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Mel: Every few years, most organisations will refresh their strategies. Or perhaps throw out the old one altogether and start all again at the same time. It's often an opportunity to relaunch or refresh your organisation's values, especially if you've got a new CEO who wants to make their mark and leave a legacy.

But how many employees out there could actually articulate their organisation's goals or strategy? How many could remember the company's values if you asked them right now? Well, there's lots of different pieces of research out there, but the bottom line is that it's not good. Very few leaders responsible for executing strategy can remember at least three of their company's strategic priorities.

In some cases, it's as low as just one in four can remember. When we know that only about 30% of messages are making their way to the frontline through leaders, then you can guess how few frontline employees can actually articulate your company's strategic goal. Then [00:01:00] we have company values and the story there isn't much better.

Up to 41% of employees are not able to remember their company's values. A Gallup study went further and found only 23% of US employees strongly agreed they could apply their organisation's values to their work every day. So realistically, less than a quarter and only 27% strongly agreed they believed in those values.

And why is remembering strategic goals and values important? Because it has a direct impact on the company's success in terms of engagement... And the bottom line. Studies have found that when employees can clearly articulate, understand, and identify with their organisation's strategic goals, they are much more likely to take actions that help the organisation succeed.

Knowing and understanding values also has an impact. One study found that in toxic cultures employees are three times more likely to say they can't [00:02:00] remember the organisation's values compared with employees who say their organisation has a healthy culture. So we know that being able to understand and apply strategic goals and values is critical, but how do we actually make that happen?

How can we, as leaders and comms, and change professionals do things differently to get the business outcomes we need? That's what today's episode is all about.

Hello, friend, and welcome to this week's episode of Less Chatter, More Matter. I'm your host, Mel Loy, and I'm recording this on the Lands of the Yuggera and Turrbal people here in Meanjin,, Brisbane. And like I said in the intro, today is all about effectively communicating your organisation's strategic goals and values.

And what I mean by effectively is not just broadcasting these out to the organisation and hoping they'll stick. It's about finding ways to really help people. Not just [00:03:00] remember them, but understand those goals and values, and importantly, what they mean for them and their roles. Because when we don't do that, we are not helping the organisation achieve its business goals, and we are not helping employees have a sense of purpose and clarity on what they should be working towards and how.

So I'm going to share six tactics you can experiment with to really make sure these goals and values make it all the way to the front line and lift the organisation's game. So let's get stuck into it. Tip number one, first and foremost, it's about co-creating your strategy and values with the team, and I mean the whole team, not just your executives and HR.

I've mentioned this before on the podcast, but I'll bang on about it again because it's so important. When people have a sense of ownership, they have skin in the game, which means they actually care about the end product and they're more likely to drive support for it in your business. People don't like change when they feel like it's [00:04:00] happening to them, but if they've had a say in it, they're much more comfortable with change.

For my regular listeners and readers, you'll remember the IKEA effect. For those who need a refresher, this is the idea that we value something more If we've had a hand in creating it. Even if it's worthless by all other standards. It also relates to the endowment effect where we value something we own more than something we don't own.

There's another psychological principle at play here too, and that is the concept of psychological reactance. Now, this principle basically means that if we perceive our freedom is threatened or that someone is trying to get us to do something against our will, we will push back even when it's not logical to do so, but.

More so if we feel like it goes against our values or beliefs. Some people and cultures are more reactant than others, of course, but it's a pretty standard tendency for most humans. But the other great thing about getting people from across your organisation involved is that it taps into this sense [00:05:00] of social identity.

It means that when people feel like they see themselves as part of the organisation's mission, they are much more motivated and committed. Basically they want to feel like an insider. And when you have that insider status, you tend to be more engaged. So getting people in from the beginning to help shape what the end product will be is good for a whole stack of reasons.

And when we consider those stats that I mentioned at the top of the episode about the low rates of remembering values and strategic goals, these kinds of co-creation activities can really help to turn that around. Now, importantly from a comms perspective, make sure you talk about this co-creation activity loudly and proudly.

Show your audiences that their voices are being included in shaping strategy and values. Don't just say we listened. Give tangible examples of how their voices have shaped the end product. It helps provide some powerful social proof to your audiences, [00:06:00] but it also shows you genuinely consulted and listened.

And that grows a sense of value and trust, which again helps to drive change. So that's tip number one, co-creation. Tip number two is keep them simple and memorable. A huge problem with strategic goals and company values that I see all the time is that they're too long and there's too many of them. If you have like eight values, nobody is going to remember them.

If you have five strategic goals that are two paragraphs long, nobody's gonna remember them. And it will be especially difficult for people to understand or relate to them. Now, part of this is to do with the fact that we live and work in very noisy worlds where we are being overwhelmed by information from multiple sources all of the time.

Our brains are working really hard to sift out what's important and what's not. And when you're in the midst of your day-to-day work, strategic goals probably aren't a priority. It is also to do with [00:07:00] cognitive load theory, which basically means we can only remember a certain number of new things at once.

So some research shows that can be up to seven new things, but the average tends to be about three to four, and of course it gets worse as we age. Yay. So when you introduce these goals and values for the first time, if there's too many of them, they are very unlikely to be remembered. So what can we do to keep them simple and memorable?

Firstly. Try and keep it to three. Three values, three goals. Three is easy to remember because our brains love threes. They love patterns. And the number three is when patterns start to emerge. Also, it's all about that cognitive load I just talked about. Let's make it easier for people to remember, not harder.

Secondly, can you make those goals or values rhyme or iterate or use some sort of poetic device, like an acronym to help with memory. So, for example, one client we have worked with asked us to come up with their values. They'd [00:08:00] already done the research, but the drafts were pretty non memorable. So we consolidated them into three Cs: care, creativity, and connection.

Three things all. Starting with the letter C, you can see right away how much easier that is to remember. And that's the thing. If people can't remember them, then they can't use them to help guide their behaviors and decision making. They just become worthless words in a document somewhere. So that's tip number two.

Keep them simple and stick to threes. Tip number three, go right to the source. We've talked about this on the podcast a few times, so I won't wax lyrical here, but we cannot rely on the traditional communication cascade. It is broken. If you are not familiar with the term communication, cascade means we give messages to senior leaders to pass on to their direct reports, to pass on to their direct reports and so on.

But we know from multiple studies. That only about 30% of messages, uh, ever make it to the frontline, and only about 40% even make it to [00:09:00] middle managers. So it's really no surprise that frontline employees have very little connection to, or knowledge of strategic goals and values. So what can we do instead?

This is about approaching your audiences from all angles. Go direct to them where you can, to their leaders, to their peers. It's not just top down. It's also about bottom up, inside out, outside in, you should have channels to reach people directly. If you don't, it's time to invest in them. Of course, they need to be carefully governed so they don't get bombarded with crap.

But think also about who the trusted voices are, so people's peers, their team leaders, and how to get them involved. Importantly, like I said in tip one, get people to co-create those comms with you, not just co-creating the values and the strategy. Again, it gets buy-in and can really help distribute comms more effectively anyway.

One other idea here. LinkedIn, it's a channel [00:10:00] as much for your current employees as your potential employees. A lot of people follow their own companies on LinkedIn, so do consider it as another channel to reach them. So that was tip number three. Go right to the source. Tip number four, repeat. Repeat and repeat some more.

Another common issue with launching a new strategy and new values is that it can be just a set and forget situation. You mentioned them once in a flurry of comms, and then there's nothing more radio silence for months until performance reviews or annual results or a GM roll around now. Like everything new, if we want to remember it, we need to repeat it.

It's like learning a language. If you don't practice and learn vocabulary over and over again, it's very unlikely to stick in fact. When you learn something new, it is likely you'll forget about 75% of it within the next 48 hours. So this harks back to the Ebbinghaus forgetting curve, which again I've spoken about before.

The quick refresher. Ebbinghaus was a German psychologist [00:11:00] from the late 18 hundreds who pondered why he forgot so much information immediately after learning it. So he ran some experiments and came up with a plotted curve on a graph that showed a dramatic reduction in memory in the hours and days after learning.

However, that timeline got pushed out further with each repetition of the new information. Now, the caveat to this experiment was that he was the only subject, but more recent experiments have since replicated those results. So what's the point here? Repetition is key to getting these strategic goals and values to stick.

That doesn't mean banging people over the head with them at every opportunity when you mention them, they need to be relevant and meaningful. Mentions. Or people will get fed up and it's just gonna become white noise. Also, they should be repackaged in different ways as you repeat them. So remembering that people have different preferences for communication, but also because you want to keep them interesting.

If you just keep [00:12:00] saying the same thing over and over again, the same way it becomes just white noise in the background. But if you say it in new and unexpected ways, it cuts through. No. So let's think about what this repetition could look like. Maybe it's a short video, then a blog post and email. Some mentions on Viva Engage.

It could be that each week you focus on just one value or one goal and go deeper. You might get some team members talking about what it means for them, or examples in action. There's lots of ways to repeat and embed. It just takes getting a little bit creative. So that's tip number four. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

Tip number five, make it easy and fun. Corporate comms, let's face it, can be really, really boring. Why would you continue to pay attention to a TV show if it was boring? Would you keep playing a sport or a game if it was boring? Our brains need stimulation. We need to bring a bit of fun back into corporate communication, especially if you want [00:13:00] people to pay attention, you can still be fun and serious about your goals and values.

The two are not opposite concepts, but again, it takes getting a little bit creative, so. Can you bring gamification or competition into the mix? So for example, teams might be awarded points for showing values in action, and at the end of the year, prizes are awarded to teams with the most points. Or is there a team member who is also a talented artist who could design something for you to put on a t-shirt or a wearable item like a wristband?

These are just ideas off the top of my head. I'm sure you can come up with more that would work well in your context. But think about things where you can not only draw attention. To the goals and values, but celebrate and recognize people in the process. The second part of this is making it easy. If your comms and engagement activity is challenging to participate in or challenging to understand, people just won't, they won't pay attention.

So what does easy look like? So firstly, consider what hard looks like. [00:14:00] It's things like intranet sites you can't access because of permission settings, having to log onto multiple systems. Using language and jargon that's hard to understand. Having everything digitally based when you have a team member who is never in front of a computer, or members who never have time to use their devices, I could go on.

So easy is the opposite of all of that. Your audience can engage with comms in the way that works best for them. You've just gotta find that out. So it could be a simple QR code to fill out a form or a poster in the break room. And if you're not sure, ask. Ask them what's gonna work. And remember, a large part of comms is experimenting, test and learn.

Keep refining as you go, and that will make it easier and fun. Okay, the final tip is perhaps one of the most important because it is at the crux of it all using concrete language in your values and comms. I'm sure you've all seen values before, like respect and integrity. [00:15:00] And I always find that so interesting because integrity, honestly should just be a baseline expectation, not a value, but also, what do those words even mean?

They're open to huge differences in interpretation. They are concepts. They are far too vague for people to be able to easily get behind. And this extends to goals too, and to mission statements and purpose statements. For example, Commonwealth Bank, which is Australia's biggest bank. It has three values, care, courage, and commitment.

And those are pretty good because they're fairly action oriented. But then you read their purpose statement, which is building a brighter future for all. Like what does that even mean? And it could belong to pretty much any business in any industry. Rio Tinto, their values are very similar. Care, courage, curiosity.

There seems to be a a C's theme going on. Yeah, but their purpose statement is a little clearer, and it is: We are finding better ways to provide materials the world needs now and in the future. [00:16:00] It's really clear. And why does this matter? Because meaningful, clear values and goals that feel tangible are also values and goals that are sticky.

They're easy to remember. They're easy to put into practice every day. There was some really interesting research by Carlton Et al in 2014, and they looked at... The impact of what they called image-based words on a company's mission or purpose and how well that resonated with employees. And as part of their experiment, they used a toy company and they had two versions of a purpose statement.

Now, the weak imagery version read: our vision is that our toys, all of the made to perfection will be enjoyed by all of our customers. The strong imagery version, read: Our vision is that our toys, all of them crafted flawlessly by our workers. Will make children and families smile. So you may have noticed two big differences between those statements.

The second one talks about crafted flawlessly by our workers, which provides a [00:17:00] much stronger visual than made to perfection. And the second one ends with make children and families smile, which again provides a much stronger visual than will be enjoyed by our customers. Not really surprisingly, that second version, the image heavy one, held much stronger resonance and recall.

And it's because our brains are wired for visuals because they tell a story. It is so true that a picture tells a thousand words, and the researchers concluded that companies should focus on language that triggers mental images. So using familiar objects with physical features and familiar observable actions rather than using abstract terms, basically, people need to be able to see it in their minds and relate to it.

So this aligns with other research on using concrete rather than abstract language. So if you've read my books, you'll know I talk about this effect before. Jonah Berger, who is the author of a lot of books, um, but the author of Magic Words in particular, he and his colleagues have run a number of [00:18:00] experiments on concrete versus abstract language, and they found that using concrete terms and language results in better customer satisfaction, improved recall, and it makes messages easier to understand.

They also found that concrete language interestingly helps prisoners in their parole applications. When they apologise and give more concrete explanations for their actions, they're more likely to be granted parole. So as a comms Pro or change pro, if you have any input into the creation of the strategic goals, the purpose, the mission, the values, et cetera, think about offering advice on making these statements more visual and concrete. It's not only going to be much more memorable for your audiences, but it's also going to make it much easier for leaders to explain them as well.

Now, before we close out this episode, there's one other thing I want to mention and that is that while comms has an important role to play in helping to embed strategic goals and values: Leadership behaviour matters [00:19:00] most. Everything they do that sends a message is a form of communication. They need to make these goals and values meaningful for their teams, and that translation is a critical skill as a leader.

They also need to walk the talk. If your values are talking about care, but a leader is bullying people or talking badly About other people in the open, then it sends a signal that they don't really care and that your values are just lip service, especially if they're not held accountable to them. You cannot "comms away" poor leadership in these situations.

Okay, folks, it is time for your episode recap. So today I shared six tips on how to communicate your company's strategic goals and values more effectively, and they were number one, co-create. Get people from throughout the business to get involved in developing your strategic goals and values. And consultants can do a great work in gathering the evidence, but the words themselves need to be driven by your people so they have skin in the [00:20:00] game.

And then talk about their involvement. Tip number two, keep them simple and memorable. Stick to three values and three goals. Keep them short. And think about using devices like rhyme or alliteration to help make them easy to remember. Tip number three, go right to the source. Don't rely on the communication cascade.

Reach people where they're at in ways that work for them. Tip number four, repeat, repeat, repeat. It is the best way to embed new ideas, but do it in interesting ways and repackage it for different preferences so it doesn't just become white noise in the background.

Tip number five, make it easy and fun. Get away from the old, boring corporate ways of communicating and think more creatively, bring fun back into it. It'll make it more memorable. People will be more likely to pay attention, and you'll probably get more satisfaction out of it too. And tip number six, use concrete image, friendly language.

Steer away from the vague, abstract ideas and [00:21:00] terms, and instead use language that people can visualize and relate to. Alright folks, that's all for today's episode. Hopefully that gave you some ideas to try. I'd also love to hear if you've done anything differently when embedding strategy and values and what's worked, what hasn't.

So please get in touch. As always, I love having a chat. Now, just want to fore warn you, or maybe foreshadow or maybe... Excite you about the fact that as of next year we are gonna be changing the podcast just a little bit. Still delivering, but in a slightly different way. So we'll share more about that once we are able to talk in more concrete and less abstract terms.

But in the meantime, if there's any subjects you would love us to cover or any people you think you know, you should interview this person, get in touch. This is the people show. We deliver what you need and want. In the meantime, keep doing amazing things and bye for now.