They say it’s a poor duck who won’t praise his own pond.
But should all the burden be on the duck? What if the pond lacks the communication channels to hear him quack?
That’s the crux of a growing divide in the American workplace today. The front-line worker doesn’t have a good story to tell about his environment. And the farther you go up the hierarchy, the wider the communications gap between those who actually do the work and those who run things.
What a waste.
The people with the closest connection to your company’s products or services feel increasingly estranged from the C-Suite. The everyday employees who can do the most to promote your business feel left out, even alienated. All because of this disconnect in internal communications.
I call these people the Forgotten Ambassadors, an overlooked resource that can do so much to advance your cause — or derail it. Companies who ignore them do so at their own peril; these are the folks smart reporters turn to when they want the real story, especially when something goes wrong. And believe me, eventually something will go wrong.
What kind of story are your Ambassadors telling?
Front-line employees who don’t feel connected to the company or understand its goals and values won’t have a good story to tell (or a pond to praise) when someone — a customer, a consumer or a reporter, for example — asks them about the company. They likely won’t do their best work on the job and will be more interested in finding their next one. Those Forgotten Ambassadors can undermine the company’s reputation, and eventually, its performance.
But what if the front-line employees feel connected? What if they see how what they do every day advances the company’s goals? What if management breaks out of the C-Suite and actively turns to the front lines to share knowledge and ask for advice? That’s the path to increased production, better performance and company success. That’s how to cultivate employees who brag about where they work.
I’ll share a great example of executive communication I’ve seen at Jamba Juice, one of our clients at AMF Media Group.
When Chairman and CEO James D. White launched his 2009 BLEND initiative to turn the once-troubled company around, he went out and met face-to-face with every general manager in the healthy, active lifestyle chain of stores. He made sure they understood the link between what he wanted to do and how it would advance the company. He also listened to them and championed their contributions.
He didn’t stop there, he also engaged front-line employees, selling them on company goals and their importance in achieving them. He focused on the all-important brand, and how each employee was a representative of that brand — an Ambassador, if you will.
Today competitors like Starbucks and McDonald’s are racing to catch up to the smoothie market. In the first quarter, same-store sales at Jamba Juice’s company-owned stores rose 12.7 percent, the sixth consecutive quarter of gains. And now White’s busy selling BLEND 2.0 to expand Jamba’s leadership role as an international health conscious brand.
Can any business afford not to tap the resource of effective internal communication?
How are you treating your Ambassadors?
Vintage Foster is president/CEO of AMF Media Group, marketing and public relations firm in San Ramon, Calif. Reach him at Vintage@AMFMediaGroup.com.
