Kevin Bishop, vice president of Worldwide Brand System and Workforce Enablement, at IBM provides insight to communication professionals looking to embed dialogue into their organization.
A. Explore the need
- What ’s the need? Begin by establishing where dialogue could be most useful. “Ensure your
approach is practical and has relevance.” - How do people work today? Find out exactly what’s happening in the various locations.
- Where is that need satisfied well, and less well? Rank the findings to prioritize areas where the need is poorly addressed – and where dialogue could help. “Start where the business model isn’t working as well as you’d like. Start with a real business problem to get momentum. “Ask, for example, what would ‘progress’ mean to people in that area? Ask what skills they’ll need to solve their problem. In the past, we’d run a workshop to do this. While this approach will generate dialogue, there are now wider options.”
B. Meet the need
- What’s the purpose – is it the right purpose? “You must build communities around something worth sharing.”
- Where are the right places, levels or intersections to make an intervention? “Looking at the company’s operations and culture as a system, where and how can we intervene with maximum impact? Also ask, ‘Are we missing a group in this conversation?’”
- What tools will help? Introduce tools in service of the purpose. Use them to widen the network of understanding, collaboration and co-creation. Connect skills through a dialogue device.
This extract is taken from Melcrum's special report: From cascade to dialogue: How to encourage productive conversations in organizations. The report is exclusive to members of Melcrum's Strategic Communication Research Forum - the world's only research and advisory service for internal communication leaders at global 500 companies. To find out more about membership, visit http://www.scrforum.com/membership_benefits.
Have your say
Can you provide any more tips on developing dialogue culture in an organization? How is your team encouraging a horizontal approach to communication? What tools have assisted in facilitating dialogue amongst employees, line managers and senior leaders?
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