It seems to me that we are heading down some rocky roads when it comes to advertising and how to “reach” the consumer.

• Google is giving its own sites priority in their search results (evil!)
• Facebook “inadvertently” (right) sent individual identities to advertisers
• Advertising companies are “screaming” at Microsoft for putting in “do not track” function in Internet Explorer 9 – which tells everyone they should have it
• The government is looking at regulating who can track what – that aught to be useful (NOT)
• Print companies are scrambling to figure out how to “monetize going digital”
• Advertising clients are moving budget dollars from traditional to digital advertising including e-books

My theory on this is that consumers are quite tired of having advertisements “pushed” on them. They know where to get what they are looking for and an Ad is not to be trusted any way. While I speak only for myself, I’m not convinced that I’m all that different than other consumers when I say that I don’t trust ads (I almost never click on the paid ads of a search), I’d rather find the information I want when I want it, and I don’t want it in my books, papers or articles. I will ignore most of what even looks like an ad and may even decide that the ad was intrusive and avoid the seller even if I am looking to purchase something.

I’ve concluded that most people (certainly not all people) do not like and will avoid information that is pushed on them. If that’s true, then all the frantic action by the retailers, marketers and advertisers to find new ways to generate ad dollars or sell products are going down the wrong path; it may well backfire. Instead, they might want to expend energy to make sure that the consumer of your product or service can find you quickly and easily.

Here’s the evidence I see for consumers “fighting back.”

• The success of the “do not call list” to stop the intrusions
• The liberal use of “fast forward” to get rid of the ads in recorded media
• The increased use of smart phones to scan product bar codes and download competitive pricing for your product
• Consumer pressure on Microsoft to go ahead with “Do Not Track” despite the crying advertisers who are predicting the usual doom and gloom. Do you trust them?
• Reliance on colleague testimonials rather than ads – and anger over employees acting like they are consumers providing testimonials

Slowly, I am moving away from the printed word. I no longer take a newspaper, instead I have my own digital news source that gives me what I want and ONLY what  want. I have started listening to the “Word for Word Audio Edition of the Economist”  instead of reading the paper version. My books are now on Kindle or Google e-readers more often than not (except for the occasional gift and the occasional publisher sending a new book for review). I even read books and news on my smart phone now (never thought I would).

So I get why those who pay for advertising and those who do the advertising are in a panic. I understand why they are feeling desperate. And, I think their responses are off the mark. What would life be without the advertising? Can’t imagine it? Nor can I. It won’t happen. What will happen is you won’t have to push the ad on me. You will have to instead work hard to make sure that I can find you and the solid, accurate and useful information you provide will be ad enough. You just have to make sure that your bar code is readily available so I can scan it and get the information I want about your product – otherwise I’ll purchase someone else’s product.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: “No one likes to be sold. Most people do like to buy.” So the question is, how do you make it incredibly easy and rewarding for me to buy? Can I find you? Do you have good solid information or just a bunch of fluff? I don’t think things are all that much different between B2B and B2C these days. So what are you doing to make sure you’re staying out in front on this? There is no “new normal.” There never really has been a “normal.” Everything is changing, including the way we get our messages out to the folks who want to buy our products and services.

My prime target is AT&T and without going into a long tirade, I’ll just say that I’ve not personallyexperienced more deplorable customer service at the hands of a company. I’m adding another one now though, Intuit. After deciding that the “gentle warning” on their website that the latest software was best for Windows 7, I paid my money and downloaded the QB 2010 software. That’s when it all began.

Yes, but you keep dropping my calls! Why is that my problem?

First, the software wouldn’t install. The error message claimed that it couldn’t create a directory in the public folders on my CFO’s machine. I figured this was my problem and so it was. After I straightened out the permissions (a bit frustrating with lots of “rebooting”), the software installed. And then I decided that it was smart to register the product since the splash screen warning, in bold red, stated that I only had 30 days to register the product or it wouldn’t function. That tweaked me a bit since I’d just paid about $175 for this upgrade. But, it isn’t unusual for the larger software guys to want you to “activate/authenticate” the software to be sure it’s a legitimate copy. So I swallowed hard and clicked on “Register Now.”

But I've already given you that information. It is in my profile you just looked up.

Once on the registration page, I began a slow boil. There were way too many questions. And they have nothing to do with validating my copy of the software. Many, maybe most of the fields were required. It was obvious they are gathering information to market to me. How many employees do I have, what’s my mailing address, phone number, etc. By the time I got done I was pretty pissed off. And then the sledgehammer in the nose. “Your almost done. Call the 800 number if you’re in the US . . . . I went ballistic.

I could not believe my eyes. First, after paying for the software, then after filling in a ridiculous registration form requiring information that can’t possibly be needed for validation of legitimate software, these clueless people are forcing me to make a phone call to get an activation number. The poor woman on the other end of the phone when I calmed down enough to call didn’t have any difficulty determining that she had an irate customer on the line.

I apologized to her for being angry and recognized that I knew this wasn’t her fault. I told her that the best thing for both of us was for her to simply give me the activation number so I could finish the installation and turn the machine back over to my CFO. She was pleasant and then started going through all the same information I just had put into that obnoxious registration form! Name, company name, address, phone number, how many employees, why did you upgrade, etc. I couldn’t contain myself. It took another 15 minutes but she finally gave me a six digit number to register my product.

What are these people thinking? Are they thinking? I don’t have any trouble with folks trying to do a good job marketing. Send out a survey. Don’t hold me hostage to registering my software. To make matters even worse, the software itself is a marketing tool. I’m blasted with obnoxious messages to buy products and services and have to hunt around to change settings to minimize this crap. They are gathering a lot of information, more or less forcing it out of the customer. That information is a liability. I can’t wait for them to be raked over the coals for mishandling this information. I’ll join the class action suit on this one (I usually trash them).

Here’s the bottom line. I am now investigating using another software package. It’s too bad. QB is used by lots of people and it’s convenient for my CPA. But I will not put up with being abused by an arrogant company without a clue as to how to treat a customer. If they want to validate the install, just send an e-mail to the registered user with the key. Don’t make me call someone and go through the same information all over again. So as soon as I can install other software, that’s what will happen. They’ve lost a customer.

As I was thinking about this, I realized that the story was the same with all the folks who describe their favorite company to “hate.” It’s all being treated poorly as a customer. How customers are treated is a direct function of how the leadership at the top of the corporation/organization set the culture. So the lesson here is to take a hard look at how we are treating customers – either “on purpose” or because we aren’t paying attention. How is your company doing? Are you listening to the needs your customers express and doing everything reasonable to be responsible to their needs? Are you taking customer satisfaction surveys? Even though you’ve had to cut back due to this poor economy, are you still focused on providing awesome customer experience?

So here’s my premise. It is a leader’s responsibility to provide a compelling vision of the real reason for the existence of the organization (whether for-profit, not-for-profit, private or public). S/he must make sure that the organization never substitutes the measurements for the reasons for existence. Here is where I suspect we will find that BP went wrong. I’m confident that we will find that BP leadership has been focused on minimizing cost, increasing efficiency and improving productivity. Employees are not stupid; they watch where management spends time and money and who gets rewarded. They don’t listen to the words spoken uncritically. They match the words to the actions and the actions win every time.

We need to do the debrief and find the causes of this failure at the BP Oil well (we all know there will be more than one). The details will be important. I know, even without those details, that the root cause will be that leadership failed – not the people doing the work. I know that because by definition, leadership has to take responsibility for the results. Providing for proper training, procedures, controls and an environment where the company and employees can flourish are all the responsibility of the organization’s leadership team.

Government likewise is responsible for providing for proper training, procedures, controls and an environment where the services provided match the public’s expectation. One has to wonder what transpired when it came to actually regulating this and other industries. It appears that a major loop-hole in the regulatory requirements for environmental impact studies in the Gulf Oil drilling operation. The last, most stringent impact study was waived not only for BP but for others drilling in the gulf as well. And not only by this administration, but by administrations going back to the first Bush presidency. The public has a false sense of security when they think about industry regulation. They expect that industries are actually being regulated when, arguably, they are not or at least not fully according to the expectations.

So the balance between the right amount of “fat” and a lean, high performing organization is always in tension. If we look at government as being part of the “staff” in our businesses, then continuing the analogy, we need to have some body fat to survive and thrive, but it’s healthiest to have as little as possible. The public has reason to be highly suspicious of a company’s intentions with respect to good corporate citizenship. There are few companies who are genuinely concerned about their impact on the neighborhood, city, state, country or globe. Therefore, the public has supported, perhaps even demanded regulation of most industries rather than a completely free capitalistic system.

What if business organizations were to consider minimizing regulation intervention in their operations by behaving well, making ethical decisions, authentically caring about their impact on the environment and developing a culture that included all stakeholders in the strategy and vision of the business. Sounds like hard work. Sounds like it could take “forever” and be very frustrating. Sounds like it might make life easier in the end. Instead, business leaders tend to think of government regulation as the enemy. I think it was Lincoln who responded to a woman who criticized him for inviting the leaders of the South to dinner at the Whitehouse. She allowed that they were his enemies and he should destroy them, not invite them to dinner. To which he replied by asking, “But Madame, do I not destroy the enemy when I make him my friend?” I’m not sure we will ever see the business and government agencies become friends, and we likely don’t want that since much that has happened is due to an overly close relationship between regulators and regulated. Still, I don’t see how viewing each other as the enemy helps either.

One big lesson from the sad experience of the Gulf Oil Disaster for business leaders is that if we do not do the right thing we will be caught eventually and the results will be more regulation, more red-tape and more Public Relation fall out. BP may well not survive this disaster, and it’s one of their own making. Accidents happen. Yet it is not likely that the public will accept this particular incident as an accident, but rather they see it as negligence. To make matters worse, it appears that BP was less than forthcoming with information because they are looking out for themselves and taking a defensive posture toward future litigation. It won’t work. All that will happen is their reputation, which was not sterling before the accident, will certainly be further damaged by their actions or lack thereof.

For government, the fall out is not going to be any better. The people are not fooled by the self-righteous finger pointing by the members of the House and Senate who are whipping Industry leaders in public and accepting obscene amounts of money behind the public’s back. The trouble is, there are precious few secrets anymore. It will be very interesting to see how the public responds to the BP incident, the financial disaster that continues to plague the economy and the sickening sight of elected officials trying to redirect scrutiny of their actions or lack thereof by demonizing others.That won’t work either. Alas, I doubt that the government officials will learn the leadership lessons that the business leaders will, hopefully, learn.

BP Ad on Google

We live in the Internet age. What would you expect BP to do? The media is “all over them,” and painting them as a villain. BP is being portrayed as a company who purposely caused this accident, and perhaps we will find that some of the decisions they made have lead to the disaster. It makes no sense to believe they wanted this to happen. No matter what you think about that, BP is still critical in shutting down this well. It makes no sense to be treating them like criminals at this point. We all, including BP, need to figure out what happened to cause this accident. Right now, it appears to be a series of multiple failures.

Meanwhile, BP is not the only culprit here. My colleagues over at 2130 Partners have, as always, hit the nail on the head. With respect to this disaster, they ask “What can you own?” They ask us to accept our part in creating this reality. Admittedly, most of us are only indirectly responsible for the situation, however, we do all own some of this reality.

We’re all saying harsh things about BP. Can we consider that perhaps the leaders have recognized their failure and want to do the best they can? Can we consider that the BP organization cannot change on a dime and while there may still be a tendency toward secrecy and defensive attitude, they might actually be trying to be better? Can we consider giving them space to do well while at the same time holding them accountable? Can we give ourselves the space to realize our demand for energy drives this and many other processes?

As I write this post, the latest ideas are that with the “funnel” over the cleaned up riser pipe, much of the oil will be able to be collected. Then, as I understand it, the relief well will be drilled to intercept the present well below the failed blowout valve. Then they will attempt to effect a “bottom kill,” that is plug the well from the bottom instead of from the top as tried last week. All of this being done at a mile below the surface.

I don’t know if BP’s purchase of Ad Words is going to help them out or not. I’m sure it won’t help close the well down. Speaking for myself, I can say that I almost never pay attention to, let alone click on, paid Ad Words. I generally don’t trust Advertisements or Advertisers; they have an ax to grind, they have their own best interest at heart, not mine. So BP’s money is not well spent as far as I’m concerned. And don’t get me wrong on this, I do not think I’m going to end up thinking BP is a model corporation. No, instead, I’m pretty sure when all this is over we will be looking at a very large failure in Corporate Ethics. It’s just that I don’t think now is the time to focus on blame.

For the business owners and business leaders reading this blog, the question is how well are you and your organization doing to plan ahead for such a disaster? How will you manage in this internet age? You know your “sins” will not be hidden, right? You will be transparent, like it or not.

THE SITUATION
In Washington, DC, at a Metro Station, on a cold January morning in 2007, this man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, approximately 2,000 people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

After about 3 minutes:
A middle-aged man noticed that there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds, and then he hurried on to meet his schedule.

About 4 minutes later:
The violinist received his first dollar. A woman threw money in the hat and, without stopping, continued to walk.

At 6 minutes later:
A young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again.

At 10 minutes:
A 3-year old boy stopped, but his mother tugged him along hurriedly. The kid stopped to look at the violinist again, but the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head the whole time. This action was repeated by several other children, but every parent – without exception – forced their children to move on quickly.

At 45 minutes:
The musician played continuously. Only 6 people stopped and listened for a short while. About 20 gave money but continued to walk at their normal pace. The man collected a total of $32.

After 1 hour:
He finished playing and silence took over. No one noticed and no one applauded. There was no recognition at all. No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars. Two days before, Joshua Bell sold-out a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100 each to sit and listen to him play the same music.

This is a true story. Joshua Bell, playing incognito in the D.C. Metro Station, was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and people’s priorities.
This experiment raised several questions:

*In a common-place environment, at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty?
*If so, do we stop to appreciate it?
*Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?

One possible conclusion reached from this experiment could be this:
If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world, playing some of the finest music ever written, with one of the most beautiful instruments ever made, then —

How many other things are we missing as we rush through life?

Some of it has to due with ego; you know, not invented here or I can do it myself or nobody can do this as well as I can. So we don’t bother to reach out for help or to lend a hand to others. I think we carry this “rugged individualism” a bit too far in this country. As employees, we should always be seeking a mentor in the organizations employing us. As leaders, we should be looking toward succession planning so we can move on to our next position in the corporation, so should be mentoring candidates. We should be giving back to the community.

I learned this lesson early in my career since I always worked for large corporations. There’s a certain economy of knowledge when you find a mentor. You don’t have to make all the same mistakes or take the time necessary to navigate the complex political landscape when you have a solid, knowledgeable guide to help you. So I paid it forward when it was my turn. When I went out on my own, I found ways to be a mentor outside of the corporate environment. I now work with MBA students in a 1-2-1 volunteer mentoring program and assist undergraduate students in an Entrepreneurship program. It is highly rewarding for me and I hope it is helpful for the students as well. It’s again about economy of knowledge. Why not learn from others’ experience?

I think this concept, economy of knowledge, is what lead me into consulting and mentoring in the first place. I believe that any consultant worth hiring is one who’s goal is to make sure that they don’t walk out the door with the knowledge they came in with and/or developed in working on your project. Their goal should be to institutionalize, as much as possible, the information, knowledge, skills, business models and/or procedures that were developed in working with your team. Their task isn’t to set up the next project for you to hire them, it’s to make sure your organization grows through economy of knowledge.

What does your organization do to make sure you institute a sense of economy of knowledge? How do you organize, disseminate and update corporate knowledge, wisdom and culture of your company? Do you insist that consultants (and you should consider using consultants when appropriate) add to your store of wisdom rather than walk out the door with it? Are your employees building your knowledge base? If not, you will be doomed to redundant effort.

So what if one of your best, brightest and most creative employee came to you and made this frank statement? How would you respond? I mean, after your shock, after your blood pressure recovered, after your first response of defensiveness, denial and “who the hell are you?” feelings, what would you think and how would you respond?

I can’t speak for you, of course, but I can tell you what I’ve experienced and what I’ve been reading that all the science has been telling us and that we’ve been ignoring. The “command and control,” hierarchical,

Frustration

military style organizations we have been setting up and trying to manage do not work for the “knowledge worker” organizations. Think about this. We’ve all learned about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Yet we don’t do much about changing the way we try and motivate employees. Management has made very few significant changes in the last 100 years. But our economy is “light years” away from where we were before. In this country, while manufacturing is not nearly as devastated as some would have us believe, it is certainly true that the so-called knowledge worker has risen to prominence. What have we done to make significant changes to our way of managing knowledge workers?

A few companies – you can name the big ones, Google, Best Buy and Cisco for example – have made significant inroads into finding new ways to manage the knowledge worker. And there are a bunch of small businesses, many in Silicon Valley, that are experimenting with telecommuting, flexible hours and ROWE (Results Only Work Environment). Their workers have pretty much full autonomy, along with the requisite accountability. And the companies have heeded the warning of the college professors at Harvard Business School, Northwest University’s Kellogg School of Management, the University of Arizona’s Eller College of Management and University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School when they suggested a warning be applied when management creates goals:

Goals may cause systematic problems due to narrow focus, unethical behavior, increased risk taking, decreased cooperation and decreased intrinsic motivation. Use care when applying goals in your organization.

So these companies are very careful about how they reward goals. They make sure that salaries are appropriate, benefits fare and competitive and that the employee has an environment that lets them be creative, appreciated and self-motivated. So back to that employee with enough self-confidence to speak truth as she sees it to power:

“Don’t get me wrong, my sister on the production line or my brother doing clerical data entry may still find it useful to earn a little bonus for achieving piece work goals. But we’ve gone way too far in this carrot and stick thing. For the most part, knowledge workers cannot be externally motivated without negative consequences for the organization. We can be inspired to achieve. And that takes creativity, authenticity and consistency to build the right environment conducive to creative work. Look for my sister and brother to say more in the next post.”

All we do is ask them if they would be open to discussing a potential career opportunity. Virtually 95% of the time the employee replies, “Yes.” Why would anyone not want to know what is going on in the market, have a discussion around their career or just get a feel for current compensation ranges? Even if they are completely happy in their current position, this is good stuff to know.

The important, and I believe the most relevant question is,” Why, out of the 95% that are open to discussing career opportunities, do roughly 10% indicate that they are happy with their job, and although it sounds like a good opportunity, they aren’t interested in pursuing it further?”

What do these 10% have that the other 90% don’t? That is something a recruiter has nothing to do with. They generally have four things, 1) they are learning in their current position, 2) they feel they are having some impact on the company, 3) they are growing, and 4) they respect their boss. When these four things are part of a person’s job, the best recruiter can’t get them to move.

An example of this recently happened. I was jointly interviewing candidates with one of my clients. At dinner one night, my client started asking me about the job market, “Is it picking up?” and “Are any particular industries hiring?” He mentioned that he thought the market was getting better because in the last couple of months he had been contacted a couple of times by recruiters for potential opportunities. Like most, he listened to what they had to say, but in both instances he thanked the recruiter for the call and flatly turn them down.

Why, I asked?

Like most, his answer had nothing to do with compensation. He commented, “I enjoy what I’m doing. I have a great boss and most of all I’m challenged.” Then he added, “When I stop being challenged it is time to move on.” In fact, prior to being promoted to his current position he was looking. If his current position had not come open he would have left the company.

As he explained it, “My last boss treated me like a step child (I used step child. His word did start with an S). The position had lost its challenges, the job was the job, and that was all there was to it.” His boss was rarely around to support him and he was doing the same thing this year as he had done the last three years. Boredom and lack of respect for his boss had set in. The good news was that he worked for an excellent company. BTW, he has been with this company for 12 years and in his current position for 4 years.

This is a classic example of how one employee went from engaging recruiters to telling them, “Thanks, but no thanks.”

We realize that not every company has the ability to promote someone or move them to another position in order to retain them. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t a number of things a company can do to help their best talent feel challenged, feel that they are learning, and be respected by their boss. This can happen in just about any sized company.

The best recruiter couldn’t “steal” this person. It all had to do with the job and the person’s boss. The vast majority of people leave because they lose respect for their boss. The best selling book, First Break All The Rules, validates this. This book should be required reading for all managers, regardless of how many years they’ve been a manager. As recruiters for the last 30 years, my partner Barry Deutsch and I, can also validate this is clearly the number one reason candidates tell us they are open to talking about a new position.

To help companies and hiring managers identify some of the things that managers can do to retain their best talent we have put together for you to download our 8 Level Retention Matrix. This matrix will help you identify whether or not your managers are doing what it takes to retain your best talent.

If your managers do some, or most of these, you won’t lose your talent to a recruiter. Your competition will.

You can also download for free our most popular chapter on sourcing top talent from our best-selling book, You’re NOT The Person I Hired. CLICK HERE to download your free chapter.

I welcome your thoughts and comments.

Brad Remillard

We all look at the world through windows that act as filters. They are held in place by frames that comprise our experiences, learning and fundamental organizing principles. You are an enlightened CEO and believe you have established a culture of serving the client, high levels of integrity in all things your employees do and respect for each person in the organization. It’s time to hire a new sales manager. So, you do the thing you’ve likely always done in the past – put together a job description and start collecting resumes.

I have been a sales manager in very progressive, technology oriented companies for several years. I am looking to relocate to your area and apply for the job. I “know” what a sales manager is and does, I’ve been one. You “know” what a sales manager is too, and that’s what you want to hire. Great – except, unless you are fairly unusual, you will not during the interviewing process, clearly articulate what the culture of your company is. I won’t have a chance to decide if I really “fit” in the organization until I’ve experienced it. Further, your idea of a sales manager is someone who will build long term relationships with the largest clients and who will develop the sales people reporting to that manager in such a way as to also build long term relationships and provide excellent service. While revenue is certainly important, you value relationships more and are willing to allow a long sales cycle, building for tomorrow.

As an experienced sales manager, I understand sales management as meeting revenue goals through my sales team. I’m used to a sales process focused on overcoming objections, meeting requirements and taking the order off the buyer’s desk then moving on to the next order. The only purpose of establishing a relationship is to make sure “we” are the ones to book that order, not our competition.

Well, we both used the same job title: Sales Manager. We may even have close to the same job description in terms of “duties and responsibilities” for the tactical parts of the job. We are, however, miles apart in the way in which a sales manager is expected to act in your company and how they are to treat the clients and peers. In the end, you may well decide that I just don’t “fit,” that I interviewed well but somehow didn’t turn out the way you expected. I may be feeling that this company doesn’t understand what a “real” salesperson is supposed to do and I made a mistake in joining the company. We’re both correct and both have caused the problem.

I have long contended that as business leaders, we need to find a way to make our culture quickly and accurately visible to prospective employees. One of the biggest reasons for new hires not “sticking” is that they didn’t “fit.” To me, that’s a polite way of saying, we didn’t clearly articulate what our culture is and this person didn’t have an opportunity to see how they would fit in and if our values matched their values – at least close if not exactly.

How might this go differently with proper “framing?” For one thing, on the culture issue, I will fall back to my example of a company who makes an implantable heart valve. The culture of this organization was clearly and succinctly transmitted to me when the hiring manager related the story of how the CEO insisted that from time-to-time they bring a patient in to the factory, at the company’s expense, to meet with the person on the line who made their heart-valve. The employee is reminded in an appropriate way that this patient is alive today because of the heart valve that s/he made (each valve is serialized and one person completes the assembly). There are, of course, no dry eyes in the room. And there is no doubt that the way things get done at this organization is to always put the patient first. The patient isn’t the customer by the way, the Doctor and/or Hospital is the customer. Employees know, because they hear about or witness this process, that they are never to do anything to negatively impact the quality of the product.

The CEO of this organization is very careful to manage the company culture. He does that by deliberately picking the metaphors he uses to communicate the mission and vision to his employees. That in turn flows through the organization right down to establishing the correct success factors for each position in the company. Hiring is all about determining if the prospective employee gets the culture picture and can demonstrate that s/he shares those values and can demonstrate they have experience actually achieving the exact goals in the success factors of something very similar.

I’m sure I’ll be further developing this topic of “framing” our messages to make sure we clearly communicate our vision. I believe it is critical for leaders to be able to inspire and communicate. What I’m learning is just how important it is to use carefully chosen metaphors and stories to get that done.

Framing a piece of art, when one is a professional, takes skill, understanding and a knowledge of the painting’s message, the viewer and the context in which the painting will be seen. It turns out the same is true when leaders are communicating within an organization. Properly framed, the vision, mission and culture of the organization provide a effective communication to the stakeholders. Any initiative to make changes within the organization must likewise be properly framed in order to communicate the reasons and goals of the initiative. Effective leaders understand framing as the most efficient way to help others “eff the ineffable” as well as embrace the tangible reasons for the change. Politicians frame and the opponents reframe arguments (some would say spin) for their own world view and in order to win their constituents’ support. That is why you hear some politicians refer to “liberating Iraq,” while you hear others speak of “invading Iraq.” Depending on your view of the meaning behind the “Americans in Iraq” painting, one frame will appear more perfect than the other.

And so it is with communicating within our organizations. We, as leaders, can learn the art of framing change initiatives, vision, mission and culture in order to maximize the number of employees who are on board and support the goals of the organization. If we do not properly frame our initiatives, the employees will use their own frame of reference which may or may not lead them to the same interpretations we would desire. Excellent leaders know that proper framing manages the meaning of what we are saying and doing. And perhaps as importantly, preempts some of the arguments from the naysayers – and there are ALWAYS naysayers.

Here are some resources for those who wish to study this topic, understand words, metaphors and framing. An excellent book from Steven Pinker titled The Stuff of Thought; language as a window into human nature. In this book, Pinker discusses how we use language, how it shapes our view of the world, and how it affects the way we think and extend metaphors. Another excellent book is The Art of Framing by Gail Fairhurst and Robert Starr. What I believe is most important about learning how we and others frame our world views is that it awakens us to the possibilities of another view, helps us to understand how others are framing an issue and how we may be susceptible to and manipulated by the way advertisements, surveys and political arguments are framed. It is truly an inspired and enlightened leader who can suspend her own framework for viewing the world in order to learn from another’s view of the same world. Whether or not she changes her mind about the usefulness or veracity of her own view, she will have demonstrated true compassion and openness to others around her. Understanding how others view the world allows a leader to gently reframe the issues to help others see new possibilities.