People don’t just pay attention to what you say – they also watch what you do very closely.   As the old saying goes “actions speak louder than words”.

What issues do you spend your time on?  What is your management style?   What is your decision making style?   Do you consult widely, or do you speak only to other senior managers?     Is your focus mainly internal, or mainly external?  Are you open to new ideas?   What information do you pay attention to – and what information do you ignore?

Again, people take their cue from you, and focus on what they think that you are focusing on.  They do this almost without being aware that they are doing this.  

It is part of the character of any organisation to pay a great deal of attention to certain elements of its business, and to ignore others.   If you change the focus, you change what people pay attention to, you change how they behave and you change the results the company gets. 

People pay attention to what you say, and they adapt their behaviour accordingly.

This is not about inspiring Churchillian speeches but rather about the minutiae of day-to-day communications.

We did an experiment with one organisation we worked with.  We tracked every management communication for several months and found that over two-thirds of them were about internal processes and procedures.   You can guess what the people in that organisation prioritised – over and above profitability and customer service. 

It is vital to get the content and tone of internal comms right.  You are telling people that certain topics are important enough for you to talk about repeatedly.   People respond to that, and they respond to the way that you speak to them, whether that is open and friendly or authoritarian or patronising.

Corporate habits are the way that people naturally do things without thinking.  They are “the way things are done around here”.  They are therefore a direct expression of the very character of the organisation.  These habits develop over time almost randomly – there is often little rhyme or reason to them.  Sometimes they can be helpful shortcuts, but sometimes they get in the way.

These habits don’t just include certain ways of doing things.  They can also include a particular way of viewing the world and certain attitudes towards staff, competitors, the market, customers or the business.  This can create blind spots as people fail to consider any alternative.

Changing these corporate habits can be very hard work because they are so ingrained.  You can meet a lot of resistance.  But the scope to change the ways the organisation operates are obvious.  You can literally tailor make new habits that are designed around your corporate strategy and the way you want to achieve things.

Most people don’t think about the way that they make decisions.  They don’t give any thought to the information that they call upon before making the decision or the analysis they do.   More often than not people rely on instinct to make decisions, and they are not even aware that there are other ways of going about decision making.  They are unaware that there are different ways to view the various choices, and tools available to identify, compare and select the various alternatives.

Changing the way that decisions are made can have a big impact on results.  

The structure you put around people has a profound impact on the way they do their day-to-day jobs.  Structure can include anything from reporting lines and team structure to rules and regulations to seating plans.  Each of these can determine the way that people do everyday tasks and in particular who they interact with and what they prioritise.

If what one person does depends on the work that someone else in another department is doing, sitting them next to each other can make a big difference both to performance levels and to the approach taken to the work. 

Changing structure is so powerful that it takes a complete and thorough understanding of all elements of operations to make changes effectively.  Unintended consequences can be very damaging, so caution is advised. 

The stories that people tell about your business are very powerful.  That could be your brand story, but for these purposes we are mostly concerned with the stories that management and employees tell.   

These can make a huge difference to the way in which people inside the company see their work, their roles and the company itself

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