Very unhelpfully, political and economic commentators are suggesting that the current austerity culture and resulting economic stagnation may well persist until at least 2020.

Politics aside, to hell with that!

I’m old enough to recall the last recession and while the root cause was very different, it’s now high time business leaders removed their heads from between their knees and recognised that, rather than stare into the oncoming headlights of the vehicles they can’t control or continue to bang the drum for business as usual while the world changes around them, they should be doing all they can to make the most of the assets they have, namely their people, proposition and brand.

One of the many problems of the chatter about employee engagement is that it’s the equivalent of lecturing the drowning man about why he isn’t swimming. And when the folk handing out the lectures come from the public sector, training, eventing or even comms  stable or have patently never managed a P&L let alone a corporation or even a team, it gives an entire “industry” a bad name. The so-called engagement “movement” is doing little more than dumbing down the decades of past learning and providing catharsis for the cynical and disaffected at the moment. The stats unfortunately back this up.

I’ve long expressed the view that the goal of educating Board directors about the importance of employee engagement misses the point by quite some way. Most directors worth their salt know that more focused, motivated employees make for more productive employees. So now, once and for all, please repeat after me: “Engagement isn’t an end in itself . It’s just one of the factors that help drive organisation performance”.feel good? Thought so!

Having come safely through the engagement fug, what exactly can the forward thinking CEO; HRD or fellow director take upon themselves to do differently to buck the austerity trend and steal the march on their competitors who mistakenly believe that forcing noses back to grindstones will win the day?

Well, they could start by reflecting on ways they can help their people do things better or do better things and take the time to learn the lessons of  a brand like Zurich which went from an indistinct  insurance company to a leading global player, not by making gradual changes nor  through acquisition or by splicing their management demographic with the DNA of creatives but by cultivating a culture of innovation amongst their existing leadership population. Importantly, Zurich didn’t just browbeat middle managers about their engagement skills. They achieved success, largely by re-distributing internal budgets and embarking on a 3 year people-centred change strategy which involved:

1. using trusted advisers to gain the commitment of the top team (“I will if you will”) and begin to create a supportive culture from within

2. focusing on innovation as an exciting core strategic principle and core value, a break from the safely grey branding of old

3. setting clear and measurable targets and goals that even the FD could relate to (new concepts; culture; cost/income benefits of mobilisation events etc)

4. developing a shared process for:

- idea generation and recognition

- engagement (road shows supported by creative comms)

- senior support and sanction

- accessing guiding expertise (behaviour change as well as new product development etc)

- cross-industry partnerships

They transformed their brand in the process and stole the global march on many of their competitors.

You can learn more about the ZFS change journey and other examples of leaders and organisations who have moved rapidly from engaging to performing in Brand Engagement: How Employees Make or Break Brands or by dropping Ian Buckingham a line.

 I was recently asked to write a piece about communication, leadership and networking for the Rugby Business Network and while reading a recent Mc Kinsey&Company article offering ambitious insights into how leaders can leverage six social media dimensions for employee engagement I was reminded of the Facebook vs face time phrase, which I coined over five years ago, .

So-called social media, a much abused misnomer for the relatively new technological, almost virtual, communication gathering points fed largely by constantly evolving gadgets, is literally fantastic. What had latterly been the stuff of fantasy has led to cultural and business revolutions; has liberated many-a-Dilbert from their cubicle and has clearly added a whole new dimension to communication.

I’ve long been a fan of many of the fresh communication channels to have emerged in the last decade or so. But having spent most of my career working with leadership teams in one shape or another, usually trying to help them become more effective, I remain sceptical of the too persistent claims that electronic channels are, or will ever be, communication nirvana. Why? Well, let’s face it, similar claims have been made since man first used electricity to generate messages yet it’s hard enough getting many leaders to talk the talk let alone walk it as their people need them to.

The six social media dimensions and skills outlined by McKinsey’s Deiser and Newton, which they claim every leader now needs, are:

1.     Producer

2.     Distributor

3.     Recipient

4.     Adviser

5.     Architect

6.     Analyst.

I’m not so sure I buy into that list as with all due respect to the authors of the report, in reality, most organisations will do well if, when it comes to any media for that matter, their leaders manage to be:

o       consumers

o       listeners and

o       possibly originators.

The rest of the list, in my view, is the specialist domain of a professional communications function, as this excerpt from a job description for a comms manager at Tesco illustrates:

But that doesn’t imply that all communication matters are the sole domain of a specialist function, far from it.

Around ten years ago, I was a director of probably the leading internal communications and change consultancy at that time, certainly in the UK. We ran countless diagnostics for clients across sectors and invariably the most persistent criticisms levelled at leaders were:

o       failure to provide opportunities for feedback, involvement and dialogue

o       not listening and acting on feedback received

o       a reluctance to communicate, especially when times were tough

o       not leading by example or walking the talk

I’ve seen nothing since to convince me that those criticisms aren’t still valid today given the state of employee engagement generally or that new media platforms have made much difference as, whatever the delivery mechanism, the old adage of “sh*t in, sh*t out still applies.

No communication strategy, however funky the channels therein, exists in a vacuum. Corporate culture, or the way we do things round here, is inevitably the key component and leadership behaviour has a huge influence on corporate culture.

In short, the issue with leadership communication isn’t channel-specific, it’s mostly about behaviour. And addressing behaviour is way beyond the pay grade of the comms professionals alone, is clearly the domain of the OD, change and leadership development specialists and is the responsibility of the leaders themselves.

In order to ensure that the leadership communication system is operating effectively, leadership teams need first to be able to answer at least the following fundamental questions:

1.     Why are we here, what’s our primary purpose and have we communicated this?

2.     How will we operate and what are our key leadership processes, including the way we communicate?

3.     What are the foundations of leadership, our behaviour as a group, our leadership style?

4.     How do we interact as a leadership team?

5.     How do the individual members behave with key stakeholders, including employees

Speaking as someone who works across sectors, it’s surprising how seldom leadership teams can tick all of those boxes. There’s little point, in my view, bolting on channels, whether new media or old school like Team Briefing, video cascades; town halls or even emails, until the leadership team has addressed these fundamentals. Why? Because of the importance of the term “social” and the behaviour implied.

All communication is essentially social in that it should take at least two and is about information received, understood and acted upon more than information pushed. To be truly effective, it requires a relationship of sorts to exists between initiator and receiver. And the effectiveness of that relationship is mostly determined by behaviour not volume or content.

Much of the effectiveness of communication is dependent on the state of trust that exists between the parties, reciprocal belief in each other and the level of authenticity implied (being what you say). It requires transformational elements (showing that you know the person and care about them) as well as transactional components (being clear about what you want from them). Fail to get the balance right and the initiator becomes just another spammer, cold caller or online pest.

New media may well provide fresh opportunities for obtaining, conveying and sharing information communally. But without the application of basic social skills, the damage it can do can outweighs the problems it solves. And for leaders, this is an especially tricky dilemma, particularly during a downturn when people need the additional reassurance that can only come from pressing flesh and seeing confident smiles.

Most employees welcome fresh channels and involving ways to express themselves. But I can’t think of a single comms audit in which people prioritised electronic media over and above more effective face to face. Take this HBR article, for instance, which points out that despite the rise in the influence of “the machines”, “the face-to-face conference business is robust, we’re flying more miles than ever to interact with others, the brightest minds still converge on innovation hubs like Silicon Valley, and collaborative spaces in firms are increasingly popular”.

As I illustrate in Brand Engagement, while I was working with UK super technology, semi-conductor giant Arm Holdings it soon became clear that engagement is “all talk there”. Their boffins and geeks hardly ever use internal social media – most of their communal communication being face to face. Sure they have all so-called social media bases covered externally and use Twitter in particular to engage with external stakeholders. But the point is, they still believe that sociable face to face, wherever possible, should come first. Their directors clock up masses of air miles ensuring that they visit their global offices regularly and they genuinely pride themselves on their huddle meetings and open door policy. Arm is a business based largely on innovations resulting from what futurist Richard Watson calls “serendipitous encounters” during both large-scale and micro meetings that are much more dynamic than Wikis or online forums

Having said that, we live in an age of exciting innovation, especially with regard to electronic communication. What business wouldn’t want to expand their communications repertoire? And we all have a unique opportunity to “play” with new platforms and potentially bend them to our needs. As with many things in life however, the answer to how to integrate electronic social media into the leadership practices of any business doesn’t lie at the extremes of application but in the blend. Success is clearly dependent upon appreciating the technology for what it is and merging it with all-important, multi-sensory, face to face, cheek by jowl congregating and gathering in person, pressing flesh, eyeballing and communing with colleagues and contacts. New channels certainly aren’t a substitute for getting the classic basics right. And there’s no more important time to promote this blended approach than during times of attrition when communities need leaders and the reassurance of inspiring, warm words as well as a confidence boosting arm around the shoulder which costs nothing but potentially means everything. (Ian Buckingham)

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Interesting post on the CIPD site by editor Alison Gilbertson this week alluding to the disconnect between the apparent needs of recruiting employers and apparent expectations of Gen Y.

While I dislike the gross generalisations in this context as much as I found the clumsy gender stereotypes irritating in the book to which it alludes, the research raises a number of interesting points for anyone responsible for managing their organisation’s employer brand:

Employers are from Mars, young people are from Venus

New research launched at last week’s CIPD HRD Conference, reveals a gulf in expectations between young people and employers that is seemingly contributing to high levels of youth unemployment. It’s also fuelling a ticking time bomb of skills shortages for UK businesses, who may be limiting their access to this important and diverse talent pool.

The report identifies flash points hindering young people from finding work and the CIPD has published a practical leaflet with top tips for recruiting young people.

In such an employer’s market, it’s easy to dismiss these findings by placing the emphasis back on young talent to adapt to the stated needs of the recruiters,especially with regard to “classic skills” an argument too easily overlooked. But over on the flip side, it does beg the question whether recruiters are so far behind the skills and innovation curve that they may well be missing out on the type of talent that will help boost the recovery drive.

There are opportunities to influence thinking in this area by voting on a CIPD poll.

Alternatively, drop us a line if you would like to explore employer brand, recruitment or engagement challenges you may currently be faced with as we’ve helped a range of organisations from sectors as diverse as financial services, not for profit and healthcare re-connect with existing and prospective talent.

“If the work you are doing is what you chose to do because you love it then it may well be your bliss. If not, then it’s your dragon.” (Joseph Campbell 2001)

 I often think about Campbell’s quote, not least when times are tough and people are clearly having to “put up and shut up”.  It reminds me of that scene in Terry Gilliam’s film Brazil and of the Kurtzman dilemma I wrote about in Brand Engagement.

The dilemma alludes to the flawed notion that we can somehow entirely divorce the “work” me from the “home” me and is caricatured by the famous scene in which Mr Kurtzman, the sinister, institutionalised manager is undermined by his own “army” of clerks who clearly despise their tawdry roles.

The scene starts when Kurtzman is suddenly disturbed in his grey factory of an office by the sound of cinematic gunfire.  When he throws open his office door to investigate, contrary to his suspicions that fun rather than work may be afoot, the general office of clerks is unexpectedly a hub of normal industrious activity. Meanwhile, behind his back, his personal monitor switches from the figures he’s been working on to a classic Western movie.

Returning to his office, the moment he closes his door the movie resumes on the monitors in the general office and the clerks once again grind to a leisurely halt.  The scene repeats itself several times over, the manager, Kurtzman growing increasingly paranoid and agitated with every iteration.

 As the viewer we’re complicit in the subterfuge which is revealed to us whenever Kurtzman opens and closes his office door.  It’s a memorable parody of the “us” and “them” mentality and the way we’ve been conditioned to view work and leisure activity as polar extremes.  It also illustrates how, despite even the most draconian of regimes, the human spirit of rebelliousness and mischief in pursuit of some form of involving interaction will out and will channel the attention, creativity and energy of employees.

In my experience of working with brands across sectors and with people at a variety of levels, it’s that self-same human spirit, call it what you will, that makes or breaks organisations. People are undoubtedly more comfortable, more engaged and more productive if they are self aware enough to understand their deep-seated hopes, desires and ambitions and the values and behaviour that can lead to the fulfilment of those desires and dreams.

In turn, organisations are much more engaging, successful and ultimately sustainable (the ultimate objective) if they are clear about their goals, values and culture. Put another way:

Employer brand (aspirational) minus employee brand = employment brand (actual).

Sure, it’s natural for leaders to become obsessed with survival and enforcing the ”day job” in the tough times. But the sooner we all recognise that it is the day job of leaders at all levels to encourage self-awareness, self-actualisation and to cultivate a true performance culture in which people feel free to be themselves and thereby share in the ownership of the organisation’s goals, the faster the recovery process will be.

And that’s in everyone’s best interests, isn’t it?

Surely at least one of the aims of any learning intervention has to be the pursuit of smarter decisions driven by improved skills and levels of understanding. Part of the process has to involve face to face interactions between people to develop empathy, understanding and cultivate emotional intelligence.

While welcoming and embracing the benefits that  so-called social media and technology solutions have to bring to the world of communication, I’ve long held the view that the term is a misnomer! “Social” should embrace the full gamut of interactions, both technology linked and eyeball to eyeball, with the emphasis very much on the latter. Consequently, so-called “gamification”, a rather clunky US term for “playing games as a customer or at work in order to increase engagement levels”, should embrace more than technology delivered “faster, better, instantly, yesterday” etc.  It should include scenario planning and strategic role-playing that is informed by and not dominated by technology like, you know, real business is!

One of the biggest issues we currently face at work and in society is the myth that technology is the route to more effective communication, forgetting that communication isn’t about “pushing” messages, it’s a two-way process which should result in some sort of understanding and consequent action.

I know from experience both as a customer and a designer of customer and executive learning programmes that the best “games” are those that blend technology with real play involving actual people. If you’re in any doubt, watch how much fun your kids can have with a friend or two, an old plant pot, couple of sticks and a cardboard box. Now compare that to their Playstation time!

The quality of the interactions is what’s most important whether we’re learning, working or just having fun! Something worth remembering the next time you have the chance to feed back on an organisation’s 25 pg long terms and conditions, a new training initiative that replaces workshops with “distance learning”; a call centre that asks you for a minute to complete a “survey” because you forgot to opt out of the process yet takes an hour trying to sell to you, or see that colleague who dumps multi-meg files in your in box on a friday night in the name of “improved communication”

Appreciative Inquiry

Put another way, it’s an approach that believes in the power of positive thinking and seeks to draw out the inner superhero in every employee rather than a self-fulfilling belief that all employees are dullards or innately villainous.

Used effectively, it enhances an organisation’s capacity for collaboration and change.  It’s a fantastic way of signaling an energising alternative to the depressing and draining, downsizing mentality of a recession.

Appreciative Inquiry utilizes a cycle of 4 processes focusing on:

1. DISCOVER: The identification of organizational processes and behaviours that work well.
2. DREAM: The envisioning of processes and behaviours that would work well in the future.
3. DESIGN: Planning and prioritizing processes and behaviours that would work well.
4. DESTINY (or DELIVER): The implementation (execution) of the proposed design.

Even the headings are inspirational.

The basic idea is to build organizations around what works, rather than just trying to fix what doesn’t. It is the opposite of problem solving. Instead of focusing on gaps and inadequacies to find blame and remediate skills or practices, AI focuses on how to create more of the occasional exceptional performance that is occurring (and there will be examples), regardless of conditions, because a core of strengths is aligned.

The approach acknowledges the contribution of individuals, in order to increase trust and inspire best practice. The method aims to create meaning by drawing from stories of concrete successes with the potential of becoming best practices and lends itself to cross-functional social activities. It can be enjoyable and natural to many managers, who, let’s face it, are often sociable people when they come out from behind the badge.

There are a variety of approaches to implementing Appreciative Inquiry, including mass-mobilized interviews and a large, diverse gathering called an Appreciative Inquiry Summit Both approaches involve bringing very large, diverse groups of people together to study and build upon the best in an organization or community.

The basic philosophy of AI is also found in other positively oriented approaches to individual change as well as organizational change. AI fosters positive relationships and builds on the basic goodness in a person, or a situation. The idea of building on strength, rather than just focusing on faults and weakness is a powerful idea in use in mentoring programs, and excellent performance evaluations – where superheroes come into their own.

If you’re wondering what to do with your employee survey and are a little nervous about how any internal benchmarking activity will be received; if you’ve had enough of the pessimism and would like to know more about the power of Appreciative Inquiry or just need a hand spotting those brand champions quietly battling the economic doom and gloom, get in touch. We’re happy to share ideas.

The status of HR remains one of the persistent love ‘em or hate ‘em leadership debates of our time. After two decades of business transformation experience at the sharp end, despite the ravages of time, I still stand squarely in the HR camp.

This is largely because I believe passionately in the importance of behaviour to brand and organisation performance and that the enlightened CEO should embrace rather than marginalise the HR function.

To transform an organisation successfully and sustainably from within, the CEO and HRD need to work shoulder to shoulder as the most important custodians of organisation culture.

The CEO always has demigod status whether they cultivate it or not. And first line managers are of course, the critical behavioural pivots around which organisation culture revolves. But when I reflect on the many culture transformation programmes I’ve led or facilitated down the years, there isn’t one that was successfully achieved without first transforming HR.

There are two very good reasons why:

1. Like it or not, the HR function owns most of the people processes like recruitment; induction; performance management; reward; training and development and even internal comms. And we all know what happens to the house if we don’t take care of the plumbing
2. HR professionals, in my experience, tend to have highly-tuned survival instincts that enable them to adapt to the needs of the most vociferous business leaders, fly the people flag yet avoid alienating themselves from their more left-brained colleagues. However, rather like litmus paper they soak up and reflect prevalent leadership cultural norms.

You have to transform the HR department if culture change is going to stick. So it makes sense to ensure that the HRD plays a leading part in the business improvement programme or process.

There’s clearly little doubt that HR has a lingering and possibly worsening image problem, however. According to a very recent survey of 418 C-suite managers, for example, conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit and sponsored by management consultancy KPMG:

-          a mere 17% believe that HR does a good job, with many seeing it as a non-essential department.

-         75% of those questioned pointed out that their workforces were becoming increasingly global, virtual and flexible, yet only 25% believed that HR excelled at projecting the employer brand and finding and retaining international talent.

-         A worrying 24% also warned that HR teams were simply unable to support the company’s globalisation strategy

Not the greatest endorsement from this group of internal customers, albeit the research was undertaken in an age when we’re hardly being overwhelmed by positive leadership role models generally.

I’ve been in fine company when I’ve called for culture change, not just in Financial Services, but within the boardrooms of many of our FTSE organisations. The Governor of the Bank of England; the CEO of the CIPD and many organisation leaders themselves have recently acknowledged the role that culture has to play in sustaining business and brand equity. Businesses and brands aren’t built on promises but on the cumulative weight of the everyday actions of workaday employees. Culture is the sum of that behaviour. Terms like presenteeism have recently been dreamt up to describe the invidious impact of rotten culture. It’s what happens when employees turn off yet dangerously still turn up. My shorthand for them is the walking or working dead* and in the current business climate, if we’re to believe the overwhelming evidence of the more credible engagement research it’s unsurprising that shambling masses are seemingly shuffling to work in the undead equivalent of droves.

The term culture change rolls easily off the tongue. But it’s tricky to implement, especially when you’re part of the problem and are too close to the key issues. No CEO can fix corporate culture alone. If the likes of Stephen Hester at RBS are serious about a culture-led transformation of their brands, it’s time they stopped filibustering about values and behaviours hoping for favourable PR. They need to start inspiring and empowering their HRDs who in turn clearly need to become more than yesterday’s seemingly safe pair of hands. And if they don’t believe in their HR leadership the time may well have come to seek out more proactive talent to help wake the walking dead.

* Brand Engagement (PalgraveMacmillan 2007)

It was a privilege to share my thoughts on maintaining employee engagement during challenging times with the wonderful HR people representing the housing associations of Wales at the HR conference organised by Community Housing Cymru.

Banking crises aside, few people have a more difficult task than this dedicated band of HR folk right now but none are as dedicated to climbing the engagement staircase*.

During my talk, I advocated a simple but balanced approach to employee engagement in the current climate, aimed at improving involvement levels first. Regardless of the sometimes mystifying rhetoric surrounding the subject, it’s undoubtedly better to set a few goals and to perform well than to overcomplicate matters and freeze.  So I was uplifted and not a little impressed to hear Stephen Cook, CEO of Valleys to Coast (V2C) outline the essentially straightforward but very effective way in which they have addressed employee engagement challenges within their region, quite rightly positioning the initiatives they have taken as examples of leadership best practices rather than overwhelming employees with an impossibly complex engagement programme.

During the last three years, in response to thorough and widespread consultation,  V2C have employed a clear and essentially  straightforward series of initiatives under three headings :

1. Pay/Benefits
2. Line Management
3. Job Security & Recognition

Initiatives have been led by HR in conjunction with line managers and the senior team and have included initiatives like job swap days; employee consultations and networking events; leadership training and a revised performance management and reward process.

As a consequence, they have significantly improved many of the key indicators all the more impressive given this has been achieved in the face of a severe economic downturn.

Notable improvements include:

• Colleagues feeling valued

2006   53%

2008   73%

2010   74%

• Colleagues who believe their Snr Manager is accessible

2006   70%

2008   88%

2010   92%

• Colleagues who believe Chief Exec is visible/accessible

2006   44%

2008   57%

2010   69%

I can think of a host of CEOs who would kill for results half as good as those or to find themselves at No 13 in the Times Best Companies poll, as their near neighbours Coastal Housing just have. Proof positive once again, of the link between leadership, culture and performance and plenty of food for thought for anyone struggling with the seemingly slippery issue of employee engagement right now.

*The engagement staircase is a simple but effective representation of the engagement journey as showcased in Brand Engagement (Palgrave 2007).

As we face more talk of triple-dip recessions there’s patently too much doom and gloom about and it can be sapping stuff, especially for line managers on the front line. But as the ancient wisdom goes, the fast track to feeling more empowered is to focus on what you can personally influence.  We all have some degree of empowerment in the workplace, even if it fees like “blowing into the wind” at times, whether we’re the CEO or  a supervisor. And even if we can only influence the apparently little things, they all add up over time.

If the barrage of statistics is to be believed (and it’s not fair just to trust the bad news), companies with high employee engagement levels grow on average 4.5 times faster than those with low levels (Hays 2010).

As I illustrate in Brand Champions, engaged employees are:
R- receptive
I - involved
P -  proactive
E - energised and energising

So, if you’re keen to nurture these characteristics in your colleagues, why not try these top tips to promote the engagement drive within your own organisation. As you’ll realise, most are within your control and most of them are free:

1. Give recognition
If someone has done well, let them know you know it. A simple thank you goes a long way to increasing engagement even if it’s one colleague at a time, so “catch” them doing the right thing.

2. Give constructive feedback
Managers giving little or no feedback to their workers fail to engage 98 per cent of them, according to a 2009 study by Gallup. Let employees know how they are doing and what they can do to improve. It’s worth giving your first-line managers in particular training on how to do this.

3. Incentivise good work
Ensure that your HR processes are hard-wired to recognise objectives that are “on brand” and “on strategy”.

4. Create an engaging culture
An open door policy creates an approachable feel to the office, where employees feel comfortable. Ensure management have a physical presence in the office and are role models for your core values.

5. Involve people
Self-managing teams are engagement nirvana. Involving people in company decisions will make them feel part of the organisation and give them a real sense of ownership.

6.Keep people informed
Don’t assume that people don’t know or don’t need to know. They will appreciate being in the loop about any changes in the company. Internal communication must do more than SOS (send out stuff).

7. Encourage suggestions and input
Let them know their opinions count…. chances are the answers to your issues can be solved in-house.

8. Promote role models
Rather than favouring favourites look to unusual suspects for examples of great practice and celebrate them. This will engage more people than you can imagine.

9. Encourage training, development and a career path
Stress the benefits of working for your brand including developing new skills and having a career path in return for development. Relationships count but they need to be nurtured.

10. Focus on their talents
Get to know the “real people” who work for you. Play some games. Find out what talents they have or want to have. Use these when delegating projects to ensure they are using their talents and developing in the right areas.

For more free employee engagement resources, pick up a copy of  Ian’s latest book, Brand Champions.

I really like Joss Stone. She has a voice and a style that seems to have been grafted onto her 20-something physique. I’m also willing to confess that I sometimes find myself humming along to Jamie Cullum or Katie Melua, very talented artists in their own right.

But after I’ve finally downloaded an album or two, I’ll inevitably turn on the radio and have a chance encounter with Billie Holiday; Miles Davis or Sarah Vaughan and instantly regain a sense of perspective about my recently purchased sixth-form soul.

I really don’t want to sound like a grumpy old man. But for me, you really do have to have lived a little before you can authentically transmit the ebb and flow of love and life and all the other intricacies of relationships.

This may seem like a bizarre subject but my contentious pop v soul thesis does have some resonance (honest!) when reflecting on the importance of culture development as a driver of sustainable organisation change. Why? Because it frankly takes a mature attitude (true soul, if you like) from the leadership team to appreciate the importance and therefore the value of internal culture development.

In my experience, especially in these troubled times, true leaders who’ve experienced the power of cultural transformation won’t be the ones issuing popular sound-bites, or schmultzy metaphors. They most definitely won’t be promoting internal marketing to justify, post-rationalise or even sweep up after change.

They will be the ones who will be kicking off the change process by consulting people. They will be passionate about engaging employees with the big picture, goals, the desired culture and the honest change process. Furthermore they will be role modelling the change they want to see, not just talking about or delegating it. These leaders know that effective culture development is critical to achieving change. They appreciate that it isn’t a reactive tool to be used to post-rationalise the new world experienced by the survivors.

So the moral of this tale is, if you’ve got to engage your employees with change (and in this environment, who hasn’t?), better make sure you look beyond the trendy purveyors of pop. It’s worth consulting your leadership back catalogue. There will be plenty of material available – and the tunes are classics for a reason.

*article first appeared in the CIPD publication People Management in 2009