Know-How Exchange : Other

A management dunk tank. Give employees permission to tap into their emotions in a fun (and safe) way. Before you can re-energize, you need to release the pent up emotions, then can start an honest dialog moving forward.

The biggest problem is going to be the us vs them mentality which will linger for a long time in older employees. Not as much in younger crowd.

Small group Q&A meetings between new mgmt and older employees will go a long way on this. The highest level manager of the "old" company should be the most visible. He/she needs to be seen as still maintianing the good parts of the older culture.

Any charitable work done as a company will help.

Michael

Dear Niti_Beri,

You have to create buy-in through genuine displays of good will.

In meetings, you'll find there are staff who will not speak up, no matter how much of an open floor you give them, and these same people will then be content to slope off and chunter and gripe to anyone that will listen in hallways and around the water cooler.

These lippy, bad apples are the people that need to be counseled, ferreted out, and asked to explain themselves.

There will be a few of them and in truth, it's these people who are the ring leaders of much of the discontent. I've seen it happen.

As thorns in your side, it needs to be clearly explained to these types that, although they see themselves as squeaky wheels that will get the grease, squeaky wheels that continue to squeak once they've been greased can be replaced.

One way to empower people who are unwilling to speak out in open forums is to encourage anonymous contributions to a suggestion box. Here, any employee that's too shy or unwilling to pipe up can vent, add comment, or otherwise contribute.

For many people, this might be the only avenue they feel they have open to them to get to those in upper level in management.

Employees ought not be required to give their name on their questions or suggestions. And upper management MUST get over their attitudes or feeling that there's no reason for them to act on something that comes from an employee who is unwilling to give their name.

Many employees will be in fear of losing their jobs anyway, so there's no need to make them feel they are giving their managers more ammunition to ditch them should they be seen as the ones speaking out.

And if the suggestion forms are such that anyone can download them, type their question or suggestion, print it out, and hand it in, there ought to be less fear that contributors will be traced via recognition of their hand writing.

And if all else fails, you'd be stunned at just how therapeutic a day of paint ball can be! I've seen it works wonders. Likewise with massage therapy, and no, I'm not kidding. It's a great stress reliever and ought to be offered on the house.

Likewise new perks such as free lunches, snacks, siestas, in-house child care, bring your dog/cat/chinchilla to work day, and so on.

Having a few animals around can work wonders when it comes to lowering stress levels. Again, I've seen it happen. Just make sure the allergy crowd have enough Benadryl on hand to keep them happy.

And yes, some kind of staff fair/party/shindig all very low key, light hearted but soak the boss with sponges, a dunk tank as per Jay's suggestion, custard pie throwing, and a shaving cream food fight day can again all do much to help regroup attitudes.

Fortune tellers, clowns, comedian days, karaoke nights, and making the bosses dress up in glam-rock costumes and perform Abba songs (a la Mama Mia style) can all help.

The thing to do is to think waaaaay outside the standard, vanilla, white sliced bread corporate box, and to pile the stuff on week after week.

And then?

In the brave new world, there must be NO GOING BACK to old ways of thinking, acting, or doing business. Otherwise, all the good will you've created will evaporate.

Two books that might help are "The Art of Possibility" by Rosamund Stone Zander and Ben Zander

www.amazon.com/Art-Possibility-Transforming-Professional-Personal/dp/087584...

... and

"A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future"
by Daniel H. Pink

https://www.amazon.com/Whole-New-Mind-Right-Brainers-Future/dp/1594481717/r...

I hope this helps.

Good luck to you.

Gary Bloomer
Wilmington, DE, USA

I have a concern that the management is really out of touch with the situation if they're asking the Internal Communications team to tackle this one.

It's not that you are not fully qualified to communicate effectively with your colleagues, but that they are the ones who have to create the guts of the message and provide the content for your communication.

They're not asking you for leadership training, are they?