Anyone who has ever worked in an organization knows about the “grapevine”—the informal rumor-mill where fact and speculation mix together to breed various strains of truth, half-truths and outright misconceptions.

Strategic, open communications can reduce the grapevine’s activity and influence. This is even more apparent, and important, as companies and their stakeholders (including employees) engage more in the range of communication channels powered by social media tools and platforms such as blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

Companies today are looking to join in the conversations occurring within and outside of the company walls. Those conversations can change and move rapidly, which makes it more difficult for company “spokespersons” (either formally designated or ad hoc) to be a trusted participant if they haven’t spent time engaging with others.

Some of the bigger challenges occur in times of change, when information may be less available or less readily shared, and the unknown can seem more apparent and more ominous. Does that describe the situation at Hewlett-Packard, following the sudden resignation on Friday of Mark Hurd, HP’s chairman, chief executive officer and president? (Read more in my previous post.)

A few HP executives have been quoted in articles appearing online. For example, in the U.K., a Guardian newspaper’s online article quoted HP’s general counsel Michael Holston as stating that Hurd engaged in a “systematic pattern” of submitting falsified financial reports to hide a “close personal relationship” with a former HP contractor.

The official HP blog, Data Central, on Saturday offered scant information other than a retread of the corporate statement published on Friday. It stated that “Comments are closed for this post and will not be published.”

Let’s hope that the communications internally at HP were much more transparent. After all, Hurd was not universally loved within HP for his tough business decisions that led to thousands of job cuts over the years. How will HP’s communications staff manage this time of change?

That was exactly the topic of a session led by HP communicators Robin Andrews and Desiree Sylvester in 2005. It was titled, “Keeping employees focused and engaged in times of change,” and it was delivered on the day before Hurd accepted the IABC EXCEL Award at the IABC International Conference in Washington, D.C.

Much of what Robin and Desiree shared in that presentation could hold true today, such as the “communication challenges”:

• Balance focus on delivering day-to-day business vs. change
• Manage leaks in the media
• Everything said internally was expected to be shared externally—very difficult to give employees additional or advance information

Check out the presentation and then let’s see what surfaces from HP’s employees. Will they feel like their feelings and opinions have been heard?

Another more minor observation. I had noticed that on Friday, the day of the Hurd resignation announcement, the HP site was not completely updated. Although the press release was posted under HP’s News Releases section, the company leader page still indicated that Hurd was in charge.

From the HP website on 8-6-2010, the day Hurd's resignation was announced.

On Saturday, the site was updated to indicate that Cathie Lesjak
was named interim chief executive officer and would remain chief financial officer.

A few times in recent weeks, I’ve been unable to watch video news items promoted on Yahoo!. I click the link to watch…

…and get a “not available” message:

Has anyone else had this experience? Is the video source pulling the videos because of a surge in traffic, is this a conspiracy to make Yahoo! look bad, or something else?

Finally, President Obama and I agree on something. Unfortunately, my chance of seeing it happen in my home is about the same as Obama’s chance of passing his health-care reform.

In an Associated Press news article titled, “Obama: No weeknight television for Malia, Sasha,” the U.S. president says the one sure way to help kids learn is to stop them from watching television on school nights.

The story quotes Obama as saying, “The girls don’t watch TV during the week. Period.” He later adds, “Very early on, we set expectations for Malia and Sasha in terms of them taking responsibility for their own education. They got alarm clocks at age 4 to begin waking themselves up, making their own beds and getting themselves ready to get to school on time. We monitor them. But they are expected to be prepared to learn when they go to school.”

I’ve fought a losing battle for years in the Keefe household around time spent in front of the TV. Unfortunately, my wife was in the habit of using television to fall asleep at night, and that habit continues to this day. The kids watch some television “to wind down” after school, and actually spend several hours in front of the tube every day.

Most of the shows we watch add nothing to the value of our lives; they are just time-wasters. I have enough other interests and commitments to keep me from lasting long in front of the TV, and the kids are active enough in sports and church groups so that they do engage in healthy pursuits.

I just wish that they could see how much of their lives are being wasted in front of the boob tube.

On Feb. 16, 2010, IABC/Chicago held a professional development session titled, “Making the Most Effective and Efficient Use of Your Time.” Barbara Talisman, president of Talisman Associates, Inc., delivered the presentation.

UPDATED 2/28/2010: I finally was able to upload the video to the IABC/Chicago YouTube channel. I’ve deleted the PodPress videos, which took too long to load, and embedded the YouTube video. Enjoy!

In this 8:45-minute video, Barbara is interviewed by IABC/Chicago volunteer Wanda Whitson. They discuss:

• The benefits of a social media policy for organizations, and the risks if companies don't have one
• Some of Barbara's favorite social media tools
• An example of a successful social media campaign for an external audience
• Who 'owns' social media within an organization
• Then, two session attendees share one learning that they obtained from the session

For information on upcoming IABC/Chicago events, go to http://chicago.iabc.com.

For information on the consulting services offered by Talisman Associates, Inc., go to www.3talisman.com.

My grandfather, Clarence Fieberg, was in the trades for all of his adult life. He worked up the ranks at McNulty Construction Company, eventually earning a role as a vice president.

This is my grandfather, whom we called “Pop-pop,” along with his wife, Gladys, her mother, Maud, my mom, and her six children. That’s me in front, threatening to shoot the photographer (my dad).

Among its projects, McNulty Construction helped build the Pentagon in the early 1940s. Pop-pop commuted by train for months as he worked on the Pentagon project.

One day, his boss told Pop-pop that the firm had won another large project bid in the Washington, D.C. area, and that it would be a multi-year commitment. Pop-pop talked things over with my grandmother, and they decided to move to Washington so that they would be together.

They went ahead with a few suitcases, leaving the rest of their belongings to be loaded onto a moving truck. They had barely arrived in Washington when Pop-pop was offered a kickback from someone related to the new project. He refused it, and when he was told, “that’s the way things work around here,” he reported the incident to his boss at McNulty. “McNulty Construction doesn’t take bribes,” his boss affirmed.

Pop-pop called the movers back in Chicago and told them to stop loading the truck. McNulty Construction pulled out of the project, and Pop-pop returned home.

I remember feeling very proud of Pop-pop years ago when he told that true story to me and my siblings. He spoke matter-of-factly, as though it was understood that honesty was not something to compromise.

I wish that I remained forever unsoiled by the attitude that “it’s the way that things are done around here.” But I eventually became jaded growing up in Chicago, and reading numerous newspaper accounts of widespread graft, favoritism and an apparent lack of accountability for wrongdoing. It wasn’t just in the newspapers, it was in companies where I worked, among people who worked alongside me, or were in management positions.

The attitude that “right doesn’t matter, getting your way does,” even reared its ugly head in the youth sports in which I coached and in which my kids participated. Many people had a great perspective–that sports was a way to teach the values of honest work, determination, and discipline. But it seemed like there would always be a few coaches or parents on the sidelines, dragging down the team with ways to “play the system” or complain about fair calls that didn’t go their way.

Anyway, I thought about Pop-pop and McNulty Construction recently when I shooed the dishonest tradesman out of my home (read Part One of this post for the background). I’m not “Ivory Soap pure” by any stretch of the imagination, but every once in a while, I can do the hard thing, the right thing, that let’s me feel good about looking at myself in the mirror.

Sometimes, I guess I see part of Pop-pop looking back.

My friend and former Fort James Corporation colleague Arline Datu picked me up at the Depot Minneapolis hotel and took me on a driving tour of St. Paul. More about that in a later post. I had no idea prior to that drive that the IABC Pacific Plains Region Exchange Conference planners had the foresight to schedule this year’s conference adjacent to a long-time classic local event: “The Zombie Pub Crawl.”

Yes, Minneapolis is the REAL “Zombieland, U.S.A.” as the ZPC website explains. Forget this movie version–the real-life zombies are pretty entertaining.

I could have killed myself (or let a zombie do it for me) when Arline drove past a park that was the gathering place for dozens of zombies who were getting ready to “Crawl.” I wish I had my camera ready, or that I had yelled for Arline to stop the car. Sadly, I don’t have still photos, just a narly brief video clip that I may or may decide to post later on my YouTube channel. I think the zombies who came up to Arline’s car were attracted to me–probably because they considered me the “brains” of the operation.

Oh well, time to wrap up this post so that I can hunt down some more zombies. I practice “catch and release” zombie fishing, where I don’t use a rifle; I use my camera.

My daughter, Caitlyn, and I are packing today in preparation for a 13-hour drive tomorrow with about 40 middle-schooler and adult leaders heading to Splash Camp.

The camp is a six-day combination of Christian worship, fun and unexpected growth through challenges. What challenges? Last year we had to use teamwork to get through a challenge course. My daughter had to overcome her dislike for touching fish when she happened to catch the largest walleye in the area up to that point (see picture).

So no blogging until we get back. I may try to Tweet a little (@commakazi) and update my Facebook page via mobile phone. But maybe not—we’re supposed to be leaving the technology behind. I need the phone so that parents can reach me or their kids in an emergency.

As I recently was putting in my son’s contact lenses, I realized that the experience could be beneficial as a communications lesson.

So just as I embarrassed my daughter years ago by telling a true story about whacking her with a golf ball, I’ll now embarrass my 15-year-old son by talking about how wearing contact lenses is like communicating in difficult times.

First, when I say that I was “putting in my son’s contact lenses,” I mean that I was putting them into my son’s eyes, not mine. He was just learning how to insert and remove contacts, and called for help after several frustrating minutes of trying to insert them himself.

Lesson #1: You should ask for help when you can’t see what you’re doing wrong. No matter how hard he tried, my son couldn’t see why his contact lenses kept bouncing off his eyes. It took the help of an experienced person to take a look from a different angle. In Kevin’s case, he was closing his eyes defensively just before the lens would settle onto his eye. In the communicator’s case, when a program, publication or campaign falls into your hands because it isn’t falling into place, you may need an outside opinion about how to redirect your efforts–and to find out if you’re blinking defensively.

Lesson #2: Which side is up? If you’ve never worn contact lenses, you may have trouble understanding how difficult it can be to discern whether a lens is “inside out.” Only a keen, practiced eye can spot the subtle angles that indicate whether a contact lens is flipped inside out or not. That spells the difference between completing the task in comfort or losing all pretense of sophistication as you shout in agony, “Get it out, get it out”–while you hop around the room, hunched over, frantically trying to remove the wrongly inserted lens from your now extremely irritated eye. Same lesson for communicators: If you don’t have the knowledge or experience to accurately gauge the angles of your project and the people involved with it, you may wind up hopping around a conference room, shouting in agony, “Get me out, get me out.”

Lesson #3: Keep it clean. This may be debated by some communicators, but I believe that just as a clean contact lens prevents irritants from building up, keeping a professional demeanor with coworkers, vendors and anyone who crosses your path can prevent a buildup of irritants in the workplace. Now some people might say that their workplace is full of irritating people, and that’s the way they like it. Okay…and I’ve spit on my contact lens before reinserting it at times when I didn’t have solution. But I didn’t feel good about it, and my eye knew the difference.

Lesson #4: The focus can change over time. Does your strategic communication planning involve using the same basic concepts year after year? Just as eyesight changes over time, communications needs and opportunities change constantly. Give yourself at least an annual checkup to see whether your vision has become a little fuzzy.

Lesson #5: When all else fails, radical surgery is an option. After wearing contact lenses for about three decades, I faced a tough choice. My eyesight and eye shape had finally made it difficult to find affordable contact lenses that balanced comfort with clear vision. So I decided to undergo laser eye surgery. A radical (for me) choice, that has given me great mid- to far-distance vision. Goodbye, contact lenses. If your communication programs just don’t seem fixable, maybe it’s time for a radical change. Just don’t do it without the guidance of an expert!

Lesson #6: Be realistic about the radical choices too. I had a choice with the laser surgery. It would be simple to correct my vision for the mid and far distance vision. But my eyes also have trouble focusing close-up. I had to decide whether I wanted one eye corrected for distance vision and one eye corrected for close vision, or whether to have both corrected for distance, and use reading glasses. I chose the reading glasses. If you need to consider a radical change to your communication programs, you may have to be ready to compromise on the probable results.

How do these lessons look to you?

thought last night about the struggle that my son had with wearing contact lenses for the first time,

When I was growing up, many of us we were convinced that aliens really did exist and would eventually reveal themselves to us. It wasn’t difficult to imagine that life could exist on a few of the billions of planets spread across the universe. When we acted out that first contact, the person playing the “alien” would typically say, “Take me to your leader.”

Now older and perhaps wiser, we don’t look for spaceships descending from the sky—and we wouldn’t automatically consider our company’s senior leadership to be the best people to manage an interstellar meeting, if we had the opportunity to arrange one. In fact, survey results seem to indicate that at least one-third of us would beg to be taken away in the space ship, rather than remain behind in a work environment that had failed to engage us.

But let’s talk about how to improve communications within an organization. Primary takeaways of a preconference workshop at the Melcrum Strategic Communication Management Summit 2008 in Chicago included:

Communication expert Roger D’Aprix, a vice president at ROI Communications, and fellow ROI VP Michelle Glover led a workshop that was titled, “Improving Employee Engagment through Effective Leadership Communication.”

D’Aprix stated that a company’s leader is the single most effective communication tool professionals have to engage the hearts and minds of employees. He pointed to separate research findings from Melcrum and Towers Perrin that indicate the top driver of employee engagement to be the actions of senior leaders.

[See my podcast for an interview with Roger D'Aprix that centers on the third driver of employee engagment--social responsibility--and a preview of his soon-to-be-published book, "The Credible Company. Communicating With Today's Skeptical Workforce."]

D’Aprix and Glover shared results of a survey that ranked the level of engagement of various reporting levels within organizations. The results are:

- Senior executives (53%)
- Director/Managers (25%)
- Supervisors (16%)
- Salaried workers (14%)
- Hourly workers (12%)

Their take was that people closest to information were the most engaged. The need is to bring information effectively to supervisors, salaried and hourly workers. “Engagement is just one factor for success, but it is a very powerful factor,” D’Aprix said. “People will go the extra mile and bring more energy when they are engaged.”

To promote greater employee engagement, pay attention to the communication behavior of your leaders, he said. One key to engagement is to have effective and engaged leadership at the top, Glover and D’Aprix emphasized. D’Aprix added that employees no longer are a “cost of doing business,” they are the means of doing business–particularly in service-oriented markets like the United States. Therefore, organizations should demonstrate their interest in employees by researching the needs of their employees as thoroughly as they do their customers’ needs.

D’Aprix said the old-fashioned “command-and-control” management style, where leaders demand more and expect constantly better results, is not going to work with today’s workforce.

“Lead people well, keep them involved and you will improve the retention and performance of your organization,” he said.

Melcrum’s Strategic Communication Management Summit 2008 in Chicago was exceptional. I’ve already posted a podcast interview of communication expert Roger D’Aprix that was recorded on the first day of the summit, and I’ll be summarizing some of the information I gathered during the three-day event in Chicago.

The summit was held at the Ritz-Carlton in Chicago, about one block from my high school. That gave me additional photo opportunities and ideas for blog posts.

I particularly want to compliment the Melcrum staff, led by Vicky Burch, Annie Waite and Rick Spratley. They went above the call to be welcoming, helpful and instrumental in encouraging networking among the participants and speakers.

More to come, as I get to it.