Reputation Gurus

When Jim Quigley became CEO of Deloitte on June 1, it’s clear that he had a corporate communications team (and perhaps a PR agency) behind him to help introduce him as the new CEO. 

However, at this point, I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes. 

Lucy Kellaway, a well-known workplace reporter/columnist for the Financial Times, has brutally written about Deloitte’s two major employee communications missives.  First, she skewered his introductionary memo, saying that, in her opinion, it’s the worst motivational memo she’s ever read (FT, 11 June 2007).  Then, she followed up with another column this week, headlined “I’ve found the worst employee handbook ever” (FT, 1 July 2007), lambasting Deloitte’s “The Little Blue Book of Strategy.”

I haven’t read either pieces, and so I cannot comment on them.  However, there are clearly some important lessons here for those of us who work in the employee communications field. 

1) Make sure that your memos/emails to employees have clarity.  This seems obvious, but the columnist includes some pretty opaque quotations from Quigley’s memo.  And, while we’re addressing clarity, make sure that your language resonates with the staff.  A good communications team asks people at different levels of the organization to review important documents prior to distributing it globally.

2) Avoid platitudes.  Again, this one seems obvious, but communications professionals tend to rely upon platitudes way too frequently, which, of course, become hyperbolic and also interfere with the clarity of the message.

3) Always state what’s in it for them.  Employees want to know how they can make a difference at the company.  If your communications doesn’t outline how they can do that and what the rewards will be, then we’re back to corporate platitudes again.

4) Remember that everything you distribute internally gets distributed externally.  Someone at Deloitte sent these two employee communications pieces to this particular columnist.  She’s doing her job by reporting on it; it’s our job to make sure that it’s written so well that she decides NOT to write about it (unless, of course, she wants to applaud the clarity of the document).