Mike Love is senior director of corporate communications at Microsoft EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa). Prior to joining Microsoft in 2004, Love held a number of positions at McDonald's Corporation, including corporate vice president and director of European corporate affairs.
"Microsoft has changed the world." There's nothing like an immodest corporate statement to get the critical juices flowing, but I would say this is simply a statement of fact. The worlds of work, leisure and indeed communication, have changed beyond recognition over the last 20 - and even the last two or three years. This change is not all attributable to Microsoft, obviously, but to all the leaders in technology who have helped to improve the way we communicate.
However, new doesn't always mean different, sometimes it just means more. This articles shares some practices adopted by Microsoft to reduce the inevitable communications clutter generated inside a large and matrixed organization that has an unbridled enthusiasm for new technology.
Key points:
• The arrival of new communication technologies is placing increasing pressure on communicators to make decisions that result in quality of information over quantity.
• Although in the business of producing new communication technology, Microsoft faces the same challenge as other large, global organizations to cut down on communication overload.
• Microsoft's approach to cutting down on clutter includes careful planning and coordination, the use of a storytelling framework, self-regulation and better content management.
• Before communicating, practitioners at Microsoft are encouraged to test that all messages are professional, unambiguous, respectful and essential.
Communicating in a matrix environment
In the world of IT communications, Microsoft has a special responsibility to demonstrate smarter ways to integrate technology into the new world of work. Yet, as one of the largest and most complex companies creating technological innovation, our own communication challenges are as great as in any company.
Like many companies with horizontal divisions for international operations and vertical divisions of product groups, Microsoft’s matrix of management decision-making and the challenge to communicate through this matrix is very complex. Internal and external communicators each have geographical, functional and product-area responsibilities as their direct focus (see Figure One, below). This invariably means they work within communication silos roles rather than taking a broader vista of the company as a whole.
Without proper planning, a journalist might receive approaches from communicators operating in each and every one of these divisions. The challenge for internal communication is similar - information coming at employees from every direction.
Figure 1: Areas of responsibility at Microsoft
Establishing air-traffic control
The importance of managing this flow of internal communication, news, story pitches and relationship building is well understood in Microsoft. Even before the explosion in new media and communication vehicles, we had developed a number of air-traffic control tools to avoid collisions.
For example, we map story-pitching plans to moderate interaction with the media from diverse sources of communication across the company. In practice this means that any communicator planning to pitch a story to the media must clear their proposal through an integration group responsible for ensuring that we prioritize the best stories, target the right journalists and avoid mid-air collisions on the way.
We've also established a regular quarterly meeting and monthly Live Meeting1/conference call for all PR leads in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) - regardless of their areas of responsibility. This has become a clearing house for communication plans and has helped establish the discipline of air-traffic control.
The same sort of planning approach is also applied to product launch campaigns, corporate communication and internal communication. Part of the solution has been to build a sense of professional community across the divisions. To do this, we physically brought together the communication directors and managers and facilitated their sharing of plans and priorities. We encouraged each to identify the connection points, opportunities and threats to more effective communication.
Building a network of communicators
Similarly, we've brought together all those with an internal communication responsibility from across the organization to share their planning and exchange best practice. In fact, one of our most important developments during the past year has been the establishment of an Internal Communicator Community. This team has met regularly, set up work groups to develop new cross-functional projects and solutions, and held training workshops.
In a short space of time, this team has given internal communication a higher profile with senior management, increased the skills and experience of the community and started to address internal air-traffic control challenges.
We're now developing a new approach to the annual planning process, by creating a forum for sharing internal and external communication plans across all business disciplines to build a "one company" approach. This process preserves the integrity of individual plans where they are relevant to discrete audiences, but enables us to identify the opportunities to exploit the connection points between plans. Our objective is to use a campaign approach to integrate internal and external communication across the company.
" Our objective is to use a campaign approach to integrate internal and external communication across the company."
Developing a storytelling framework
Another method that helps us produce more focused and relevant communication is the use of a storytelling framework. This has led to the creation of a "Master Narrative," which is a simple way to explain the elements required for every Microsoft story. In a complex business environment dealing with highly sophisticated and innovative technology, this is a distilling process that puts all communications through a message filter to ensure that key messages are constantly reinforced through a "One Microsoft" approach.
The framework brings together the three main elements of the bigger story we want to tell about our products, people and principles. It has become a great way to filter out unimportant information and redefine relevance and timing for every campaign. The narrative is used by communicators and senior executives and their speech writers when drafting presentations and communications.
Gaining executive buy-in and leadership for the Master Narrative was essential and we've found that the key to promoting this approach has been to focus on the business significance of a storytelling framework, rather than it's role as a communication tool. We've also been fortunate in that our EMEA regional president - effectively our CEO - decided to lead the implementation of the Master Narrative by using it as the framework for his own internal and external presentations and media stories.
Using self-regulation to reduce overload
Another of our guiding principles to reducing communication overload (see side box, below) has been the recognition that we don't need to communicate just because the means to do so is there. Microsoft employees send 13 million e-mails every day, have 181,000 team SharePoints (a Microsoft collaboration and information-sharing portal) and 52,000 My Sites (a Microsoft tool for sharing information via an intranet).
Guiding principles to clutter
Three guiding principles that help Microsoft address the challenge of over-communicating to employees:
1) We should communicate with and not at our internal audiences, engaging in a dialogue not a monologue. Such an approach fits well with Microsoft's corporate culture, which strives to be devoid of hierarchy.
2) Information itself is not communication. In a world of new and exciting technology, the fact remains that communication is achieved in the receiving and not the sending of information.
3) Just because you can communicate, it doesn't mean you have to. Professional judgement is still key to reducing information overload.
Every one of those geographical, functional and product divisions described earlier has its own intranet, extranet and internal SharePoint sites. Many have their own external internet sites and all of them feed the flow of information to employees. In this heavy information environment, our challenge is to find better ways to reach employees with key business messages and to self-regulate the relevance of our messages.
Advertising regulators assess the appropriateness of ad campaigns by asking "Is it decent, honest and truthful?" At Microsoft, we've developed our own version of this test. Last year we tasked a working group at a Microsoft internal communication conference to come up with a new approach to the challenge of making communication simple, effective and clutter-free.
In response, they developed something called the PURE test. In order to pass the test, communication should be Professional, Unambiguous, Respectful and Essential. To support this initiative, the group has produced eye-catching visual representations of the PURE approach to help demonstrate that simplicity of communication is often best. This campaign is still in development, but it's already helping to shape our thinking on this issue of self-regulation.
Making sure leaders are heard
A big challenge at Microsoft has been to make sure that executive messages connect with employees through the clutter of e-mails and other internal communication. The solution has been to allow leaders to take an a la carte approach to the technology menu. We talk to our internal audiences to identify how they like to be communicated with, what gets their attention and what prompts the automatic delete key.
In response to this, we've employed a range of tools for leadership communication, using the most appropriate for each executive. For example, we use highly personalized podcasts and webcasts for our regional president, Neil Holloway. Neil has an open and engaging communication style, loves technology and is a natural communicator. A web or podcast is the right voice for Neil, but for other leaders we've employed different tools appropriate for their style, personality, message and audience.
Managing content
Another significant development we've made at Microsoft has been to revamp our principal communication intranet site. We've turned it into the central repository of all facts, figures, positions, statistical analysis, evidence and stories. This doesn't mean we've closed down all other sites. Instead, we're making our main site the gateway to the others with intelligent links and plain English tutorials (or more accurately - plain language tutorials) on how to communicate better.
One member of our communication team has informally changed his job title to "Content Guru." His role is to determine whether new content needs to be created or if it already exists in another form in a different place. He's just a phone call away from anyone in the company looking for existing resources related to messaging, positioning statements, questions and answers, briefings, presentations, speeches and so on. As with many of the other initiatives described here, this work is at an early stage, but is already beginning to make an impact. Content management has become another key weapon in our battle to cut the clutter.
" The most important aspect of communication is not what it is - the tools and technology - but what it does."
Assessing new technology
With the onslaught of so many new ways to communicate, it's easy to forget the importance of quality over quantity. The valuable test for any new communication tool is to ask how this tool will help deliver a better quality of information?
Former UK Ambassador to the US, Christopher Meyer, has observed that "speed and technology are certainly powerful weapons (in the diplomat's armory), but without quality and context, information delivered fast is without merit." This is good advice for all communicators when considering the challenge of new technology.
At Microsoft, we've re-evaluated all our communication channels over the past year and launched new tools to connect with our workforce in the most relevant way, including blogs, podcasts and webcasts. Communication can certainly be enhanced through the judicious use of new communication technologies and can be enriched by adding social media to the communication mix. But to avoid clutter and ensure a better quality of communication, we need to exercise self-restraint in the use of our new communication toys.
Impact over output
Novelist E M Forster implored his readers to, "only connect!" The most important aspect of communication is not what it is, the tools, technological or otherwise - but what it does - changing perceptions and behavior. At Microsoft, we're striving to achieve this focused approach through good air-traffic control, strong storytelling, many voices with single messages and integrated communication planning. Ultimately, the measure of our success will be judged by the impact of our communication, not the output.
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