by Patrick Seaton

   This article was originally published in The Productivity Institute (PI) Newsletter

Internal positioning is the process of identifying who and what the organization is at three levels – the organization as a whole, the individual departments, and the individual employees – documenting the information in written documents, communicating the information across the organization, and maintaining the documents as information changes in the organization.  After reading this article, I hope to have given you some good reasons for going through an internal positioning process.

Identifying who and what the organization is at three levels:

Level #1: The Organization

Most large organizations have an internal communication and positioning guide while most small and medium-size companies do not.  The communication and positioning guide serves as the main repository for information that defines and describes who and what the organization is.  The wording is precise and deliberate since many subsequent documents are created using the text.  Items such as catalogs, press releases, website text, company presentations, and annual reports might contain verbiage from the communication and positioning guide (CPG).  In many cases the CPG highlights products, taglines, and product benefits.  The CPG might also include information on competition, company philosophies, and industry trends.

An organization-level CPG gives everybody a single source of information and maintains focus and clarity.

Level #2: The Departments

The next level that merits the development and dissemination of CPGs is the department level.  A few examples of how a CPG at the department level proves to be a useful tool are as follows:

The New Employee: Imagine a new employee entering a department.  That person may be given the company CPG to review (if they are in a position that will have customer contact on a regular basis), but most traditional training plans call for shadowing a few people in the department, meeting some people from other key departments, receiving some computer program training or product introduction (if needed), and reading handbooks, department procedures, and policies.  After a few days of this, the employee starts a more intense shadowing process in order to learn the ins and outs of the department in detail.  Eventually they are on their own, receiving input and feedback from the supervisor and other department staff.

From the employee’s point of view, even if s/he came from another company with similar products, as soon the shadowing process begins, we can begin to overwhelm the new employee with terminology, names, details, acronyms, and reading material.  The employee’s desk or work area often becomes a dumping zone for anything and everything that somebody else deems important to their learning.  However, those little bits of information are not tied together in any logical flow or presentation.

Had the department gone through the process of developing a CPG, including such things as names, terminology, major processes, special policies, workflow diagrams, org charts, internal customer information, and other topics, the new employee training program could be much different.  For example, the new employee would be able to read and digest the org-level CPG and the department-level CPG to get a global understanding of the two levels.  The terminology and acronyms that current employees use freely and without explanation would no longer be totally foreign to the new employee.  Having process flows on paper and an org chart to refer to would provide a visual that so many people need.  The CPG would also ensure consistency as to what information is being presented to new employees taking away the “I never heard that before” problem. 

This only scratches the surface on how a CPG can help new employees.  I’m sure that with some guided reflection you will come up with other benefits.

Department Alignment: For senior management, having department-level CPGs is an effective way to keep departments properly aligned and focused.  By comparing the CPG from each department, a senior manager can identify duplication of activity or resource, inefficient processes, inconsistent priorities, or policy issues, all of which need addressing.

A Benchmark Document for Change: As we all know, many people tend to think the worst when a change initiative is announced.  People often assume that the change will impact them greatly and then, often without facts to drive discussions, use emotions and suppositions to determine if the change will be good for them and the department.

With a department-level CPG in place, the department supervisor or manager could introduce the change and immediately refer to the benchmark document to assess how much, if at all, the proposed or announced initiative will impact the department.  If the change doesn’t impact department personnel or processes greatly, make sure people know this so they don’t react only with emotions.  Properly qualifying an upcoming change can minimize conversations between employees that are driven on emotions and do little more than waste precious time.

However, if after referring to the department’s CPG, it is determined where and how the proposed or announced change will impact the department greatly, then the supervisor has the opportunity to immediately discuss how the change will impact the people and the processes and begin planning how to effectively manage the change.  By using the CPG content as a benchmark (factual information), people will have facts to counterbalance the emotions.

Level #3: The Individual

The majority of companies have job descriptions for their employees.  Job descriptions provide useful knowledge as far as duties and responsibilities are concerned.  However, job descriptions do not cover topics such as a visual as to where the person fits on the org chart, the major processes the person is part of, a synopsis of how the person contributes to the department’s goals and the organization’s goals, or who this employee most interacts with within the organization.  While they may seem like details, by documenting this type of information (and several other points) in an employee-level CPG, the employee gains a tremendous amount of pride knowing that their contribution to the department and to the organization is validated and valued.  The CPG also provides a unique level of detail that the supervisor can use to communicate with his/her manager about employee value-add activities or use the information to realign tasks as needed.

In summary, people want to feel as though they are contributing in a positive manner to their organization’s goals and future.  One very powerful way to accomplish this sense of contribution is to affirm the importance of their positions in the organization by focusing their attention on the importance of their position, as it relates to the larger organizational goals.  By taking the time to develop and maintain positioning documents at all three levels – organization, department, and individual – understanding how and where employees add value to the organization becomes obvious.  Moving forward, it is much easier to see how all the pieces can fit together to make future goals a reality.

Next month we begin talking about the three Ps that are at the root of both change initiatives as well as problems – People, Processes, and Planning. We will discuss the P that is nearest and dearest to your employees’ heart – People (i.e. Themselves!) 

Benefits
1. Bring and keep everybody in the organization on the same page.
2. Communicate how all the employees and departments fit together to support the organizational goals and vision.
3. Reduce training time with new employees as they use the benchmark documents to learn various aspects of the organization, understand how their department fits into the overall organization, and realize how their individual position is part of the big picture.

Best Practices
1. Begin with the organizational level document first – create the vision and framework for the departments.  Review and revise every 6 to 9 months.
2. Have each department create their positioning documents as a department, then have senior management review the documents to make sure all critical information is presented.  Review every 6 to 9 months, as the organizational version is updated.
3. Proceed to the employee level, coupling the positioning document with a job description to create a very powerful information source.  Review every 6 to 9 months, or as positions duties and responsibilities change substantially.

Until next month!
 

Patrick Seaton
Innovative Management Tools LLC
www.innovmgmt.com
pdseaton@innovmgmt.com
715-340-9606