Tell me in one sentence what you do…
This is kind of a personal belief, so apologies for the lack of desk research on this one.
I once had a role at a very large international company. I was responsible for a large budget and had a significant number of people reporting to me. One day a family member asked me “what are you working on these days?”. I quickly started to detail what my role was, who my team was and why it was so important. Sentence followed sentence. After a while, I realised that I had been talking a lot, and their eyes had glazed over. I paused to make sure they were still with me! I could see them trying to decipher everything I had just said. They weeded through the industry jargon, internal acronyms, buzzwords and hyperbole. After a little while, and many questions, they began to understand what I did for a living and what the company did. It took two of us to decode my job description, my team’s goals, and the company’s objectives into something we both understood.
This stuck with me. When I returned to work the following Monday I told my team about the conversation. I shared the definition that we reached after our chat. I asked them what they thought and they each began to smile, or even laugh, in agreement. They had been experiencing the same challenge. They too struggled to simply explain to others, including other teams in the same organisation, what our team and department did. It was extremely frustrating for them. One person even remarked that it made them feel worthless. As a team we quickly started to work on an extremely simplified definition of our team and each of our roles.
If you cannot explain what you do in one sentence, you are in trouble. This goes for employees, teams and even the business / organisation itself. It takes confidence, clarity and commitment to stick to it.
There can be a difference between what an organisation says it does, and what it actually does from a business perspective. In the digital age this difference can be quite stark. Many of the major media and online conglomerates will say that their goal is to (and I am saying this tongue in cheek) “connect everyone on the planet for peace, love and happiness”. However, their core business objective will be to sell as much advertising as they can to their audiences and to increase revenue, market share and ultimately their stock value.
Vision or mission statements are of course meant to be aspirational and inspiring. However, these statements also need to be rooted in the goals of the strategy. There should be metrics and outcomes that are directly related to the vision. These outcomes should be consistent for your internal and external stakeholders.
This is also true in how people in your organisation describe what they do, or how you as their leader define what they do.
As our work becomes more nuanced and specialised, so do our job descriptions. Your employees should be able to connect their jobs and goals with the overall vision and goals of the organisation. If they cannot do this, they will feel that they are disconnected from the performance of the organisation. They should easily be able to make a linear statement that starts from their work and ends with them impacting one of the organisation's goals. Something like; “I build campaign X, that drives users to do Y, that leads to the organisation delivering goal Z”. Thus, when leadership presents the overall organisation's performance, each employee can see the areas they have directly impacted.
You also must strive to be consistent internally and externally. Internally you may only speak about revenue, profit, targets, user value etc. Externally, you may present the organisation as a caring, community focused entity to increase the wellbeing and happiness of everyone. This is an extreme example of course. But if there is a major disconnect between the messages being given to these audiences it can lead to future problems. Authenticity is crucial. We all know that corporations are designed to make money. However, what you present to the public should mirror what you present to your employees, and visa versa.
And, if you cannot express this to your employees and the public in one sentence you will create ambiguity. If your employees cannot describe what they do in one clear sentence, they will feel disconnected. If your stakeholders cannot describe what your organisation does with confidence, they will likely avoid you.
As always, if you want to discuss this topic more please get in touch with phelim@alcomis.ie
