SCHOOL DAZE

Every year, Bloomberg Businessweek devotes one issue to MBAs and the schools that love them.

In the latest, a sidebar shows the survey results from 1,320 corporate recruiters who were asked to identify most valued job skills and score each institution for delivery of those skills. The charts revealed what industries want, skills employers value, and where schools succeed. 

Oddly enough (tongue firmly in cheek), the skill on almost every industry’s list was … communication.  Of the 11 industry sectors, from chemicals to transportation, only one – consumer products – didn’t mention communication in its top three ‘most wanted’ skills.  Six of the 11 industry reps ranked communication skills as number one; 68 percent of recruiters say it’s one of the five most important skills.

Then the disconnect begins. 

Of the top ten full-time MBA programs (as ranked by the magazine), from Duke’s Fugua to Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper – including the usual Harvard, Yale, Chicago, Columbia, Stanford, and Northwestern – guess how many scored super high on communication skills?

None.

Therefore, since business schools don’t do a superb job of training its grads on communication, it seems to be the responsibility of industry to do just that.  And sure, corporate courses available through Open Sesame, SkillSoft, Harvard’s ManageMentor do an average kind of job teaching communications.  But why couldn’t it be the province of the communications department and its siblings (like marketing) to supplement the standard learning?  Why couldn’t the function set up a mentoring program to coach managers, early talent, hi-pos, and the like on the ins and outs of communications?

No budget is no excuse.  What is?

BUY THE BOOK ...

The casual era of business may soon be gone.

[Except, of course, for Silicon Valley.]

Suit jackets are the new ‘hoodie.’  Remote workers are being asked to spend at least one or two days in the office.  Face to face conversations are gradually replacing texting … and smartphone emails.

One thing that isn’t changing (and one we believe should change):  Overly formal, non-conversational, stiff writing.

How to recognize it?  It won’t sound like a real person.  It quietly screams ‘I’m self-conscious about what I say.”  And it relies on our favorite consultant-ese to communicate.  [Let’s vote out phrases and words like ‘best practices,’ ‘leverage,’ even ‘iconic.’  See our previous writings on those subjects.]

Understand, please:  We’re not advocating the loose lips kind of communication, where texting reigns and periods are invisible.  Or the type that insists on using abbreviations and emoji for delicate topics.  Buttoning up way-too-informal dialogue is okay by us.

What we are promoting is communication that is clear and reflects how people talk, write, and interact.  A narrative that tells a story, in language accessible to everyone.  A document that sells, yet sticks to the facts.  Video that is simple, compelling, and causes us to do or believe something. 

Seriously.  Is that harder than we think?

BUSY. BUSIER. BUSIEST.

As kids, we used to do the one-ups:  “Yah, my mom’s smarter and prettier than yours.”  The retort:   “Well, my mom has a Ph.D. and is a university professor.”

Things haven’t changed much in all those years.

These days, it’s all about being busy, a status symbol if ever we nailed one.  “I’ve got to fly to Jakarta, deliver a presentation, then work with a client in London.”  Or:  “The CEO asked me to work with him on a series of U.S. and Latin America site visits as well as filming those conversations for significant investors, turning it into a roadshow.”

Hard to beat, eh?  Problem is, it’s contagious, darned inefficient, and a barrier to real communications and effectiveness.  Because the “gotta be busy” syndrome stems from times of economic uncertainty, bosses who value hours above real thinking, and/or a psychological need to be important.

Sure.  The kinds of businesses we practice – from communications and design to marketing and branding – are filled with last-minute deadlines and client demands.  So it’s natural to bristle and state that you manage your schedules well, thank you very much.

Let us just point out one study.  At the Pentagon.  Some years back, they discovered that working hard wasn’t netting them the desired results.  The generals then mandated alternative work schedules and flex work policies.  Guess what?   Work quality improved; sharper thinking ensued.

So as masters of the [communications] universe, look around your shop, your office, your team.  Measure quality and productivity, along with sick days and goals.  Then tell us if Uncle Sam knows best.

DOWN ON THE FARM

General Motors and silos continue to be linked in the media.

And in our minds.

According to new GM CEO Mary Barra in her Congressional testimonies, the auto company’s managers operated in isolation, failing to connect and act on evidence that’s now been linked to fatal accidents.  That, in the words of Harvard guru Ranjay Gulati, smacks of protectionist behavior, decision-making conflicts, and just general inside-out perspectives.

Sound like any business you know?

Regardless:  In the mid-Aughts, after studying a number of different companies (e.g., GE Healthcare, Jones Lang LaSalle, Cisco, Starbucks), Gulati proffered his four-C solution to silo-busting:

• Coordination to share customer information and labor
• Cooperation, along with metrics, that will dethrone the current power structure
• Capability development, when customer-centric generalists also see a clear career pathway and
• Connection, or strategic alliances with other companies.

Later in the decade (or in this one), he holds up IBM’s Smarter Planet initiative as an example of a sword that demolishes silos, saying that values and concomitant images, symbols, and stories, will support the beginnings of a new culture.

Ahem. 

There’s one ‘c’ he’s forgotten:  Communications.  A discipline that, better than any others inside companies, can explain, educate, and elucidate employees on ‘what customers want.’  A function that, almost automatically, delivers awareness and drives actions on behalf of the corporation.  A mindset that will, either alone or in tandem with L&D/HR, establish parameters and ways in which an outside-in perspective reigns.

Ee-i-ee-i-oh, Mr. MacDonald.