Communications, Internal Communications

E-MAIL Versus Communications

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It lurks, waiting for the unsuspecting communicator.  Its disguise, the quick and easy transition of words or documents from one place to another. Yet it has an insidious power that can transform grown men into small-minded bullies or professional women into petty tyrants. Yes, I’m talking about e-mail.  If we’re totally honest with ourselves, we would see email for what it really is, a supervillain.  I’ve seen the horror it can do.

I’ve run down a hallway shouting to colleagues to, “STOP SENDING E-MAILS” when a chain of emails with some of our stakeholders across the country escalated into war. It’s not that I don’t enjoy a good joke and really, email fights are always funny in retrospect. It is just that when you make your living building relationships, you don’t have much humour about watching years of cultivation, goodwill and hard work go up in flames because of a few poorly worded emails. It’s not just your external stakeholders who can be affected by it either. Internal emails are probably among the most prolific contributors to poor morale.

A poorly worded or too widely sent email can spiral a team into chaos. I’ve coached managers on what to say to chronic email abusers and I’ve had to soothe frustrated team members when someone showed disrespect to them in an email. There is also the abusive reply all function. Imagine the chain of events that unfolds when thousands of people receive a shrill email questioning management on a decision that impacted the whole organization. I still wake up screaming.

Or there is the unjustified anger that follows when someone sends an email with directions and subsequently does not get the behaviour they want. If I hear one more time, “But I sent them an email!” I may get dangerous. For the record:

  • Sending does not mean people received it.
  • Receiving it doesn’t mean they read it.
  • Reading it doesn’t mean they understood it.

There are protocols associated with email use that is a Google search away, so I won’t belabour the point here, but keep these lessons in mind.

Lessons Learned

  • Read it out loud, if it sounds obnoxious, it is. Don’t send it.
  • A smiley face after being obnoxious doesn’t make the email less obnoxious.
  • How many people really need to see your message? Do the math and don’t add anyone else.
  • If you’re getting angry, stop emailing, pick up the phone or walk down the hall.
  • If it’s urgent, important or a risk issue, don’t email, pick up the phone or walk down the hall.
  • E-mail is a temporary short-cut for sharing information, not a substitute for good communications or good relationship management.

Have any e-mail nightmares to share? Do you LOVE email or are you a careful user?

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Management

Do We Remember How To Be Loyal?

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COMMSTORM

The call of the next big adventure can be almost irresistible. As our world shrinks it becomes increasingly easy to see ourselves in different settings. Even if we choose not to wander far from the land we grew up in, we can still tackle a wide array of changes that our parents might not have contemplated.  Or maybe that’s just me. My family has spread out across the globe, all leaving that small warm island in the Caribbean to see what adventures they can find in colder climates. At this point, going to Barbados is the adventure because home is now Canada, The United States, The United kingdom etc..

I was looking at a breakdown of staff time within my organization. Those people who had spent twenty-five or more years in the organization right down to those who had just signed on. The 20 plus category fascinated me. Most people don’t join an organization these days with the expectation that they will still be there on their retirement. I wondered why? Was it the siren call of adventure? Is curiosity so profound that we simply can’t resist the allure of the next thing or is it more that we have no reason to stay? 

Loyalty is a concept that I most commonly associate with small plastic cards and the collection of points. I’m not shallow. How often do we hear about loyalty in any other context?  I don’t think I am being disloyal when I try a new shampoo or when I shop in a new store, yet they frequently offer me loyalty points or bonuses if I stick with them. When was the last time employers did that on a regular basis?  Generally you get a signing bonus, not a staying bonus. In effect, we have moved to a process of rewarding employees for leaving.

I realize that there are sophisticated organizations that spend time and energy on retention. Those organizations that have done the number crunching and realize it is cheaper to keep an employee than it is to replace one, but there are not many of them. Most employers are content if they can get three years from an employee and plan accordingly.  My question is, why? Why does that make more sense then looking for ways to keep employees in the fold? Have we all simply assumed that that’s the way people prefer things? That the next adventure is so appealing that there is little we can do to resist it’s allure.

I’ll admit, I like change. It’s fun to start something new and to explore new ground.  It’s good to switch things up a little, but I also like stability. I have been married for 18 years without feeling the need to switch things up. I expect to be married for at least 18 more years. An interesting thing about that, my husband has a small shop in a challenging  sector and yet he has  employees who have been with him about as long as we’ve been married. Could it be that he understands something about loyalty?

Loyalty isn’t about points collected. I’m not going to buy the same crappy brand of anything just to get points. If the product doesn’t do the job, then I’m not going to stick with it. I stick with a brand because I expect it to perform as promised. I expect consistency. My favorite shampoo is not going to smell like oranges today and coconut tomorrow. It will perform to my expectations and in return I will continue to buy it.  As other products come out from that brand I’ll be more inclined to try them because the brand has earned my trust. Seems reasonable.

If our expectations are that high for a shampoo or a toothpaste, what should they be for a job? If a job doesn’t give back as much as it takes, if an employer doesn’t do the work required to make an employee want get up and go to work in the morning, then would they keep going? What about the employee? If the employer is consistent, if they deliver on their promise, shouldn’t the employee remain dedicated? Loyalty is built over time.  It comes from trust and expectations met.  Do we have shorter times in our jobs today because we have forgotten what it means to be loyal or do we simply no longer apply that thinking to work?

What do you think? Do employees need to be more loyal to employers?  Do employers need to work harder at keeping employees engaged? Is loyalty associated with work an old fashioned idea?

Photo Credit: “Girl and Dog” by Vlado from Free Digital Photos.net

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Communications, public relations

Random Acts Of Branding

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 Random Acts of Branding

What happens if everyone in an organization decides to engage in branding activities without first engaging in an internal conversation? This question prompted an extended conversation with my friend Janet MacLeod, who like me, is a communications professional. This post is the consequence of that discussion and so our joint offering.

So what happens when an organization starts to perform random acts of branding? A commercial in one area, a public relations program somewhere else.  Essentially, a variety of initiatives delivered over time that are unrelated but intended to improve profile or set a tone for services? Even if the initiatives aren’t identical, they would at least get attention right? Raise the profile of the organization and if luck is with the organization, it might even result in a viral moment.  It’s possible that many of those individuals will have a brilliant idea…right.  Who are we kidding? First of all, there aren’t that many geniuses and second, if you have different people doing their own “thing” with a brand, then that probably means that they have no communications experience.  Even a mediocre communicator understands the benefit of being consistent.  A good communicator would say that inconsistencies in branding eventually result in diminishing the brand and yet so many organizations allow their brand to be shuttled about with little regard. Despite what you might think, it isn’t just the little organizations who do this either. Unless you are an organization that sells products like soda or toilet paper, items that live and die based on brand, you may not fully understand the strength and impact of brand.

Too often the description of a corporate brand can sound like little more than jargon to employees. And really, it’s often treated as a descriptive phrase that illustrates what corporate leaders would like employees, clients or customers to think and feel about a company. The thing is, brand is a pretty loaded word. It represents a concept that seems to mean a multitude of things to people and can also mean next to nothing. Brand is color, it’s a logo, it’s a font, it’s how you are perceived, how you deliver service and how your products perform.  It’s the feeling the public gets when your name is mentioned. It’s the choices that people make to use or not use your offering.

Brand is the unique features that distinguish one organization from another – it may be the words used, the procedures you follow and most likely it is a combination of all these things.  Brand becomes the things people see, hear, feel, and touch so that a perception or idea develops about what can (and should) be expected of the organization. The authentic feelings and emotions that are triggered by brand – whether factual or not – become the reality. In effect, the brand is the organization.

Since internal activities drive the brand exhibited and understood outwardly, it is concerning (to say the least) when those activities lack cohesion. Unfortunately, even with the best intentions, companies sometimes “run with scissors” and become susceptible to brand breakdown. Change is often the trigger. Whether it comes as a result of shifts in culture, technology, finances, staff turn- over or simply poor strategy, changes that are poorly executed or poorly communicated, can lead to dysfunction and can put a huge dent in what had been a perfectly fine brand.

A living example is BlackBerry. It used to be RIM or Research in Motion. It was Canada’s technology darling. People loved it, trusted it, and expected good things from it. Then it changed. It went into the consumer marketplace (and grew itself accordingly). But soon it went from being the industry leader, to being perceived as the industry follower. In truth, it was still making reliable, secure devices, but because it didn’t do what the iPhone did, it was perceived as being a poorer product. BlackBerry lost momentum. Investors stopped coming, people stopped buying the product. Layoffs ensued.

So although the quality of the actual product had not altered the perception of the product had to the point that the brand was seen as waning.  The changes that impacted BlackBerry happened in the market, yet organizations often inflict negative shifts in perception on themselves by ignoring or poorly attending to their brand. Brand is a powerful device. It needs care and attention and there should be nothing random about it.

What do you think about branding?  Do you have favorite products you buy because of their brand?  Do you have a favorite beer, pop or paper towel? Do you know what your own brand is? 

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What Does the Future Hold For Communicators? A Look At The Jobs of Tomorrow

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What Does The Future Hold

This is the time of year that we tend to spend doing two things, we reflect on the year that has been and we make promises about the year to come. Since the stats are against us keeping our New Year’s resolutions, can I suggest instead that we think about the possibilities the future holds?

When I consider the future of communications I get excited about being in this field.  It is a sector that is growing and blossoming and the biggest challenge facing most communicators is the ability to keep up with the changes.  Of course even if you keep up you have to be able to discern between what’s worth learning and what can be ignored. Not as easy as you might think when new tools are constantly being added to the mix and when platforms that you’ve never heard of become go to destinations virtually overnight.

All of these changes mean the very nature of our jobs are also altering.  We can all expect that our future jobs will look very different from what we do today.  Just as authors now have to exist in a virtual world and communications means having dexterity in social media, we can expect to see changes across many different sectors as we all become more virtual. To satisfy my curiosity I went to the internet to look at ideas and I brought some back for you to consider.  What’s interesting is that some of the “future” jobs I found are things that people are doing today. The future is now.

Avatar Manager – This individual designs and manages holograms of virtual people.  Yes, that’s right, your personal brand will be a lot more complex in the future and your avatar will be the single strongest element of that brand.  Imagine the nightmares that would follow if your avatar was hacked?

Digital Architect – In this profession you design the settings where virtual retailers will sell their goods.  Rather than having consumers scroll through uninspiring pages of images, they will instead be able to “visit” virtual stores whose ambiance will matter as much as it does now, more so in fact since you should be able to achieve any setting you like in a virtual world.

Digital Media Planner:  This position already exists but perhaps hasn’t been fully flushed out into an individual job in most organizations. This is essentially a high-tech version of a media buyer. This individual scans the internet and determines what ‘s hot with who and what sites would represent good opportunities for clients.  They decide what kind of ads and what sites will best use your Internet advertising budget.

Personal Brand Manager:  I thought these guys already existed and in Hollywood they were called agents, but it seems this future professional does more than sell your talents.  The PBM will develop and manage your personal brand so that your avatar says does and looks just right and so that the only side of you that’s seen in the virtual world will be a good one.  This may require deleting bad internet press or drowning it in good positive stories about you.  I’m pretty sure these services are for hire today.

Social Media Strategist: This position is similar to the digital media planner, but is related to the thinking behind the decision to purchase.  The SMS helps organizations to develop a following on growing and fast changing social sites such as Facebook or Twitter. Although this is still predominantly an outsourced service, larger organizations are seeing the benefit of hiring in-house specialist to create everything from buzz about product to ad campaigns that are intended to be viral.

Web Analyst: This role is an expansion on the marketing role that already exists today but will become more important going forward. Since a lot of what organizations do in the virtual world is intended to drive consumers to their websites, it follows that you will need someone to look at the behavior of consumers once they get to your site. A web analyst will use customer information from the visits to your website to predict trends. This will allow you to build better informed advertising and communications strategies.

Omnipotence Delimiter: I personally think this one may be needed by some of our political figures right now, in fact I can think of a mayor who may be in need of these services. The OD’s job is to rein in our belief that anything is possible and we are all-powerful.

What do you think?  What jobs does your future hold?  Do you think these jobs are likely or that they already exist?

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Communications – Better Late Than Never

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Communications, Better Late Than Never

Guest Post by Louise Crandall

This story, which took place quite a few years ago on a deserted beach in the Caribbean, certainly exemplifies the concept: Communications – better late than never.

I used to like going to places that hadn’t yet been overrun with tourists. While the area now has dozens of hotels and mini-malls, at that point there was only one hotel on a 20-kilometer stretch of gorgeous, deserted beach. One afternoon, I was walking down the beach when it started to rain. Noticing a run-down bar on the edge of the sand, I went up and asked if I could join the dozen or so locals who were sitting around under a thatched roof beside the hut, drinking beer and waiting for the rain to stop. I spent a couple of pleasant hours, practicing my mediocre Spanish on the women and kids, and making jokes with the men. Think I bought everyone a round too.

When the rain finally slacked off and I got up to leave, one of the women said that since we’d all had a good time, why didn’t I come back for lunch tomorrow.  This sounded like a good idea to me since who wants to hang out with other sunburned tourists? Better to mix with locals, improving one’s capacity in a foreign language and learning local customs.  So the next morning I headed out around 11am to join my new buds. As I was leaving the hotel property, the gardener asked where I  was going. “To the bar down the beach”, I said. His somewhat shocked response was, “Lady, that isn’t a bar. That’s the local *#@+!house!”

In retrospect, I hadn’t paid much attention to the visible cues such as money changing hands, the hammock in the otherwise empty  hut, and the wide variety of skin tones of the kids running around. In fact, I had helped one women argue for more money when a guy was handing over a few pesos – for the beer I thought. I continued my walk up the beach and this time just waved cheerily at the girls as I  passed the establishment.

Tips

  • Be aware of the context in which you are communicating.
  • Do your research, know your audience.
  • When things don’t go as you planned, be gracious.

Louise Crandall is a communications specialist and an amazing writer. While her forte is travel writing, she is a master at pulling together complex communications projects with apparent ease.

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Communications, public relations

Ask for the Order

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Just Ask - Commstorm

Guest Post by Diana Marinova

Ask for the order or what lessons about communication the lady in the supermarket taught me. Honoring Debra’s one year anniversary of blogging, I decided to share a little story from few months ago. It’s a very ordinary every day story but put in the right context and perspective, we can learn a lot about communication from it.

The story

One cloudy morning, I went to the supermarket because I ran out of coffee. Maybe it’s good to know (in advance) that I am not a morning person and I definitely hate going to the supermarket. So, I entered the supermarket. I looked around (I was on a vacation so I didn’t quite know that particular supermarket). I found the coffee, took my brand and went to the cash register.

The lady looked at me, saw the coffee, ran it through the bar code reader and said to me: “We have a new brand of biscuits in the store. I tried them this morning and they are delicious! And at a promotional rate, too! Would you like to try them?”

I stood there for a moment thinking – well, yeah, who doesn’t like a nice chocolate treat with their coffee – so I nodded affirmatively. She ran the biscuits through the bar code reader, too. Then she just took out from a little fridge beside her a small cartoon of milk and said: “And you gotta try both the coffee and the biscuits with this milk! It’s not at a discounted rate but it sure will make your day if you have your morning coffee and biscuits with it!” – and she winked at me – LOL

I laughed and I felt good – it’s not every day that someone winks at you the old fashion way, eh? Besides, she did make me smile although I hadn’t had my coffee yet… So I ended up buying both the milk and the biscuits along with the coffee that I went for in the first place… and an ice-cream – because I was feeling good 😉

Ask for the order, always: The customer may or may not buy something. But if you ask them to, politely and with a hint of humor, they are more likely to!

Don’t be shy. Don’t be rude. Don’t be arrogant. Don’t be pushy. Be yourself and ask for   the order genuinely – as if you are talking to a friend and making a personal recommendation regardless what the answer might be.

Share the information you have: Being a non-morning hating-the-supermarket customer, no way could I have noticed there are cookies at a discounted rate; or a small carton of milk beside the cashier. And I definitely had no way of knowing the brand of biscuits is new in that particular store. So, unless the lady at the cash register told me all that, there was no way for me to make a decision to purchase anything beside the coffee I went there for.

Don’t assume the customer knows something. Don’t assume the customer doesn’t want something. Don’t assume the customer doesn’t care. Don’t assume the customer doesn’t want to be bothered. Well, basically – don’t assume anything. Assumptions are your enemy when it comes to communication (and sales). Just share the information you have and deem important. I will cite here Debra – “information shared is power squared” 😉

Connect on a personal level: As hard as it may sound, it really isn’t. In my story – the lady in the supermarket winked at me! It was unexpected; it was funny; it was personal – it definitely helped me like her and purchase all she had to offer.

Connecting on a personal level doesn’t mean you have to know the person you are dealing with. It means being human; being yourself; being honest and forthcoming; being creative; being funny sometimes. Connecting on a personal level has a lot to do with being genuinely interested in what’s going around you. More importantly, it means helping the other party, even if they don’t know they need help – and just because you can!

Thank you, Debra, for hosting my story on your blog! And to all of you, dear readers – tell us in the comments –

What else did you learn about communications from my story?

Diana Marinova is a freelance marketing consultant and writes a wonderful bog providing smart and practical advice for freelancers and anyone in the business world who has clients or is a client.

Cafe con galleta (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Communications, public relations

Going Viral, It’s As Easy As 1,2,3

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If you were tasked with the job of making an organisation’s message go viral, what would you do? Where would you start? I was wondering just that the other day, it’s something I think all marketing professionals wonder about and we’d all like to see at least one campaign go crazy (or if we’re honest, all of our campaigns) but the truth is, the fastest way to have a campaign go viral is to take your time. 

There is nothing I find so frustrating as people talking about delivering a social media campaign without planning, investment or consideration.  It makes me groan and my frustration grows because it is based on a misconception that often plagues communications and marketing professionals, the idea that social media is easy and that success is just around the corner if only the marketing manager knew what they were doing.

The truth is successful social media campaigns rely on the same three things that successful traditional media campaigns required. They just happen to be three difficult things for most businesses to deliver. Let’s look at some campaigns that have worked and try to determine what might have pushed them from just viewable to viral.

Who Gives – Humour and the Unexpected

This little gem doesn’t hit the really BIG numbers, but for a relatively inexpensive charitable endeavor, it has managed to capture a fair bit of attention with over 10,500 views and earned traditional media coverage as well. What’s it’s most notable selling feature? A rabbi in a dress of course.

This charity video poses the question, “Who gives?” and then shows Rabbi Avrohom Zeidman performing as a series of characters who run through every imaginable excuse for not giving. Within one week of being posted the 2-minute video played well over 7000 times.

Blendtec – Something You Always Wanted To Do

Blendtec’s, video campaign poses the question, will it blend? What follows is a series of ridiculous items that the blender is challenged to blend. These YouTube posted videos take the premise set out in the old Ginsu knives commercials and add power and imagination. Smartphones, lighters, boron steel and super glue are all put to the test. These videos have gotten millions of views and make up the backbone of Blendtec’s advertising campaign.  The geek factor is high, but you can’t look away.

Old Spice – Surreal and Funny

The Old Spice commercials are among my favourites.  These beauties were popular on television, but they exploded on YouTube with each video getting millions of views.

Not only do the videos use humour to deliver their message, but as the main character moves smoothly from one ridiculous accomplishment to another the viewer is left laughing and a little bewildered.  The best part of these ads is that, like the Axe deodorant ads, they appeal to a younger demographic making them fodder for shares, likes, posts, memes, and quotes.

Although these campaigns each achieved different levels of popularity they do share some things in common. They are quirky, they show imagination and they have broad appeal for a younger demographic. The reality is that for most businesses a successful social media campaign sits closer to the first than the second example, a million views is far from the norm. Even with the accessibility afforded by social media, generating the kind of widespread attention, it takes to be massively popular generally means that you are playing off of traditional media sources, as well as, social media.

Going viral relies on having at least two of the following factors in place, time, money, and creativity. If you don’t have the money, then you definitely need to take your time and show creativity. One social media king we can learn from is a young man originally from Sweden who goes by the name, PewDiePie (Felix Kjellberg). He usually posts two videos a day and is also active on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. He has more than 56 million subscribers on YouTube, and every video he posts generates millions of views. He’s funny,  always irreverent, unexpected, creative, appealing to a younger demographic and most importantly, he is very, very dedicated. He started posting videos in 2009, but it was not until 2012 that he really hit his stride.

Have you ever had a campaign or post go crazy? Do you have any viral ads or videos that you love? What do you think it takes to make a campaign go viral?

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Saturday Morning Chit Chat – Invisibility Cloak, Magic or Mayhem?

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invisibility

So I haven’t done one of these in a while and I wasn’t really planning on this one either but how could I resist an invisibility cloak? Yes, that’s right, researchers are getting closer to perfecting the invisibility cloak. I mean, come on, an invisibility cloak AND Google glasses during my lifetime?  I could be Hermione Granger, it’s clearly just a question of time before they hand me a magic wand and a message owl.

For those of you in the know, those clever few who knew that they had tested this technology back in 2006, you could have said something.  If you’re like me and only came across this story in November, WOW!!

Imagine, an invisibility cloak of your very own. Where would you go, what would you see? Imagine the possibilities. Hmm…kinda creepy come to think of it. I mean, where would you go?  What would you want to see that you didn’t want other people seeing you see?  Imagine the disturbing possibilities.

Maybe the invisibility cloak would be better for hiding valuables and not people. Perhaps that should be it’s primary purpose, but you know there’s bound to be someone who wants to slip it on and go somewhere they are not allowed to go and hear, see or learn something they would never be allowed to otherwise. An invisibility cloak would have endless possibilities in military application. It would also be useful for domestic policing. Strangely as I consider the possibilities I’m feeling less like Hermione.

I suppose at this point I should explain how the technology works, but that would completely defeat the purpose. A magic cloak should be…well-magical. There’s also that small detail that they haven’t managed to perfect the technology.  They are exploring it from different angles, but complete invisibility continues to elude researchers. At this stage invisible is really a question of the angle you are standing at and maybe that’s a good thing.

What would you do with an invisibility cloak?

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How Do You Find Opportunity?

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How Do You Find Opportunity? - Comm Before The Storm

When I wrote about personal paradigms I explored what causes us to sometimes get preoccupied and blinded by our own perspectives. When I wrote about change, I spoke about how we might manage it, but how do you work to shift your paradigm so that you can manage change? How can we step outside of our perspectives enough to even know that we are being blinded by them?

As noted in my post, The Forever Footprint, I don’t have a natural love of social media.  My transition has been a gradual one. My reluctant engagement started because I could hardly be a communications professional and put my nose up at social media, although you might be surprised to see how many communications people do. I also had a team that was only engaging in social media peripherally. We were crazy busy and social media took a lot of time. It’s deliverables were not always clear and certainly not immediate, so it was easy to ignore. It was also clear that by letting it slide we might be missing opportunities, so we held our annual strategic planning session and determined that we would each tackle a platform. The next six months were interesting to say the least as we each struggled to manage our regular communications duties and embrace this new realm. The articles about social media were interesting, the platforms, well they were another thing all together. They were inconsistent, they were finicky, and they clearly had different strengths, benefits and weaknesses. It was a bit crazy.

Communications has always been a gradually changing sector. Print advertising offered opportunity and hung around for a while before radio ventured out and gave us something new to do.  We had time to grow and adopt to radio before television made its way onto the scene. We had years to figure out television and we played happily between the three mediums for a long time.

Then the explosion occurred.  The platforms started to appear, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter, StumbledUpon, YouTube, Reddit, Google+, Triberr, Instagram, Tumblr, Vine  and on and on they go.  It’s little wonder we wanted to back away slowly.  Where to start?  What to do? Every week it seems like there is a new and better way to engage in social media.  I was giving a presentation the other day, Social Media 101, and one of the participants hadn’t heard of LinkedIn. I almost giggled, my relief was so great.  It wasn’t just me, it really was crazy out there.

So how did I get from not wanting to engage to giving advice on social media? Curiosity.  Curiosity will get you past all of your preconceived notions, your impenetrable paradigms and your reluctance to change. Cultivating a curious mind is one of the best things that you can do for yourself. Your curiosity will facilitate professional and personal growth. If you’re in any industry that requires you to engage the public, then feeding your curiosity will provide you with a wealth of opportunity. Even if you like your isolation, unless you are interested in being nothing more than still, curiosity can be satisfied through reading and watching.

Remember, when paradigms in the world around you shift, past success means nothing.  You could be ruling the world as the best advertising rep, but when social media shows up, if you don’t jump on board, your past success will be irrelevant. You’ll be left behind. You could be the best author who ever lived, but if you want new readers, then you have to exist in the new places. You have to open yourself to the possibilities.  When paradigms shift, history doesn’t matter. It didn’t matter that PC dominated the landscape when Apple introduced the iPod.

If you want to know where the new ideas are happening, they are far away from where it’s safe. They are out on the edges where curiosity flourishes and the imagination is in charge.

How do you keep yourself open to opportunity?  Have you ever found yourself fighting against something you later embraced?

 I’m looking for your communications stories. Have you ever had something go horribly wrong or amazingly right because of a little communications?  Please share your story here as a guest blogger.  For more information, please see my post, Everybody Loves A Good Story.

 

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Management

8 Tips For Managing Workplace Bullies

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I’ve never had much patience for bullies and I’ve never thought bullying was someone else’s problem.  Though they were a feature of childhood, somehow I expected that bullies would make fewer appearances in my life as I grew older, so imagine my surprise when I encountered bullies in the workplace.

I can remember one boss who would yell at the top of his lungs at any and everyone. He would start at one end of our very long one-story building and scream as he marched his way down the central hallway to the other end.  He was like some crazed long-haired bull.  His face would get redder and redder as the target of his rage became smaller and smaller. It was pretty awful. It was my first real job and as the receptionist, I sat in the centre of the building able to watch the whole horrible scene unfold from beginning to end. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough, which is one of the first impacts the bully has on the workplace. They destroy morale and make people leave.

When I encountered bullies again it was part of the organization’s culture.  It was like entering an alternate dimension where bad behaviour was acceptable and being considerate and polite was a thin veneer worn for public consumption. Thrown chairs, tossed telephones, fist fights in the office and threats riddled with obscenities delivered across the boardroom table, were all part of the weekly operations.  This is the second impact of bullying in the workplace, if left unchecked, it becomes part of the work culture.

Your average garden variety bully has gotten away with their behaviour largely because no one has called them on it. Through intimidation and threats, they have managed to make their way through life and work with no one stopping them. What the rest of us have to figure out is what do we want to do with them, defuse them, ignore them or avoid them.

Here are some things that have worked for me.

  1. Build your network. Don’t let the bully make you feel isolated. Engage your colleagues; give yourself the opportunity to have fun. I have found that eventually, it is the bully who gets left out of activities unless they can behave.
  2. Ignore them. Yup, simply act as if they don’t matter or don’t exist. A non-responsive target isn’t all that interesting to many bullies, a bit like picking on a door.
  3. Avoid them. If you don’t have to engage them, then don’t.  Life is short enough without wasting time on people who don’t know how to behave.
  4. Rephrase. I got into the habit of rephrasing dumb or aggressive requests so that the person delivering them would look foolish confirming the comment or request. “Get me some lunch.” Would get repeated as, “So you want me to postpone the bosses report so that I can get you a sandwich?”
  5. Stay calm. There is nothing quite as disconcerting to a screamer as someone who simply doesn’t rise to the hysteria. By staying calm you also stay in control and demonstrate a level of emotional intelligence that generally shuts down the bully.
  6. Document the bullying. One of my buddies had a terrible bully for a boss.  One afternoon my friend called me close to tears, her boss had sent her a particularly inflammatory email. I told her to forward the email to her boss’ superior with a brief sentence explaining that the tone and language were not acceptable professional behaviour. Her boss was fired by the end of the week.
  7. Tell them to stop. Simply tell them to stop. Tell them you feel bullied or harassed, that their tone, language or manner makes you uncomfortable.
  8. Get out.  Unfortunately, there are situations that can’t be helped and in those cases, your best bet is to make a run for it.

Have you ever had to manage a bully? What do you do to deal with bullies?

 

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