Category: Values

Being inclusive and productive virtually

This year we’ve all learnt a lot about being inclusive and productive virtually and remotely. Here’s some of what I’ve learnt in case it’s useful to you.

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Recipe for a change narrative

A structure to help with writing a change narrative, and suggestions on how to use it.

First catch your ‘why’.

Ingredients

  • 1x background
  • 1x what’s changed
  • 1x what’s the challenge
  • 1x what’s the strategy for facing the challenge
  • 1x how will we need to behave to make the strategy work
  • 1x how do we know it will work
  • 1x what’s the first step we need to take

Method

Mix all your dry ingredients. Make sure that your why and how are evenly distributed.

Use this mix as the basis of your messaging. It is versatile and can be turned into:

  • Key messages
  • Presentations
  • Speeches
  • Elevator pitches
  • Web content (static pages / news content)
  • Social media content
  • Staff briefings
  • Videos
  • Animations

But remember

Show, don’t tell. It’s essential to include the examples of where it’s already working (how do we know it will work), and to keep giving new examples of where it s happening, working, changing…

Even better if you can include a diversity of voices telling stories about where it’s working: colleagues from different areas (managers/ frontline/ leaders), customers, external stakeholders…

Who do you want to work for?

Recently it struck me that we have been selling in a presentation about values creation wrongly. The main body is fine – all about linking values and behaviours and perception – and we’ve been getting there in the end.

But we’ve been starting on the wrong foot by showing a number of logos and asking what the organisations represented have in common – answer: a defined brand, answer: brand recognition, (answer: a set of values underpinning everything).

We were getting anything but that response though – answer: they make a lot of money, answer: they are international, answer: they are private sector, (answer: what’s it got to do with us?).

What we should have asked is – who do you want to work for? And why? What do you believe about them? What do you think you know? What makes them special? Odds on the top ten would have a sturdy set of organisational values.

Answers (off the top of my head):

  • Innocent
  • BBC
  • Google
  • Lush
  • Bravissimo
  • Twitter
  • National Trust
  • Marks & Spencer
  • Ikea
  • DFID

What about you?