Able and How

LONDON — I am not sure who else really does this. It’s the essence of what we do. We help organisations to ensure that their programmes work by managing change and communications.

Quite often we are called in to help with programmes like business transformation or HR / IT initiatives, when they have started to go wrong. Or sometimes we are invited at the outset of new change programmes like brand or values renewals.

The strange combination of skills that we bring to a job are communications, strategy, planning, organisational development, leadership communications, change management, employee engagement and more.

Some of our clients are communications directors. Some or heads of internal communications and some are programme managers who know very little about communications. We often work with strategy, IT and HR managers. Sometimes it’s Chief Executives.

The biggest problem with programme change communications is that most programme managers don’t know that they can have it. People who have programmes to plan and company initiatives to manage, get well underway before they realise that they can and should manage communications and change effectively.

If we could get access to every corporate change programme we could save the economy billions. Maybe that sounds like an over-statement. Maybe it is. But to us it seems real.

Wanted: Programme managers needing programme change communications.

/df

TCR — There’s a great French expression ferme ta gueule. Maybe because it’s in a foreign language I think it’s a bit less harsh than the English equivalent.

I worked in politics many years ago. Almost 20 years ago. But long enough to realise that you need equal measures of two things to succeed:

1) Enough ambition to change the world
2) Enough vanity to believe you can

I know that sounds like an indictment, but it’s not. If we don’t have good enough people willing to go into politics then we have a real problem.

I am even stroppy enough on this point to say that I have little patience for business people who complain about government. They are no better than the radicals who want to drag everyone else to the extreme right, left or loopy. Good politicians need to balance many different interests. And that’s hard.

You need to help find effective people and support them. If you don’t participate, you have no voice. You can’t complain. (The UK has more or less the lowest turnout in Europe. About 1 in 3 people!)

Starting tomorrow (in the UK and Netherlands) and in the four days that follow, there will be European elections across the continent.

This week you have a chance to vote, and you must use it… Particularly if you are in any way sane.

The media and others are saying that the ‘traditional parties’ will be punished in this election. And when it comes to EU elections they often are. But mostly because only radicalised people can be bothered to vote.

Let’s be honest we have all sent some real characters to the EU. The few people who vote seem willing to vote for people who they wouldn’t let sit their dog.

Vote for someone who has the competence to do something intelligent once they are there. Sending radical parties of one hasn’t helped.

Run, vote or ferme ta gueule.

/df

P.S. In most countries (including the UK) you don’t even have to register for these elections. It’s been done for you if you have voted in the past.

P.P.S. This site will tell you more about your candidates etc.

HOME — I had a good chat with a nice guy named Paul this week. He asked ‘how we worked’, and again I recognised that buying consultancy can be a daunting experience for people. And I hate to think that.

I can’t say that every experience will be the same, but here are a few of the things [...]

LONDON — What I like most about this blog on the Harvard Business website, is that it could have been written by me!

Not that I am vain or anything…!

But I think these ‘employee relations’, or internal communications, or (my preference) organisational communications issues are ones that will return to haunt us. They are also issues that may [...]

LONDON — This may be the month of some riotous annual meetings. These regular, champagne fuelled events in which the Board deigns to talk down to the blue-haired shareholders, and a few ‘institutional investors’ drop by to show how important they are. They are not going as smoothly so far in 2009 as some people continue to expect [...]

ORIANA — Did you know that an estimated 670,000 Chinese businesses failed last year? Bankrupt.

I didn’t even know that could happen.

The Sunday Times last weekend ran a survey that compared views and trends between 1989 and 2009. Did you know that on average we are twice as cynical as we were then? Our trust in politicians, and [...]

LONDON — There’s a reason why I love the New Yorker. Every few years I rediscover it and read something I hadn’t thought about. Earlier this year it was an article I read my daughters about the civil rights movement and Obama. Today it’s about Plastiki.

Have a look at this video.

The [...]

“Here are 16 reason why we will miss the gloomy time.

1. Role-play will be less pleasurable. We have split the world into two pantomimic parts: the evil (the bankers) and the good (everyone else). In future, sorting out villains and victims will require more imagination.”

David Marsh, Comment in FT, 21 April 2009

THE WHITE HORSE — There’s something [...]