understand what the practices were. And I was seeking for best practice at the time, and then as a pollster I learned something, that surveys don’t give me best practice. And so even though I knew that, I had to do the research with that method only to find out, Oh, I’m learning a lot of common practice and common practice isn’t always best practice.

And so what are the common practices? Well, the common practice is to have a mix of email, town halls, you know, intranets. And what I’m seeing is, you know, consistently a dissatisfaction with intranets from our, from the introduction of intranets in the mid nineties through to today. You know, we took a lot of publishing type techniques, applied them to the internet, and then it became very static and stale.

In most organizations, not all. Now those that they didn’t become static and stale and had cultures that were predisposed to a lot of sharing. And so I think about my wonderful client, Mountain Equipment Co op up here in Canada, they do outdoor sport equipment and these kind of things. And they share.

Their store staff shares, everybody shares. But it’s not because the organization made them that way. They wanted to know about their gear and about the discounts and everything that goes with it. So 85 percent of folks are on their internet outside of work weekly, because they’re just sharing about their next adventure or their next time out in the woods, or, Hey, did you know that we had this new product coming online and we want to try it out, or do we get a chance to use it?

They’re just interested. And that’s part of who they are. You know, we can go to another organization and they can create all the context and put all the tools in place. You’ll have zero sharing, right? It’s just not part of what makes them excited or passionate about what they do, and that wouldn’t be how they express themselves.

Right. So I guess in that case, to your point, they’re very different. So, we, we, we, we started to apply the new technology to a lot of different organizations. But the, the trend in Intranets is that we apply a lot of old technology and practices to a very new place. And we’re still struggling, even though it’s been a long time now with what, what should this look like and how do we enable it for most organizations, as opposed to some organizations.

Right. I think is the insight one. And so the insight of what I’ve seen with email is our executives are stuck and they’re trapped. And it tends to go across the profession. So I’ve also been fortunate where I do research on physicians, on lawyers. And also in the accounting profession. And so across the professions is just like across our, our senior executive teams.

They’re so busy. They communicate with email. And so that’s how they, that’s their behavior and they don’t have the capacity or space to experiment or try. So they don’t evolve. Right. And so while email has been a problem for over 10 years now, it’s pervasive and systemic, and there is no, I’ve seen no evidence of change.

Chip Griffin: Mm hmm.

Ryan Williams: At that level, at that management level, and at the professional level, because they’re tied to the behavior. And so it’s what pushes them forward. And so even though we’ve had many new tools that are more effective come out, there’s no adoption. And so who adopts is what we’ve seen in some of our research in very large organizations.

Our frontline employees that all have their smartphones and they’re already, you know, set up all their online banking. And they download apps to help them get around the yards and coordinate with their colleagues because they can. Mm hmm. And the corporate tools don’t provide it. So they just do it on their own.

Chip Griffin: Right?

Ryan Williams: And so they, they move and evolve and adapt. And, you know, the presumption might be that, you know, that the higher end folks, you know, in the, in the, in the suite would, be the ones who might try or experiment or be more knowledgeable about these things. And they’re actually the least likely to change when it comes to technology.

Chip Griffin: you know, and we’ve seen a lot of changes that technology has facilitated, whether it’s, you know, more telework, you know. Partial telework, people working from home some days a week, coming into an office, hotelling, within, office spaces as opposed to having a dedicated, cube or, or office.

more internationalization of businesses, you know, because, you know, global borders really are breaking down from a business perspective. You know, how have these things impacted, internal communications and, and, you know, how does it impact the need for measurement?

Ryan Williams: I guess, there’s a great opportunity in that, but we’re not there yet, which is the more we digitize and the more we do everything online, the easier measurement is.

It all becomes observable. It’s the question, so we put the practices and protocols in place that people understand how and why we observe and what we collect and what we don’t, because we can. And so, you know, the more that everybody moves into the digital channels, the more measurement becomes, achievable.

you know, the, the, the random conversations at the water cooler now become things that we can all see. And so, you know, what should our protocols, I think this is a great conversation for, you know, the, the legal and the, and the communicators and HR and everybody to get together and come around and say, you know, what should our culture promote and what degrees of privacy should we maintain?

And when do we need to really clearly communicate that this is a public forum? And that we’re going to measure it and we’re going to track it because we’re going to try to utilize it and we’re going to try to enable it and we want it to be. so that’s I guess one side is the more we move online to those, those ways of working.

We actually have great opportunities in measurement that way. The other side, though, is that we’re community people, we’re, as much as many of us are introverts, seeing people, proximity to people, it matters. It makes a difference. And as we move away from that, it does impact how we do work and what collaboration looks like.

you know, so our workflows change, and depending on our task, it can either create great efficiency, See? Or really reduce innovation. so as, as you know, I’m in my home office, as you can see behind me today. And, and I’ll get more done before noon today than I will, if I go into my downtown Vancouver office, because I won’t talk to anybody.

I’ll, you know, I’ll read things. No one will interrupt me except for my dog and I’ll get lots done. but getting lots done is different than collaborating, being aware of what other people are doing and those things. So we need a lot more formal processes. That force us to engage, share, and, and, and understand the views of others.

So it’s just different than just having others contribute to our work.

Chip Griffin: Is there any way to generalize in the quality of internal comms for an organization that’s more centrally located, you know, the thousand person campus, everybody’s sort of on site versus those that are more distributed. I mean, I could see it going either way, right?

I could see distributed organizations sort of being compelled to find new and more innovative ways to communicate. Or I could see it being sort of a, You know, geez, we, we can’t figure out how to do this.

Ryan Williams: You know, you know, the most interesting part about that is I see that the trend is based on leadership and the leadership of groups like communications, HR, it, and if that leadership is, is keen and aware that the way they can be successful in the future is through facilitating process, then it’s there.

If that’s not the way they see their work, if they see their work is, you know, accomplishing the next big deal or doing the next MNA or something along those lines. Then what you see is a very tactical, you know, professional driven organization that doesn’t, you know, it’s more about results and less about process.

And then it breaks down, cause what I have seen is I can be in a global organization and the story will be, well, we’re all around the world. And so we better focus on our communication locally and get that right before we. And so, you know, I’ll have a lot of U. S. first policies, you know, but we’re going to experiment with this in the U.

S. first, and then we’ll try it abroad and it’s okay. Well, you know, let’s, let’s start and then, you know, let’s see what happens. but then that’s the story. And then I’ll go to an organization that’s in a single building. But they have nine floors. And they’ll say, well, you know, let’s get this right on the ninth floor.

Because then, you know, then we can try it in other places. And then I get an organization that has one floor, but has three distinct areas. And they’ll say, well, you know, let’s get it right on the right side of the building before we go to the left side of the building. And so the story is the same. And the question is, how do we view communications?

And how do we view that information flow? And if we carry this story over, it really doesn’t matter how big we get or how distributed. Mm hmm. It’s just a question of do we value and do we believe that the others are equal, equally able to engage with us?

or did we believe we knew something that they didn’t?

And that, you know, when, when, when we get it right, then we can let them be involved. Right. And so it’s very much a cultural mindset.

Chip Griffin: Well, that’s, I, I think that’s a great note to end on because I think regardless of whether someone listening is with a small or a large organization, distributed or all on site, you know, I, I think there’s a lot of insight that can be taken away from this.

And, and I know you and I could go on for quite a bit longer talking about this, but unfortunately we have to wrap up. Come to the end of our allotted time. So, Ryan, I appreciate you being my guest today. Again, my guest has been, Ryan Williams, with Tekara effectiveness.