On our ‘Engaging People, Powering Companies’ podcast last week,

Amrit delved in to the topic of communication. Specifically top down, leaders to employee’s communication, and prompted consideration as to whether this is causing confusion at best, and mistrust at worst. Communication is key, always, and a considered, joined up, honest message is dynamite!  

As a leader, I used to relish in the joy of communicating the good news stories. The performance wins, the great customer feedback, the events, or benefits coming our way from above, whatever it was, it was an opportunity to bring people together and celebrate the wins. Building a culture of positivity, celebration, and recognition. On the flip side of that delivering harder messages wasn’t something I relished for the message’s sake, but rather the opportunity to be honest, to promote all knuckling down, supporting each other, the camaraderie of it, which I see as just as important, if not more, for a strong, flexible, can-do culture.  

What made the latter messages somewhat, sometimes, unbearable to deliver was when it felt like it just came out of a bolt in the blue. Things would feel like they were going swimmingly and then bam, guess what, they absolutely are not. This could make us feel we were on shaky ground, and had been kept in the dark, wondering if those at the top really know what it is like down here?

People would look at me with pity for having to deliver such messages. I wasn’t in on it, they would know that. I just had to pass information on and then manage the inevitable fall out of people dealing with shock and confusion, and that had the potential to put in jeopardy everything I worked hard, day by day, conversation by conversation, to build.

The industry I worked in (Utilities) was challenging because it always got bad press. Something would be announced in the news, and then I would be greeted as I walked in the building, with a press release and a response to share with the masses. I was grateful for these because we were ‘on it’, and ready to help employees answer customer concerns off the back of news stories, but you just knew it was going to be a very challenging, busier than usual day. Call volumes would increase greatly off the back of anything to do with Martin Lewis and rightly so!

The other aspect was price hikes. Nobody close to the customer could be told earlier than they needed to be which I always understood, but it did feel like those that would be dealing with the enquiries were always the last to know. This is when knowing your people, keeping routines strong, and all really pulling together was critical. Building the strongest of cultures and being consistent always, helped with the ups and downs of a volatile and challenging landscape.

I often thought/wished we could have been more trusting of the people at the top, and it sometimes felt we learnt more about who they were, and what was going on/coming up, through the media.  Amrit mentioned how those at the very top have more insights, data points, predictions, and consultants, helping to see the future landscape. Their timeline is the future, always looking ahead, whereas those on the ground are in the here and now, dealing with it as it is. Both are necessary of course, and I do believe it can be more joined up than perhaps a lot of us have experienced. In my role, it certainly would have given more in the trust bank for when we really did need to dig deep.

Profits was a big one in our industry, profits, bonuses, capped prices, rising prices, the poor paying more, mixed messaging is just hard to manage, and share. Especially when things like redundancies and overtime ceasing reared their heads. Unfortunately, these things do create an ‘us and them’ divide, perhaps because we just didn’t have the bigger picture. Maybe these were always a kneejerk reaction and not planned. Maybe they weren’t. To have had more of an understanding of the challenges of those at the very top, how quickly decisions needed to be made, and that the people making them were doing so, through the lens of the company values, and with integrity, would have helped build trust, and therefore, acceptance. I have no doubt. People aren’t stupid, and these decisions impact heavily on the masses. I am not saying that these decisions weren’t made this way, I just wouldn’t have known.

Amrit suggested imagining employees as investors. Investors invest. Employees do invest their time, energy, and effort every day, and perhaps helping them understand the bigger picture more often than an annual roadshow, would go a long way into helping them invest more still, and feel like they belong to the wider group and company overall, rather than just the department they work in. It would also give those that deliver the messages, that have many hearts and minds in their care, something stronger to trust, lean and rely on, while we doing our upmost for the good of the business and the people.

To listen to the podcast, click here.