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9 Ways to Leverage Your Company's Grapevine
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Web 2.0 technology is great for spreading information fast throughout your company. But podcasts, video blogs, intranet, instant messaging, and wikis are only as good as the message they carry. How well and how consistently does your company communicate its core values? In a crisis, such as a public scandal, could you rely on any executive--or any street-level employee, for that matter--to tell your company's story accurately and well?
Here are 9 ways to get people at your company spreading the messages you want them to talk about:
Create your story. Great American companies have compelling stories that become folklore and fill workers with pride. Employees pass these well-crafted stories down through the ranks and incorporate their messages. Examples of great legacy builders include Sam Walton, Lee Iaccoca, Walt Disney, Henry Ford, and Ray Kroc.
Start from day one. Communicate your company's goals, objectives, mission, and values to every trainee--from mail room manager to vice president.
Reinforce your core principles. Repetition is the key to leveraging the grapevine. In newsletter contests, at company meetings, and whenever possible, get employees to restate and re-experience your company's values and principles.
Plant a positive message. Employees gossip; it's a fact of office life. But rather than letting rumors and complaints dominate the grapevine, plant a positive message--such as the newest green policy or a great product review--and watch it spread.
Rap sessions. Create staff blogs where people can air their ideas freely and informally. Leaders should contribute too to let everyone know they are listening.
Eat your words. Regular breakfasts, lunches, and dinners with new mixes of people create an environment for camaraderie and sharing. The company pays the tab.
Plan some "windshield time." At McDonald's, windshield time was when executives toured the field with staff. Commit to hearing as many points of view as often as possible--and let them see you doing it.
Make it fun. Retreats and conferences are great places to communicate your company messages creatively, and to generate positive chatter among employees.
Say it without words. If you want to show employees that hard work, innovative problem solving, and risk taking, for example, are attributes your company values, throw an awards ceremony. Often, showing is a more powerful way to shape company communications than telling.
Paul Facella is CEO of Inside Management (www.insidemanagement.com), a nationally recognized group of results-oriented senior consultants with expertise in every facet of business and commerce, and author of Everything I Know about Business I Learned at McDonald's (November 2008, McGraw-Hill).