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| On your Marx... |
We’re basically an enormous factory, and the idea of a stand-down to reflect on any issues is something most people feel comfortable with, and expect. So it wasn’t much of a push to hold something similar to mark the six months since we introduced a manifesto for the business.
As the idea of the new CEO and something that hundreds of people around the business had a hand in creating, our comms team cannot take any credit in the manifesto itself.
But what I do feel, as something of a cynical old hand at this type of thing, is that the business has very much got it right.
It’s not a hundred-page declaration of intent, full of processes and indecipherable diagrams. It’s one page. One line declaring our purpose. Nine boxes explaining the behaviours we should all be displaying. And a line reminding us of who we are.
That’s it, and it works.
Today, the business set aside 24 hours to meet and discuss the manifesto. Executive team members appeared on Teams events throughout the period to share their views on the manifesto and answer questions.
I attended a couple of these, including the big one at lunchtime featuring the CEO.
What struck me was that the lack of cynicism I feel is reflected across the business. People just seem to get it. All any business wants is for its workforce to be engaged in a common aim, and we appear to have achieved that.
From an internal comms point of view, I find our manifesto invaluable. It’s a quick set of simple key messages I can use to build any communications I’m producing. The purpose it sets out - “we are creating a clean and safe environment for future generations” - can be slotted into pretty much any statement or quote about our business.
The behaviours - such as “we are one team”, can likewise be used across our comms as handy little reminders of how we should be behaving.
Those behaviours also help regulate meetings, and remind people to check their intent when it comes to communicating. Why are we publishing that particular article about that particular event? Well, because it highlights how we’re “performing with passion, pride and pace”.
And the colour coding is a boon for our publications - we’ve been dedicating a month to each manifesto behaviour, and have been able to subtly remind people of this by tweaking the look of our monthly newspaper.
In his manifesto session today, our CEO explained his intent and shared that if he had had any reservations, it was that our organisation might see the Manifesto as “too simple”. That clearly has not been the case.
He also said that we have been approached by other organisations keen to understand more about how we’ve achieved such a win. That has to be a good thing.
The “next step” for this type of thing is always to “embed it” and make it “business as usual”, which is usually code for “forget about it until the next initiative comes along”. It feels like we’re beyond that already, and our people have taken it upon themselves to ensure that doesn’t happen.
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