Skip to main content

Engage Employees With Realism, Not Just Rah-Rah!


The other day, a client told me to remove text from and internal/employee communications vehicle because it talked about some jobs that were cancelled. This information was also available online in their organization. The client felt that the comments were not positive and therefore would not be conducive to employee engagement.

I find this attitude quite fascinating. What it tells me is that some of my clients believe that you cannot engage people unless all the messages are 'happy-happy/feel-good' messages. I disagree; in fact, if that is all you focus on sharing, employees will begin to distrust you when they start noticing that things in the organization are not as rosy as the messages sent to 'engage'. However, when a senior manager, executive or organization sends real messages from time to time that paint a more realistic portrait, or they admit some mistakes, these brave leaders gain lots of trust.

For example: We really tried to keep this project on track, but as many of you also experience in your own roles, things don't always turn out the way you plan or anticipate. That's exactly what happened here. Thanks so much for your patience and we look forward to sending you the next update.

Employees are tired of the 'shine'. They want something they can believe.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"We can't tell them that."

The scenario: A project is delayed. Employees haven't heard any updates in about a month and the manager realizes he's 'got to get something out soon' because his boss has been asking what's going on. Manager:  I need a draft message for the project update. How soon can you get it to me? Communications Officer:  How about tomorrow? Manager:  I kind of need it today some time. Communications Officer:  How about today? Manager:  Okay good.  Communications Officer:  So the reason for the delay is other projects took priority but now it's time to return to this one, right? Manager:  "We can't tell them that."  Communications Officer:  Why not? Manager:  Well because it looks bad. I hear those words from a senior manager or executive and sigh. There are precious few things we truly "CAN'T" tell employees: private information about other employees financially-sensitive information the CEO's kid's cellpho...
Post a Comment
Read more

Dear Executive: Say What You Mean

If you read Clare Lynch's article called: " 10 Ways to Protect Your Copy from A Verbose Exec ", you'll see the following sentence: "There's nothing worse than some verbose exec "improving" your finely crafted copy by inserting references to "delivering key learnings," "driving employee integration strategies," and "interfacing holistically with clients." If you're anything like me, you actually want to tackle rewriting those mucky terms she's highlighted. Let's start with the first one: delivering key learnings. The word 'learning' is a noun; that's not the problem. When you put an 's' on it, you are attempting to count an abstract concept like learning, and that causes confusion. Allow me to give you an example:  Merriam-Wester defines learning as: "knowledge or skill acquired by instruction or study." You do not typically count the number of knowledges you've acq...
Post a Comment
Read more

If You Clarify, There's No Need to Explain

Clarifying is not the same as explaining. Let me explain. No, wait: let me clarify that...which is it? When I hear the word 'explain', I envision multiple paragraphs of additional text that may not be necessary. Whereas the word 'clarify' evokes a beautiful landscape of writing where every word means something and no word can be left out. In the meantime, yes, 'clarify' and 'explain' are synonyms, which means they are similar, not exactly alike. In the context of writing well and writing to engage, I recommend clarity over too much explanation; perhaps that's a better way to put it. If anyone needs me to clarify that, let me know.
1 comment
Read more