Honest Feedback is vital for Employee Engagement

If you want to create Employee Engagement you should invest in creating a culture of giving and receiving feedback. This is often confused with creating an environment of being friendly and although this is important it is more important to create relationships strong enough to be able to handle the truth (How to create a frame of honest feedback).

Gallup research has shown that a manager that gives mainly positive (based on strengths) feedback has more engaged employees versus managers that give predominantly negative feedback. What is more interesting is that giving no feedback is significantly worse that giving negative feedback.

As a leader you are responsible for growing your people which sometimes involves giving negative feedback. Research has shown that direct and honest feedback on wrong answers in tests has a bigger impact than feedback on what went well. 

When people are encouraged and allowed to grow employee engagement increases. To grow people need feedback that also means negative feedback.

Knowing that negative feedback also creates employee Engagement should be sufficient to encourage leaders to have difficult conversations with their people – ignoring the conversations are too expensive.

In the book “Crucial Conversations” the authors introduce the concept of the Fools choice: “The choice between friendship and honesty.” 

It is a fools choice because no friendship can be based on dishonesty so a crucial conversation is necessary to give honest feedback

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter" Martin Luther King Jr.

How are you engaging your customers?

To create satisfied customers doesn’t really make you successful anymore – apart from creating value you also need to engage your customer to grow your revenue.

Customers are not just looking for the same product or service they have only cheaper or with an extra feature – they are looking for something radically useful or something that creates meaning for them.

Every market matures and in every mature market the product/service looks more and more alike. It will be based on the same technology made on the same factory or delivered after the same principles. Not much room for differentiation other than price that shrinks the pie for all market players. All products will eventually satisfy customers but not necessarily engage them.

To engage customers you will need to go beyond the product or service itself. It is not about what you do, it is about why you do it and how you do it.

 "Always start with why" Simon Sinek

Customer engagement is an emotional relation between the customer and one or more actors associated with the company. It is certainly possible to create an emotional relationship between a customer and a product/service brand as is seen with luxury items and cars; however this is not possible in most markets.

Relationship with the product itself

When products and services become more alike it becomes more important how it is made and what the overall purpose of the producing company is. It is not anymore about transactional selling but more about a relationship and eventually being part of a movement.

Relationship with the company

Customers don’t buy from you just because you want a lot of money but they might want to buy from you if your company is trying to support society or making the world a better place. The low priority of CSR in many companies, will not work in the future. It does not inspire customers or employees. The new hyper growth companies predominantly from the US, all has a strong purpose in the centre of their activity. Google, Apple, Tesla, Facebook and similar are not in the business just to make money – they want to make a difference also. This engages not only employees but also customers.

Relationship with touch points

The rise of the internet and social media has made many companies forget that their employees are vital in creating engagement with customers. Unfortunately only 13% of all employees worldwide are engaged and hence capable of creating customer engagement. The service aspect has also been neglected even though there is a higher probability in creating an engaged customer through a service issue than there is through a normal successful delivery.

The massive advertising on social media that looks the same as the old newspaper advertising can create awareness but is not successful in creating engagement. Most companies miss the point of having their senior managers’ active on social media (Only 28% of CEO has social media accounts). CEO’s have an opportunity to engage in conversations about purpose and sustainable production that can catapult engagement. Leaders like Tim Cook (Apple), Elon Musk (Tesla) Eric Schmidt (Google) are all very active in engaging both customers and employees.

Relationship with other stakeholders

The most important consumer buying decisions are heavily impacted by people close to the consumer and different interest groups. You cannot ignore Greenpeace, Amnesty international or trade unions anymore. The company need to include all stakeholders into their strategy formation and make it transparent. A transparent company does not need to hide behind a brand.

The link between Employee and Customer engagement

Gallup has shown that there is a strong relationship from Employee Engagement over customer engagement to financial results. Companies that manage to engage both customers and employees have 240% better results on performance related parameters.

"Companies that engage both customers and employees have 240% better results on performance parameters." Gallup

Are you running your company like an old communist country?

It is generally accepted that the wall fell as a result of the actions of Regan and Gorbachev although it probably would have fallen anyway as a result of the systematic and serious failures that evolved inside the totalitarian system.

You would think that companies most often are managed by principles derived from capitalism and while this might be true there are a large number of companies that have adopted similar vices to those of the former communist countries in the world.

The question is if what is likely to have caused communism to fail is a good foundation for a long term sustainable strategy aimed at creating engagement with both employees and customers.

Test your company against the doctrines below and find out if you are facing obsolescence:

1. Power is concentrated on few hands

A significant issue of the communist countries was the limited number of people that had authority to make real decisions regarding resource allocation in strategic and operational situations. A culture of delegation assumes that the top leadership of the company are better qualified to make all decisions on the corporation’s behalf – in short they know better. This kind of “Politburo” structure fights empowerment like the body attacks a virus – the distribution of power that is at the core of empowerment is a sacrilegious concept that cannot even be discussed. A concentrated power structure isolates the leaders from the organisation and alienates the employees and the customers rather than engaging them. Organisations that successfully engage both employees and customers have 240% better performance according to Gallup.

2. Information access is limited and decision making processes are not transparent

A relic from the industrial age where information was key to competing it is now mainly used by poor managers to cement their power position. Very little information can be considered so proprietary it should be kept from employees. The social revolution is changing the way that information is used inside companies and it is also making it very difficult to keep decision making processes secret when all stakeholders have the possibility to instantly spread uncomfortable secrets immediately.

3. The leadership is not democratically elected.

In principle the board and though them the CEO should be (s)elected by a democratic process that operate by shareholders voting rights. In many companies this process is not as many shareholders don’t exercise their voting rights. The largest stock holders in the world are pension funds managed by professional managers, not by their true owners. This means that rather than owners voting for managers to take care of their best interest, it becomes a case of managers voting for other managers / with that the danger of managers acting in their own best interest rather than the owners. One of the signs of a “Politburo” is a board with members that has not changed for many years and always sides with the CEO.

4. The company has a lack of purpose

If you have a mission of becoming the “Very best company in the x industry” you are probably not the most purpose driven company in the world. Instead you are likely to have a focus on serving “shareholders”, which sounds a lot better that senior management serving themselves. It is important to have a strong purpose that can attract and engage employees, customers and other stakeholders if you don’t want to compete on price alone. If your leadership team are defenders of status quo – they are likely to be a Poliburo:  The society for the preservation of senior management.

5. Doctrine based thinking

The only argument for concentrating power on a few hands is the assumption that they no best and are best equipped to manage the company. When this becomes the case there is no real reason for seeking information or advice outside the power structure. As people are isolated from the real world doctrine based group think starts to kick in. Decisions are based on assumptions that might have been true once but never gets revalidated. It is particularly dangerous if it gets combined with short term financial results that can give the illusion that all is well. Short term results can be made by stealing from long term results.

6.  Strategies that benefit few

If a politburo structure enters a company so does entitlement. As the power circle constantly reinforces their own importance the companys strategy turns to serving the few that matters. In strategy creation the interest of other stakeholders will start to be underserved to give to the few. Starving customers and employees can create short term results and with that the illusion of success. When CEO’s make more than 500 times the pay of ordinary workers, it is a sign that the company has started to serve the few. These strategies are rarely sustainable in the long haul.

7. Central planning structure

The Politburo owns all the money and need to concentrate resource allocation and planning to a central point. The focus turns from investing in new equipment, people and in new business opportunities to a focus on efficiency. More effective P&L or Balance sheet control of business units is replaced with a micromanaged central structure where everybody has to make endless request to just get the minimum for the business survival. It is a great way of starving the business at the same time as being able to blame the individual units of not contributing.

8. Policies are designed to limit people, not enable them

The bureaucracy shows its face once the company’s policies turns from guiding the people to starting to control and limit them. Policies will move from enabling everybody to be a mean to only protect the company interest and money. When the health and safety policy that should be designed to protect the employee turns into a 50 page legal document that describes what will happen to an employee that does not follow the rules – then you know you have turned into an old communist country.

9. Staff functions transform into secret police

When policies change to protect the company, a similar change can take place in the staff functions. Originally designed to support the business with financial, people, legal and IS support the staff functions start to control, check and report behaviour that can be deemed dangerous to status quo. They start to resemble the security police in the old communist states. This has a significant impact on employee engagement and instead of seeking new ways of doing things and creating value, employees gets trained into low profile, low risk behaviour. Don’t spend any money, do make any requests and don’t challenge status quo.

10. Lack of engagement kills productivity, initiative and innovation

When employees understand that they are not encouraged or rewarded for taking initiative, learning and experimentation stops. Productivity growth will start to decline compared to high engagement organisations although it can be hidden by the results created though starving the company. With the concentration of information, a focus on low risk behaviour and low employee engagement – innovation will stop. Innovation can only happen if people are allowed to challenge status quo and the doctrines of the corporation – this is one of the key reasons the old communist countries did not survive.

If your company share some of the characteristics of an old communist country it might be a reason to start looking for healthier doctrines that enable employees and engage customers. 

You cannot run a 21^st century company based on 20^th century management principles.

The Fastest and Cheapest leadership step you will ever take.

Have you ever had a leader that had a completely different self-image to what others saw? Leaders like this are normally not very effective as they have no idea of the impact they have on others nor do they seek feedback to verify or try to change this impact. 

A key step in your personal leadership development is to get to know yourself - as in truly know yourself. This is not easy as you might not like what you see or not understand the impact you have on other people. This is however and important step and the foundation of personal growth.

“You cannot learn, what you think you know”

The best and simplest action for creating self-awareness is to ask the people you spend time with for feedback. This is also one of the foundations of the Johari Window.

"Simple does not mean easy."

The Johari Window

The two American psychologists, Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham developed a tool to help people create self-awareness. Although developed in the 50’s the Johari window is still a very effective tool for leaders and individuals to create self-awareness.

The top of the Johari window illustrates what is known to others can be divided into two areas: What you also know yourself and what others know you don’t know yourself. If you are willing to explore this area and create a frame of “Giving Feedback” you can gain some extremely valuable insight into how your attitudes, feelings and behaviours impact other people. You can then decide what change you want to make to yourself to create a different impact.

Creating a frame of “Feedback”

Normally we stay away from difficult conversations with people as we are concerned with the way it might create trouble for us later. We co create a conspiracy not to touch certain topics, that might create uncomfortable situation. We “hold the fort” or “we do not rock the boat”. The topics we are not willing to deal with stay in the room as huge elephants we pretend to ignore: We have created group think. 
To be able to benefit from feedback, it is first necessary to create a “Frame of feedback”, an environment where it is ok to speak the truth. Rather than just seek feedback yourself, you should do it as a workgroup or as a peer team, where everybody opens up.

1. Feedback as a concept

The first step is to have a conversation around feedback itself as a concept. The following sentences can help the conversation:
- People have the right intent but create the wrong impact. 
- Giving feedback is aimed at helping not criticising. 
- Robust relationships can handle feedback.
- Don’t make loyalty more important than the truth, then you have created a conspiracy
- If your friendship is not strong enough to handle the truth it is not a real friendship.
- Feedback is not true or false – it is an opinion
- Feedback gives clarity

2. The context and commitments

The second step is to discuss the context, common goal and commitments of the team that will open up for feedback. We live with each other not based on the feedback we give but on the commitments we make. The feedback will be given in support of the common commitment.

3. Rules of engagement

3rd step is to set the rules: What is acceptable, confidentiality, care and commitment. It is important to be deliberate of getting permission from everybody. Don’t create a room of criticism, create a room of support, honesty and camaraderie.

4. Rounds of feedback

4th step is do rounds where each participant receives feedback from colleagues, managers or employees as appropriate. It is important not to defend yourself against feedback – it is not about right or wrong, it is an opinion. We are not judging people; we are helping them understanding their impact

Do not respond to the feedback, just receive it and let it sink in – it could take weeks before you are ready to process it. You should thing of the person that gives feedback as somebody that cares about you enough to tell the truth. You have to be willing to interrogate your impact.

5. Use the feedback

Once you have had time to assimilate the feedback it is time to do the work. It is important to remember that it is not about right or wrong, it is about what impact you have on people. If you receive value from the exercise there are two more elements of the Johari window to go explore.

(This article is based on the wonderful work of Hendre D. Coetzee – may he soon write a book to enlighten us all.)

The 3 dimensions of Fairness that Impacts Employee Engagement

What is fairness really?

When most people talk about fairness, they talk about the concept as an absolute and objective term, things are either fair or they are not. This is also how people behave although it is blaringly obvious that even two people can disagree on what is fair. If fairness truly was objective we would have no wars, sufferings or extreme inequality – there would be enough for everybody.

Fairness is a very subjective concept and it is shaped by age, culture, religion, age and a whole host of other dimensions. Fairness also changes according to context; in scarce situations like who should have the last bottle of water in a desert, people’s perception of fairness changes dramatically.

Anybody that has been in a situation they deemed unfair knows that the response is instantaneous and can be quite powerful. This reveals that fairness is hardwired in the emotional parts of the brain, in particular the amygdala – where also anger gets trigged and the two often works in concert.

Why fairness impacts Employee Engagement

For companies the fairness concept really is a tightrope that needs to be walked. If you trip, you risk getting a powerful emotional response from people that can have a dramatic and instantaneous impact of the engagement levels – disengagement can increase very fast.

Fairness is also a positive engagement factor but it builds slowly over time as the company demonstrates that it is a fair company. Communication strategies cannot only be built around rational business strategies and decisions – it will need to respect the fact that fairness is emotional in nature.

The 3 Dimensions of fairness

Taking a deeper dive into the concept of fairness, reveals that there are three dimensions that needs to be considered when dealing with Employee Engagement and the fact that they interact.

Fairness towards Self

The relationship between the employee and the employer can be seen in the light of fairness. The tangible elements of fairness are what the employee gives in terms of presence and effort compared to what the company gives back in pay and benefits. The tangible elements of fairness are closely related to satisfaction but not much to motivation and engagement.

The intangible elements of the relationship, like how you are treated, trusted and listened to combined with other leadership and cultural elements has a high impact on how motivated and engaged the employee is. Engagement is not about money – it is about how you treat people.

Fairness compared to others

Another dimension of fairness is when employee compares their situation to those of others. This could be colleagues, leaders, similar groups outside the organisation. When employees start to compare their situation to others, their perception of fairness can change very rapidly. What they were happy with a second ago is now completely unacceptable when they have seen what the others get. This is key in designing engagement, you need to either be transparent and up front or be secretive if you have very differential pay or treat people very different.

Fairness towards others

The last dimension is about how fair the company treats others and can have a significant impact on the engagement. Companies that only focus on shareholder value are typically short term oriented and see conflicts between the shareholder and other stakeholders like workers, customers, society and the environment.

Fortunately a lot of the younger more successful companies are built on a foundation of a strong worthwhile purpose and know that serving multiple stakeholders eventually benefits the shareholder. If a company treats all stakeholders well and respect them their reputation, brand and image as an employee grows. This can significantly increase employee engagement.

If you want to create engagement in your company you need to be able to manage fairness along the three dimensions

Interview with Sir Richard Branson Founder of Virgin Group by Christina Lattimer

Interview with Sir Richard Branson Founder of Virgin Group

By Christina Latimer
Full article here: http://peopledevelopmentmagazine.com/2014/09/03/sir-richard-branson/

This is the final interview in this wonderful series about the 6 Challenges identified by CEO’s across the globe, highlighted by the Centre for Creative Leadership in their Report in 2013.  When I turned my attention to who I would want to interview for this important final issue,  the first person who sprang to mind was Sir Richard Branson.  To me Richard epitomises the ultimate combination of brilliant leadership and business skills.  Richard has successfully, transparently and wholeheartedly lived his values which have been demonstrated time and time again both in his unique approach to business and in his attitude to Virgin’s many faceted global success.   So you will no doubt understand how delighted and grateful  I felt when Richard confirmed he was willing to contribute to this month’s magazine.   I hope his wonderful words of wisdom, as always, help you our readers and contributors alike, I think you will,  like me, be delighted!

Here is what Richard had to say:

1) What do you consider is the biggest challenge for CEO’s and leaders in the business world today and what can be done? 

Business leaders and CEO’s have a responsibility to inspire their employees and run their business in a sustainable way.   This is difficult for CEO’s as they are judged on their performance in the short term and any long term initiatives do take time to come through.  Shareholders and stakeholders need to modify their expectations of CEO’s from short-term profits and back the leaders of businesses to create long lasting plans that will grow their businesses and tackle many of the world’s issues at the same time.

2) Can you describe your leadership culture in Virgin and why it works so well? 

When selecting people for leadership roles I believe you should have an open mind and be prepared to look out for talent which others may have over-looked.

It is extremely important to employ business leaders who are passionate about their particular area of expertise and understand that part of being a good leader is having the ability to listen.   Listening to your people and giving them the opportunity to act on any ideas they have helps foster passion in your people and deliver on their ideas, which is beneficial to your business.

3) Given your vast experience in business what is the single biggest piece of advice you would give to leaders and CEO’s reading this? 

If you look back at the most successful businesses of the past 20 years – Microsoft, Google or Apple, they all played a part in shaking up their sector by doing something that hadn’t ever been done and by continually innovating. They are now among the dominant forces.

Not everyone will achieve such great worldwide success but a good start is to create something that everybody who works for you is really proud of. Businesses generally consist of a group of people, and they are your biggest assets.

4) What is the most inspirational event, person or situation you’ve encountered so far in your career?  

I have been fortunate to have had a long and successful career in business, meeting many inspirational people along the way and attending some fantastic events full of fascinating people.

I have long admired Nelson Mandela and was so upset when I heard the news of his passing. He showed amazing courage and conviction overcoming an evil political system. Wherever he went he would make people smile, laugh and feel completely at home. A young friend, Peta-Lynn, found Madiba in the galley on a Virgin plane to New York a while back. He offered to make her a cup of tea. What an extraordinary man.

5) What is the most exciting project you’re involved in you’d like to share? 

Going into space has always been a dream of mine. I could think of nothing more exciting than looking at our planet from space. Virgin Galactic is pioneering the space tourism industry and making great progress. Our spaceship has successfully completed three powered flights, breaking the sound barrier in the process, and our mothership – WhiteKnightTwo – has flown over 150 flights. The project is looking promising and I get so excited every time the Galactic team update me on another milestone the project passes.

6) How can our readers’ best benefit from the work you are doing and how can they best engage with you (and Virgin)? 

I have been fortunate that over the years we have developed an incredibly strong management team to run the Virgin companies. This has allowed me to dedicate the majority of my time to Virgin Unite – the not-for-profit arm of the Virgin Group. Virgin Unite have incubated a number of organisations dedicated to tackling specific issues such as conflict resolution (The Elders), climate change (The Carbon War Room), ocean protection (Ocean Elders) and sustainability (The B Team). I would encourage anyone to try to engage with these organisations and be inspired by what they are trying to achieve. Go out and start something yourself that reflects what they stand for.   Virgin Unite, and Virgin.com, has a very strong digital presence and I update my blog daily at www.virgin.com/richard.

More about Sir Richard Branson

Sir Richard Branson is the Founder of Virgin.  Virgin is one of the world’s most intriquing brands and has a well known diverse and unique portfolio of companies.   There are now more than 100 Virgin companies worldwide, employing approximately 60,000 people in over 50 countries.  Sir Richard’s hallmark has been one of innovation, challenge and bravery.  Click here to read Richard’s full and inspiring biography on Virgin.com

The Virgin Way by Sir Richard Branson

Even though I asked Richard’s team if he wanted to promote or mention anything within the interview, Richard didn’t feel the need to mention or advertise his new book , which  doesn’t surprise me.  But because it looks so fantastic, I wanted to mention it here anyway, so readers were aware of it.  ” The Virgin Way”  is due to be published on the 8th September and you can find out more details by clicking on the image:

Is your strategy Superaligned?

After decades of relentless focus on shareholder value, the story of the primary purpose of business being profit to shareholders is starting to shake in its foundation. Based on Milton Friedman’s thoughts that shareholders can be altruistic with the capital that businesses provide but businesses themselves has to only focus on shareholder value. With the emergence of stakeholder theory it has become obvious that there are more groups being impacted by and are impacting the corporation – it is not enough to focus on the shareholder. Businesses are dependent of serving all or several of their stakeholders at the same time in what Tom Gardner, CEO of investment advisors, The Moetly Fool calls super-alignment. Gardner is looking for Superalignment when picking stocks – a principle that has yielded a return of 216% vs the S&P500 return of 58% since 2002.

The most successful corporations were not founded to make money.                                They were founded to solve a problem.  Kip Tindell

Small first steps

Corporations has taken steps to improve relations with employees through improvements of the environment, compensation and benefits and marketing departments have been upgraded to invent saint like stories about the company and its products. The true operating philosophy did not have to change – only the stories served to employees and customers. In the age of internet and social networks this model is as sustainable as an iceberg in equator. Employees can whistle-blow and post their opinions on glassfloor.com or similar networks and customers can easily get experience of other customers or post their own experience. Corporations cannot operate in one way and at the same time serve a fictional story of “Great Corporate Citizenship”.

Creating value for others is the engine of Capitalism. R Edward Freeman

What is even more troubling for corporate dinosaurs that are not willing to change is that the external stakeholders besides customers has the power to truly impact the corporation and in seconds create a sh!tstorm that can bring a large corporation to its knees. The Boycott Amazon, Starbucks voluntary tax payment in Europe and Greenpeace’s battle with Shell that resulted in Lego discontinuing their cooperation with the oil giant are just a few examples of stakeholder power on the rise.

Communication levels with stakeholders.

With the increasing levels of transparency it is going to be important to have a continuous dialogue with the corporation’s stakeholders. Not just serving them marketing stories but allowing them to participate in the strategy process of the company and impact the direction.

It will be increasingly important to identify external stakeholder groups and to develop strong relationships and communications with them. Most companies today have to resort to crisis management when a stakeholder group feels violated by the corporation’s activity.

Respecting all stakeholders benefits the shareholders

There is a group of leaders that have abandoned the path of shareholder value lead by Professor R. Edward Freeman of Darden Business School and a growing group of companies in the organisation Conscious Capitalism. They not only see this strategy as the best one – also the most profitable one.

As Edward Freeman is phrasing it; “The story about business being about money and profits only and people are only acting in self-interest - if it was ever true - its time has long gone.”

The CEO of Containerstore, Kip Tindell, advocates placing the shareholder low in a stakeholder hierarchy. When you create value for all other stakeholders – the shareholders win. If all you want to do is to make a lot of money, this is the fastest way. He sees shareholder value as something that just alienates the employees, the customers and other stakeholder groups.

Fill the other guys basket to the brim and money takes care of itself. Carnegie

Or as Howard Schultz put it in 2007 when Starbucks was in trouble; "The pursuit of profit became our reason for being, and that's not the reason that Starbucks is in business. We're in the business of exceeding the expectations of our customers."

Finding strategies and solutions that benefit multiple stakeholders at the same time is not easy and cannot be done behind closed doors. Corporations will have to open up their strategy process not only to make it transparent but also to invite stakeholders to participate in the strategy formation. How alien it might sound for many corporations, the combined knowledge and creativity could be a source of sustainable competitive advantage.

The only infinite resource we have is our creativity. We need to deal with apparent impossible situations and sometimes create miracles - Miracles are when we create value for all of our stakeholders. R. Edward Freeman

Communications - Be a damn good router. Chapter 5 of "How Google Works"

Google does not limit information based on seniority, it believes in sharing information on all levels. A quarterly briefing of the board was initiated by Eric Schmidt involving all areas of Google and containing a lot of proprietary information. This gets shared with all employees in a presentation after the board briefing. Everything is shared except if it is prohibited by law – which is not the same as the red marker of death lawyers use for anything containing a risk. As the material is not only share with the board but with the entire company, people work hard to make the material great.

So far leaking has not been a problem – “We trust our employees with all sorts of vital information and they honor that trust”.

People post their personal strategic goals in a document called OKR – Objectives and Key Results.  This is not a description of role or title, but what a person cares about and is working on. The top level shares and reviews their own performance against the OKRs and discusses the ambitious goals they did not achieve. Employees are expected to create their own OKRs in light of this with the company’s best interest in mind.

Google’s leadership style is question based: “The essence of being human involves asking questions, not answering them” John Seely Brown Xerox. Rather than managing, Eric Schmidt would regularly ask questions of the executives and expect them to be on top of the details. People are also expected to understand the big picture – not just the details.

It is important to get bad news out in the open. Google does not punish the miner that brings the dead canary up into the light. Googlers are expected to ask tough questions and a voting system ensures the toughest questions climb to the top of the list and gets answered. When bad news is delivered it is important that it is not sugar coated and that you don’t have all of the answers yet. "If everything seems under control, you are just not going fast enough" Mario Andretti.

Google’s transparency approach: Climb Confess and Comply. This is an analogy for Pilot errors. The first thing a pilot need to do is to climb to get out of danger. Then tell the tower about the mistake and lastly comply with the towers advice on how to do better.

Instead of staff meetings that reinforces the functional boxing of people Google encourages people to present in a more holistic and interesting way – like trip reports or what I learned in my vacation. These kinds of presentations often are more relevant to the business issues at hand than the functional update.

Communication should reinforce, be effective, be fun, be inspirational, authentic, directed at the right people use the right media and finally be true.

In 1:1 meetings it is important that both the leader and the employee bring their top 5 issues to discuss. Hopefully there is an overlap - if not there is a bigger issue at hand. 4 main topics should be discussed: Performance, Relationships Leadership and innovation (Best practices).

Communication with partners has to be handled diplomatic. Many of Google’s partnerships are also competitive in other areas and needs a diplomatic approach. Differences in objectives are fine and should be acknowledged. The communication should be pragmatic rather than ideological and the relationship should be based on the partner’s actions.