Dare to Dream - Chapter 20: Defining your resource requirements

Back in the mid-90s we were working on the merger of two huge businesses.?There was, unsurprisingly, a lot of Internal Communication going on.?And the IC Specialists were receiving a lot of flak whenever something didn’t quite go right.?But when we looked a little closer we found that much of that criticism was unjust.?This is hardly rare.?Internal Communication frequently comes out badly in employee surveys.?But, as one HR Director once pointed out to us (albeit somewhat harshly):

“It’s easier for people to say ‘There’s a problem with communication’ than it is for them to say ‘My boss is a git’.”

It seems many folk feel safer blaming ‘communication’ rather than any specific communicator.?Everyone is absolved, but often nothing is resolved – because the real problem may lie elsewhere.

A huge blind-spot

In our experience there is a huge blind-spot shared by business leaders and IC Specialists.?And it’s all to do with resources – specifically the resources which any member of any audience will need if they’re going to do what the communicator wants.

This applies to individual communication outcomes, and to major business initiatives.?And it applies to your dream.?

During that business merger it was invariably these resources – not communications – which employees were missing out on.?It wasn’t that the communications themselves weren’t good – they just weren’t always enough on their own.?

So if internal communications are going to succeed in fulfilling their functional purpose of prompting and enabling people to take or avoid actions, what other resources may those actions involve?

The SMARTIED Principle

When we worked this through back in 1995, we identified eight resources which we summarised in a handy little mnemonic: The SMARTIED Principle. And it's held good for over a quarter of a century. As with so many effective models, it's all kind of obvious. But as we've observed before, sometimes the best way to be sure you (or your key decision-makers) don't overlook the obvious is to state it.

Skills

Not every activity takes much in the way of skills, but some do.?And if the audience doesn’t have the necessary skill, they’re not going to do what’s expected of them – or at least not properly or consistently.?And probably not very efficiently either.

Money?

Again, not every activity is going to involve a financial outlay.?But if it does, and the audience doesn’t have the budget, they’re unlikely to do what’s being asked of them.

Authority?

Do people have the right to do what’s being asked of them, or do they need to seek someone else’s permission first??And, perhaps more insidiously, do they know they have that authority??Does their boss??That may sound like a daft question, but is it??

Over the years we’ve encountered numerous examples of employees being convinced they weren’t allowed to write in their own voice – believing instead they had to use some kind of woeful ‘corporate voice’.?And when we checked with their bosses, we often found them confirming this.?Yet when we explored further, it turned out to be a myth.?There never had been any such rule.?No one knew where the idea had come from, but everyone had now accepted it as an immutable truth.?And if it can happen with writing, where else could employees be feeling they’re ‘not allowed’, even though they are?

Responsibilities

This is distinct from Authority in that ‘Authority’ is discretionary; responsibilities are non-discretionary.?(Or, as one of our former PAs once put it “Authority is the right to get things done; Responsibility is the right to get the blame for it.”)

IC Specialists often get into difficulties because of a mismatch between their Authority and their Responsibilities.?And this can often be exacerbated by another mismatch: between the Authority and the Skills of their clients.?(It’s why your Technical Mandate will be so important, because it ensures your Skills, Authority and Responsibilities are in sync, and so too will be your?clients’. https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/dare-dream-chapter-16-constructing-technical-brooklands-rob-/)

Time

Natch. If people don’t have the time to do what’s being asked of them, it may never happen.?Or if it does, it may not be done very well, because it may be rushed, or carried out merely as a tick-box exercise.?

Information

Inevitably, internal communications contain information.?But some outcomes may involve other information – from other sources.?Is that other information TRACELACE?? If not, the outcome may again suffer.?And an IC Team over here may be blamed because of information being withheld by a line manager over there.

Equipment?

Many communication results won’t require any equipment.?But if they do, and the equipment isn’t there, or doesn’t work well enough (eg the Intranet keeps crashing) the results are going to suffer.?

It could be said that if an audience has the necessary Skills, Money, Authority, Responsibilities, Time, Information and Equipment, they will have the ability to do whatever is being asked of them.?And on top of that that also need the…

...Desire

We have mapped out three likely sources for this desire.?The most obvious is likely to come from answering that age-old question of What’s In It For Me??But sometimes people are motivated by a more selfless attitude: What’s In It For Others??With internal communications those others may be colleagues, or the organisation as a whole, or perhaps they may appeal to a wider community spirit, environmentalism, or a raft of other ‘hot buttons’ the audience may have.?

These two motivations are fairly obvious; the third is more subtle.?It concerns people’s comfort zones.?If a communication is asking people to do something new, that very change may run the risk of making some folk feel uncomfortable.?This can be countered if the employees have enough confidence the other SMARTIE resources.?It may be they need to rely on their own SMARTIE resources, or sometimes on the resources of others.?For example, if you want your key decision makers to sign off on your dream, they will surely be easier if they have justifiable confidence in your ability to deliver, will they not?

This leads us to a key question:

Have you SMARTIED your Dream?

You need to identify, in detail, the specific SMARTIED resources that are going to be needed if you're going to deliver on your dream.?And not just the resources you’ll need personally.?What resources will your team need??And your clients??And approval group members?

Being able to justify the investment needed to put all these resources in place is why it's so important to be able to make that credible financial business case. https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/dare-dream-chapter-18-making-credible-financial-brooklands-rob-/

These last six chapters should have given you a pretty good handle on how to make your dream irresistible to your key decision-makers.?But what else would you need to be include to be sure you can actually deliver when push comes to shove?

That’s where we’re going next.

About the author

Russell-Olivia Brooklands (ROB) has been working in the field of Internal Communication for over 25 years.?Through his consultancy work and training programmes he’s helped IC Specialists to up their game on four continents, in blue chip companies like GSK and Airbus, and major national and international bodies, including the European Central Bank and the UN. He was one of the founding Directors of the Institute of Internal Communication.?And he’s leading the IC Practice Governance initiative, to help IC Teams better support line managers in becoming increasingly effective communicators.

You can find him at [email protected]