Managing the never-ending To-Do list

I’ve always been pretty awful at To-Do lists.  I’m interested in them for a while, but once they run to a few pages, I get bored and just concentrate on the urgent tasks.  I’ve tried written lists, Excel-based lists, a couple of Word documents (pending and completed) and they work for a while, then they just become an admin burden.

My To Do list is rarely written on yellow paper

A recent blog from Harvard Business Review’s Blog Network talks about creating two lists each day: your Focus List and your Ignore List.  The Focus List includes what you’re trying to achieve, what makes you happy and what’s important to you.  The Ignore List is all about the opposite: what are you willing NOT to achieve, what doesn’t make you happy and what’s not important to you.

It’s a really interesting concept which the author, Peter Bregman, makes because of the never-ending stream of emails, updates, text messages and tasks we have to keep on top of every day.

Twitter is probably the biggest culprit of information overload ever invented.  I follow around 200 people on twitter across a range of subjects from food and photography to internal communication and leadership.  It seems that whenever I look at my twitter feed, I’ve got hundreds of tweets to skim through.  I do just that – skim.  I’m not alone, I’m sure.

At Logica, where I work now, we have the Logica Story, a simple, 6-chapter ‘story’ which outlines what we’re trying to achieve this year.  Chapters 3 and 4 say “We need to step up to success by focusing on fewer things but doing them really well.”

I couldn’t agree more.  By releasing ourselves from being under the burden of keeping on top of every piece of information thrown at us, we can concentrate on the most important tasks which are key to our success.

So if you’ve taken time to read this, I appreciate it – and I hope that you’re deciding to focus only on those things which are most important for your personal and professional success.

The IC juggling act

When I started out in the world of internal communication, it very quickly became abundantly clear that IC is a tricky juggling act.

In many companies, IC teams are small, sometimes relying on a sole practitioner or even having IC as part of someone’s ‘real’ day-to-day job. This means that just being able to write isn’t enough.

It’s also not enough to be able to create nice presentations or interpret and boil down large quantities of raw data into a manageable form.

It isn’t even enough to do all that and be able to update an intranet using some fancy wysiwyg tool.

The IC role – from director to grassroots, coal face comms – needs all of the above and more, especially in this ever-changing social media-driven world.

You need to have the right influencing skills, solid negotiation skills, advanced time management capability and nerves of steel. Calmness should be a prerequisite.

Of course, senior managers and the majority of your audience only see the outputs of IC – the ‘communications’ produced by internal communication. The analogy of a duck comes to mind: you can see the head, body and feathers calmly wading across the water; you can’t see the frantic paddling going on underneath, powering the engine (I know – ducks don’t have engines).

Where I worked prior to my current post, there were two of us in IC – I was lucky enough in 2010 to be able to recruit someone to work for me so that we could concentrate both on the day-to-day tactical comms and the longer-term strategic comms.

But it’s still the output which gets seen and critiqued / criticised.

Communications are always the first to get hammered in a people survey, but I think it’s down to people’s interpretation of what internal communications are and what the IC team is responsible for. We don’t write and publish the canteen menu…

So, now in my new position, I want to make sure that both senior teams and end-user audiences are fully aware of what IC does (and doesn’t) produce and realises what a tough job it can be at times.

What a difference a half-year makes

Blimey. If I didn’t have enough change and crisis communications experience six months ago, I’ve certainly added a few more strings to that particular bow.

I’d still like to remain fairly anonymous, so I won’t outline the details of said change and crisis comms onslaught, but suffice to say, the company has gone through some big moves recently.

We have a new CEO and a new direction after some pretty troubled times, but the biggest challenge at the moment is influencing stakeholders and managing those relationships, some of which previously existed and some of which are brand new.

The new CEO is the fourth one I’ve worked under at the company and is certainly the straightest talking of all before him. Throw out that book of business jargon and wash your mouth out of those hyperboles: he’s more about saying it like it is and being completely open and honest. It’s a breath of fresh air.

But since plans to change the business fundamentally have been underway and ready to launch for a few months – and under the previous CEO – getting the balance of old and new messages has been a juggling act to say the least; where messages around growth, improvement and investment have been seeded since the start of the year, the new CEO’s approach needs to be fused with those messages and the hyperbole needs to be softened to appeal to the CEO’s direct nature.

Influencing senior stakeholders when they’re champing at the bit to announce large-scale changes to their department while trying to build a relationship with their new boss is a tough gig. There’s an increased feeling of stress at a level where usually most people feel more relaxed about change, given their proximity to the fine detail, knowledge of job security and advanced position on the change curve.

This is where existing relationships come in most useful – I’d rather maintain existing than concentrate on building new relationships (ideally, of course, I’d do both simultaneously). Getting your classic stakeholders the attention and time can help to build the CEO relationship as they will start to go into bat for you on things you’ve supported them with.

As our CEO continues to communicate in his own way, I know I need to make sure the existing messages are still valid, albeit re-phrased.

Know your audience

There are many arguments for ensuring that communications are tailored to each audience segment within your total audience. Different age groups, professions, statures and experience levels have different communication needs. The more diverse a company, the more tailored the message should be.

It’s the same where I work – some of my internal audience are professional writers, some work in sales, some are technology specialists, others financial bods and then we have a not insignificant number of production workers, whose requirements change because they don’t have access to a computer 95% of the time.

Last weekend, my wife and I went to Hyde Park to see Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney, among other bands. At the end of the gigs on each night, the Met Police were on hand to ensure everyone was shepharded safely down to the tube or onto night buses etc. There was one policeman on a loud speaker talking to and directing the crowd.

And it was a classic example of tailoring communication to your audience.

The tone was friendly, humorous, at times sarcastic and he also ribbed the crowd a little. He used phrases such as “please follow the instructions of the officers as you cross the road – gives them something to do and justifies their wages, eh?” and “if you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands” (then when people clapped, he called us all sheep and there was much laughter.)

This sort of good-natured communication meant that I’m sure there were fewer problems and people left in as high spirits as they were in as they heard the music at the gig.

You often get really good examples of tailored Comms but I thought this was a particularly good demonstration of how communications can be honed to really hit the mark with an audience.

Keeping up the momentum

In Internal Communications, there are some core communication channels which are used, maintained and – hopefully – read.  On nearly every communication-related blog, I’ve read about social media, blogging, tweeting, etc, as another “engaging” method of internal communication.

I know the value and power of social media – from a customer point of view, our company lives and breathes it – but from an internal comms point of view, I know that I would need to remain disciplined and on my toes at all times to keep the momentum up.  Setting up a Twitter feed or a company news-focused blog and telling everyone about it means that you have to keep it interesting, useful, informative and up-to-date at all times.

Actually, on that last point – “at all times” – it makes me wonder, and perhaps you can help me out: how often do you think you need to keep a Twitter feed or blog updated for it to remain fresh enough for people to come back?  And do you think that there needs to be an ingrained culture of Twittering, or at least following someone on Twitter, for it to work?