Best of the blog

The most popular communication, change, collaboration and leadership posts from 10 years of the Meaning Business Blog

These posts have been selected as they are the most read and shared.

3 tools and an essential skill to help managers communicate better

Organisations ask a lot of their operational and line managers. The day-to-day administration of a team while also focusing on delivering business results can be overwhelming for even experienced operational managers. Functional areas such as finance, human resources, property and procurement regularly decentralise activities to people leaders or provide self-service options that also shifts the action to the manager.   It becomes apparent why managers can struggle in their communication efforts. An employee’s immediate manager…

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Everything Changes: The new role of communicators in navigating complexity

The Government Communications Conference #GCASYD2015 has been an inspiring collection of great practice. My messages for communicators is simple. Change isn’t as hard as we make out, except when we stuff it up within organisations. As communicators, we have a responsibility to help our audiences, customers and partners to sense-make. It’s about context. Comms people need a broader toolkit and skills base to help sensemake in complexity. The shorter COMMS plan is one tool for managing the…

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3 Keys to managing multiple change projects in changing contexts

Writing in Accelerate/XLR8 (2014), Kotter recognised complexity and the shifts in organisational structure and networks, and the need for agile methods of mobilising people within the organisation. In practice, change at the project level has three qualities that can complicate the effective management and delivery of benefits or the desired outcomes. Concurrent – there are seldom single projects underway in an organisation. Depending on the degree of internal organisation and prioritisation, these initiatives may or…

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Communication isn’t just a step in a process

This is an excerpt from a post on 3 things to remember in LEAN and process communication published on LinkedIn Pulse. 1. Information is not the same thing as communication Data about production metrics, safety instructions, operating standards: these are kinds of information. Information needs to be available at the right time to be useful to employees and managers. However, there is a difference between making information available and communicating. Information is the content. Communication…

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After the fires: 7 communication tips to help workplaces start the year

A three-part series on communication actions organisations can take now during the response and recovery phases of the Australian fire catastrophe.  The essentials: As those workplaces that closed over Christmas and New Year reopen after the break, a few simple internal communication actions will help both the operational and human responses to the current Australian fire catastrophe. The most effective employee communication responses will: Acknowledge clearly any known employee, supplier and customer impacts. Provide up…

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The 5P business case for video

Building a case for using video in your organisation is simpler if you follow the 5 P model. To build the case for including video as part of your overall communication infrastructure, cover these five points. Pain. Find the right opportunity that is causing pain: what challenges need attention, what change is under way, what results need to shift? Is the pain at the top, or is it your employees who need help? Partners. Find…

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Building the planning habit

It’s a decade since journalist and trend-spotter Malcolm Gladwell introduced us to the idea of the 10000-hour rule in his book Outliers: The Story of Success. Gladwell contended that amongst a range of factors practice is the most common denominator in outstanding success. While even Gladwell himself acknowledges this is an oversimplification, the principle applies to many fields including communication management. One challenge communicators describe is getting into the practice of effective communication planning. This topic comes up frequently…

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How To Communicate Yet Another Bloody Departmental Merger

An open letter to leaders and communicators in the Australian Public Service and Government Agencies impacted by the announcement to super-merge departments. Dear government communications leaders, middle managers, department heads, branch heads Another change with no notice. Another significant change that will have a significant degree of attention and negative press. The MoG* guidelines don’t prioritise effective communication, so what do you do? TOO LONG, DIDN’T READ Following the announcement of merging 18 Federal Government…

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Roadblock or dead end? Handling setbacks in change communication

A roadblock is a temporary state. A dead end is a point from which one must turn around and go back. There is a moment in the wonderful Pixar film “A Bug’s Life” which simultaneously parodies the masses of self-help self-talk and provides a very simple mantra for change. A leaf falls into the path of the row of ants who are trying to gather food in time for the bully grasshoppers. The ants freak out,…

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Making your message work for everyone

There is a well known Indian folk story that describes how a group of blind men who encounter an elephant all have very different descriptions based on their individual experience of the parts, rather than the whole. When we communicate, it is important to break down ‘the elephant’ into the parts that make the most sense to the most people. The 4C Communication test ensures that your messages are clear enough to describe the whole…

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There is always another way to see things

[Update: This post was written in 2015.] I have known that things aren’t always the way you first see them since I was a child. My rainbow does not look the same as the rainbow that the vast majority of you see. I don’t see the explosion of red when bottlebrush is in season and I am just as likely to be wearing a purple tie thinking it is blue as I am a grey…

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