Blog Line

With Sarbanes-Oxley and the growing embrace of social media, “transparency” is bandied about as the watchword for organizations. Are we transparent? Are we transparent enough?

This morning a group of us at GCI discussed “transparency” in regard to organizational communications. What started out as a pretty straightforward conversation interestingly became a rabid debate. The conclusion in the room was adequate ” transparency” was hugely subjective depending on the issue at hand, the organization’s culture and of course the regulatory and governnance framework they were part of…but even more than that was the absolutely individual defintions of what appropriate transparency is. We then moved on to how corporate reputation and brand equity can impact what is deemed appropriate transparency for an organization particularly in a crisis. The team this morning agreed that the well-regarded companies and iconic brands enjoyed greater trust from consumers and therefore consumers assumed already that these organizations and brands executed a high degree of transparency in their communications. Interesting coffee chatter first thing in the morning.

The GCI Canada summer party was this past Friday and while there was alot of yawning due to a busy week working on the Mattel recall and the Belkin Streetcar media event, it was great fun. Because we try to be a continuous learning organization, rather than directly heading to a bar of going for a boat cruise we all trooped to Second City for an afternoon class on driving creativity and innnovation by improved improvisation skills. Second City Communications is an offshoot of the well known Second City comedy troupe.

Kudos to our staff training and development committee for proposing this initiative. It was a great afternoon. Nothing like learning how to hone your improvisation skills in front of all your co-workers to promote fellowship.

Aside from the pure hysterical laughter that ensued there were also some points made by the facilatators that cause reflection. All of us run from risk when risk is really how we grow and challenge ourselves. And, most of the time there really is very little risk as everyone wants us to succeed - our co-workers and most of all our clients.

Also, we tend to communicate in sentences that begin with “No, but…..” rather than “Yes, and….”. We did two exercises, breaking into groups where we did conversations that were built on “No, but” the first time around and “Yes, and” the second time around. The difference was profound. The first conversations really didn’t go anywhere except in some cases they became increasingly antagonistic. The second conversations caused excitement as the participants began building off of each other’s statements and ideas and collaboration took hold.

Over the weekend I have been experimenting with answering “Yes, and…” rather than “No, but…” even in circumstances where I would normally respond “No, but…” the difference in response has been very interesting. I am looking forward to experimenting with “Yes, and..” more this week.

After several months the GCI book club has now completed “The World is Flat” by Thomas Friedman. It is an extremely interesting book and though the original edition is now four to five years old it remains completely relevant. Friedman discusses in length China’s rise as a manufacturing power and based on recent news events and company announcements China’s manufacturing practices are indeed a hot topic. Risk management and oversight of an organization’s supply chain, or all external points of contact, take on a profound new meaning in the new world order of a truly global economy coupled with consumers’ expectations of transparency and ability to “shout” their concerns or rage with the click of a key.

It’s no accident then that the “hot pick” for the next GCI Book Club selection is “The New Influencers: A Marketer’s Guide to the New Social Media” by Paul Gillin. The foreward promises that “this book isn’t a book about blogging. It is a book about transformation in media that is handing influence to people who have never before had the tools or platform to express themselves…Blogs and podcasts happen to be a way to exercise this influence, but they are just tools. Fundementally, this is a book about people….” Personally, I do not believe that a blog is the answer to every problem but just that, a tool, hopefully this will be a “good read” and like, “The World is Flat”, lead to a great deal of active discussion and debate within the GCI office.