Angela sinickas

How to Get Management to Listen
(It Helps if You Have Something to Say)

NCA Communications Day
27 March 27 2011

Angela Sinickas, ABC
www.sinicom.com

22365 El Toro Road, Ste. 139, Lake Forest, CA 92630
TEL: 714/277-4130 FAX: 714/242-7049

1

Why don’t they listen to us?

© 2012, Sinickas Communications, Inc. 2

A couple of ideas…

• Connecting communication more closely to
business results
• Qualitative research to support our
recommendations
• Quantitative measures to prove our results
• How to present our findings to leaders


Connect Communication Advice
to Business Goals

4

Why so many communications fail:
Communicating for awareness or to inform

• Trying to “increase awareness” or “inform” people about a
goal instead of communicating with them to achieve a
behavior change
– Results in telling too many people too many things that are not
relevant or actionable
– Audiences start tuning
out all communications
as just so much “noise”
• Ideal: Focus on what
behaviors the new
information should
influence


Typical communication messaging

• Organizational goals and performance results
– What leadership is trying to achieve
• Audience actions
– What should different stakeholders do more of or less of, or do
differently in order to achieve the goals?
• Audience perceptions (knowledge and attitudes)
– What do stakeholders need to know in order to do the right things?
– What do stakeholders need to believe in order to do the right
things
• Communication tactics
– Key messages about goals and results


More effective communication messaging
based on research

• Organizational goals and performance results
– What leadership is trying to achieve
• Audience actions
– What should different stakeholders do more of or less of, or do
differently in order to achieve the goals?
• Audience perceptions (knowledge and attitudes)
– What do stakeholders need to know in order to do the right things?
– What do stakeholders need to believe in order to do the right
things?
• Communication tactics
– Key messages about goals and results leading to behavior change


Research to Ensure
We Make the Right Recommendations

8

From informal to formal qualitative research

• Working your network as an “early warning system”
for emerging needs or issues
• One-on-one interviews/phone calls where executives
will be speaking
• Pre-testing proposed messages,
from blog posts to strategy
statements
– Walk-around testing
of knowledge and attitudes
– “Sounding board” panel
– Focus groups


Using an editorial board: Topics of employee
concerns about new facility being built

Hourly Office Employees
Topics Employees Employees Not
Moving Moving Moving

Transportation

Who moves

Food

Showers

Lockers

Security

Legend: = mentioned by 1/4 to 1/2 in this category.
= mentioned by less than 1/4 in this category
= mentioned, but only by a few people
© 2012, Sinickas Communications, Inc. = not mentioned at all
10

Knowledge and attitudes: asked randomly of
employees met during a week

A. Since we’re privately held, we’ve never
communicated this information, but what
percentage of profit do you think we made
last year?

B. What percentage of profit do you think we
should be making?

Results completely changed executives’
script in Town Hall meetings on profitability

Focus group testing of strategy statements

Original statement on diversity:
“We need to become more highly diverse in our associate work force. Create an
environment where this is our strength .... Ten years from now, we will look a
lot different. What do we need to do to take advantage of this?”
Focus group comments:
Generic word, meaningless; define diversity
• Avoid words “we’ll look different,” which implies solely age, sex and ethnicity
• Ten years is too long
• Be aware that customers have diverse needs
Revised statement:
“Create avenues for diversity to strengthen our organization. Diversity means
different things to different people: ethnicity, education, work experience, etc.
All these can add to our strength, especially as our customer base is rapidly
changing in its diversity as well.”
– Continue to attract associates from varied backgrounds
– Capture ideas to leverage our diverse backgrounds

Quantitative Measurements to Prove
Progress on Results

13

From informal to formal quantitative research

• Track timing of business outcomes against
communication inputs
– Readers’ Digest: amazon.com book sales
– Bank of America: deposits vs. PR response

• Use different response URLs,
addresses, phone numbers
– SCE: direct mail brochure
• Purposeful or accidental pilots

• Survey questions
– Outcomes from exposure to messages or channels


Track outcomes vs. channels—a “retroactive
pilot”

• Client’s Savings Plan enrollment campaign included brochures,
meetings with videos; some plant managers chose not to “waste
money and time” sending employees to voluntary meetings featuring
videos

With Without
Meetings/Videos Meetings/Videos

Enrollment 65% 45%

Average 5% of pay 3% of pay
contribution


Tracking employees’ attitudes on the need and
readiness for change

Scouts
Hopeless Worriers
Agree 3%
9%
“I believe 13% 25% 39%
XYZ Depressives Pioneers
needs to
change
7%
to be the Fence-Sitters
global
leader in
our
industry.”

Disagree

Disagree Agree
“I believe XYZ is
prepared to change”

How reading the employee publication affects
employees’ jobs

100%
• The green bars show % Agree or Strongly Agree
how many respondents 90% 83% 81% 80%
agreed or strongly
agreed with each
80%
statement about the 70% 65%
publication
• Over half said the 60% 53%
publication has helped 50%
them do their jobs
better, with 80% saying 40%
it has helped them talk
with customers and
30%
other outsiders more 20%
knowledgeably
• Numbers were even
10%
stronger for sales 0%
employees

Do my job better
Understand how I
Feel positive about

can contribute to
business strategy
Understand our

customers/others
working for the

knowledgeably
company

strategy
Talk w/


How the intranet helps
employees do their jobs

The intranet has helped me:
Find tools and resources I need to
do my job 46% 30% 24%

Do job more efficiently 35% 32% 33%
Talk with customers more
knowledgeably 27% 34% 39%

Avoid making mistakes 24% 35% 41%

Save company money 25% 34% 40%

0% 25% 50% 75% 100%

% Agree Neutral Option % Disagree


How much time the new Portal saves

• Answered by 1,376 people
4%
who said the portal helps Minutes the 9%
portal saves in
save time, out of sample my work each
size of 14,082 (or about week
10%), which means these
numbers could be 29%
58%

projected to 10% of the
entire 100,000-person
workforce, or about 10,000
employees 1-15

16-30

31-60

Over 1 hour


Productivity savings due to portal for about
10,000 employees (10%)

58% (5,800) x average of 7.5 minutes 725 hrs/wk
29% (2,900) x average of 22.5 minutes 1,088 hrs/wk
9% (900) x average of 45 minutes 675 hrs/wk
4% (400) x average of 60 minutes + 400 hrs/wk

Total hours saved per week 2,888 hrs/wk
X 49 wks worked
Hours of productivity saved each year 141,512 hrs/yr
Convert hours to weeks 3,538 weeks/yr
Average salary per day X $1,500 pay/wk

Total productivity savings from portal $5,306,700


Presenting results to management in a way
that gets results

21

Present data to management in
ways that get their attention
Comms Status
• Assess value of campaigns, Project
communication channels Branding

Product launch
• Track progress over time Safety

• Identify gaps between Merger

what is and what should be
• Dive deep into data and make useful
comparisons with business results


Create a dashboard of key metrics for execs

Baseline 120

100

Actual
80

60

40

20

Target
0

6/17

7/1

7/15

7/29

8/12

8/26

9/9

9/23

10/7

10/21

11/4

11/18

12/2

12/16

12/30

1/13

1/27

2/10

2/24

3/10

3/24

4/7

4/21

5/5

5/19

6/2

6/16

6/30

7/14

7/28

8/11

8/25

9/8

9/22

10/6

10/20
Weekly vistis Trend line

Comms Project Status Relative Coverage Overall Aware of ads Not aware of ads

70%
Branding
60%
35%
Product launch 42%
50%
40%
Safety 30%
20%
Merger 10%
23% 0%
Innovation Reputation Trust


What employees at one company thought CEO’s vision
of “doubling the company’s value” meant

I'm not sure 12%

Increase no. of large projects not relying on
30% The right answer
time-sold

Increase revenue from time-sold 58%

Increase revenue by acquisitions 61%

Increase no. of customers 74%

Increase no. of contracts 75%

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%


Also evaluate how frequently leaders at different
levels demonstrate communication behaviors…

All or Most of Some of Hardly Never
Almost the Time the Time Ever
All of the
Time
1. My supervisor 1 2 3 4 5
really listens
when I speak
to him or her.

2. My supervisor 1 2 3 4 5
keeps me
informed about
things that are
important.


…and provide feedback on how effectively
each leader is communicating…


…preferably in an interactive, personalized way


Dive deep: Differences in information levels on
strategy by different retail geographic areas

Also is the most Also are among the
profitable retail least profitable retail
geographic area geographic areas
3
2 6 5
1 8 9 7 13 4 11 10 12

74% 64% 55%
Most Average Least
informed informed


Compare clients’ vs. sales reps’ perceptions of how
much influence communication had in the sales process

Sales reps seem to 100%

Average % of clients saying a source influences them
overestimate the
usefulness of social
events, compared to how
much influence clients
say social events have on 75%
them.
Financial highlights
Sales reps are strongly
underestimating how “XYZ” brochure • Company presentations
useful several key
communications may 50%
• Website • • Business events

White papers
be for them based on how
influential clients say
•• •
“JKL”
Magazine

these communications
•
brochure Speeches

are:
Two marketing
•
Press releases
• Fact sheets
• Social events

25%
brochures
Website
• Ads/sponsored articles

Client newsletter
Industry speeches
Press releases
• Sponsorship

0%
Ads 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
% of sales reps saying a source is influential

Learn to calculate ROI: the financial value of changed
audience behaviors vs. cost of communication

• Start with the total financial value of new sales, increase in
share price, improved productivity, reduced accidents, etc.
• Take credit for a percentage of the financial value based
on the impact your audience attributes to the
communication
• Divide by the cost of
communication
• Result is a rough estimate
of your ROI
• Work with Finance Dept.
to see how they calculate ROI


ROI Ex.: Communication impact on long-
distance dialing costs

• Situation: Employees were dialing
long-distance calls directly instead of
using a string of pre-dialing
numbers that reduced the cost
• Solution: Humorous internal
communications campaign over
three-month period using e-mails
and the intranet; repeated every
few months to alert new hires and
remind back-sliders
• Outcome: Company long-distance costs reduced over
$20,000 per month with the same call volume

ROI Ex.: Calculating communication ROI on
long-distance cost savings

• Annual long-distance savings
(12 x $20,000) $240,000
• Annual salary and benefits for
one communicator - $ 86,000
• Net annual cost saving $154,000
• Cost of comm. salary/benefits ÷ $ 86,000
• Annual ROI = 179%


Isolate the role communication plays in
achieving desired outcomes

• Pilot the change in only some locations; track
the change in outcomes at your pilot locations
against closely matched pairs at control group
locations
– Ask other managers involved in the issue to not do
anything differently at only some locations
OR
• Measure levels or outcomes before and after
your communication intervention
– Try to correct for any other major changes at the same
time
– Ask the people making the change to what extent the
communication affected their behaviors


Whenever appropriate, sprinkle precise
numbers into your conversations

• Percentages of relevant demographic distinctions among your
stakeholders
• Numbers from customer and employee surveys that help prove
your point
• Specific sales or cost figures that show you’re on top of relevant
business issues
• Measurable results of communication—survey ratings, return on
investment for specific campaigns, variations between pilot and
control groups
• Measurable outputs of communication that led to the results—
content analysis percentages, reading grade level scores, number of
page views on a Website/intranet related to your discussion, number
of people attending a communication event


Free monthly
newsletter with
practical
measurement
tips available
by emailing

angela@
sinicom.com


Angela sinickas

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