Internal
Communications and Change Management
Change Management/Internal Communications for a
Midwest-Based Consumer Packaged Goods Company
When Forrest Anderson was Director of Research and Account
Planning at Golin/Harris, he worked on a change management program
for a Midwest-based consumer packaged goods company. Senior
management had set a course and communicated it to middle
management, but the changes were not happening.
Forrest and his team first interviewed senior management to
understand their vision and what they had done do implement
it. They also did one-on-one interviews with middle managers
and field sales people, and focus groups with lower-level
employees. The team found communication was breaking down at
the middle-manager level. Senior managers were generally good
communicators and conscientious about communicating to their direct
reports. Lower-level employees appeared anxious to hear about
and make the changes. However, middle managers appeared to be
somewhat threatened by change and unsure of what they were supposed
to do to implement it. Moreover, middle managers were not
always strong communicators.
The team recommended more direct downward and upward
communication. It suggested the CEO and other senior managers
should announce major changes in person to all employees at employee
meetings. All managers should undergo 360-degree reviews and
part of the evaluation should address the ability to
communicate. If a manager received poor ratings on
communications from subordinates, he or she should feel it in their
bonus check. Lower-level employees should be encouraged to
talk upward openly or, if they felt threatened, anonymously through
suggestion boxes and a management Q&A in the company
newsletter. In addition, middle managers needed to speak to
their supervisors and peers to develop the strategies they needed to
execute management's vision.
The client acted on most of the team's recommendations and was so
pleased with the results that it named Golin/Harris its vendor of
the year for the work.
Achieving Employee Buy-In at a Medical Diagnostics
Company
While Director of Strategic Insight at Burson-Marsteller, Forrest
Anderson worked with a Medical Diagnostics Company that had grown
through multiple acquisitions. These acquisitions frequently
led to layoffs in the acquired subsidiaries and in the mother
company. The industry was rapidly consolidating creating
intense pressure on margins. Management was concerned about
the morale of employees and asked its communications officer to
address the situation. Fortunately, she was a firm believer in
research.
Forrest Anderson did focus groups with employees in the Company's
business and administrative units in a number of cities. He
found that employees understood the challenges the Company was going
through, but felt they never knew what the company planned to do
about the situation or what effect it was likely to have on
them. Management's primary communication channel for this kind
of information was on-site meetings between the CEO and the most
senior management of the facility. The information from these
meetings was supposed to "trickle down" to all employees by way of
the chain of command. While there was a newsletter, it did not
address the real issues facing the company. This communication
approach left middle managers and lower-level employees feeling left
out, in the dark and patronized.
Forrest's team recommended opening up communications. CEO
meetings should be with all employees and should frankly discuss the
issues the company and the facility faced. In addition, the
newsletter should be used to address the same issues and reinforce
management's point of view.
The communications officer presented Forrest's report to the CEO,
who responded very positively. He became the Company's
communications champion and began doing as many meetings per site as
were necessary to speak with all employees. He also began
responding to employee questions in a Q&A format in the
newsletter. His new openness encouraged other senior managers
to be more open as well. Nine months after the Company
implemented the recommendations, the communications officer reported
morale was much improved.
Communications
Audits
Assessing the Strength of Relationships and
Communications Effectivness
For the National Governing Board
(NGB) of an Olympic Sport
The CEO and Board of Trustees of the NGB of a US Olympic Winter
Sport were concerned that the organization's business model was
changing and communications may not be keeping up.
Working with Linhart Public Relations, Forrest Anderson used a
relationship measurement technique as a key part the audit of the
NGB. Those he surveyed included current and potential team
athletes, their parents and coaches, donors and trustees. The
data showed relationships were strong across all but two of six
critical relationship factors: Exchange and Mutual
Control.
The ratings on Exchange seemed appropriate. However, the
Mutual Control issue was different. The NGB needed commitment
to training, integrity and itself from athletes and coaches, and
money from donors. The athletes and coaches wanted financial
and logistic support from the NGB. Donors wanted to see
performance, integrity and support for the NGB from the athletes who
reach the podium. But most stakeholder groups did not believe
the client listened or responded to their wants and needs. The
data enabled Forrest to show the client that to achieve its goals,
it needed to listen better and actually respond to stakeholder
concerns, rather than ignore them.
In addition Forrest found that while the NGB was relying on press
coverage to get most of its messages out, virtually every audience
reported they got most of their information through word of
mouth. This was particularly true of athletes.
The client applauded the presentation and the CEO noted "After
conducting thorough, fact-based research, Linhart PR developed
smart, pragmatic recommendations that will help shape our
organization’s future for many years to come."
Assessing Michelin, North America's, External
Communications
And Reorganizing the Communications
Function
When Forrest Anderson was Director of Research at Golin/Harris
International, Michelin, North America asked him to conduct a
complete communications audit and recommend a structure for its
communications department. Forrest conducted interviews with
management to determine business goals and key target
audiences. He also interviewed members of the communications
department, conducted research with resellers and customers, and did
an analysis of Michelin, Goodyear and Firestone media
coverage. In addition, his department reviewed all external
communications materials. Forrest and his team were able to
identify key messages that should go to specific target audiences
and determine whether those audiences were indeed receiving the
messages through the communications materials Michelin was
distributing. Based on this assessment, the team recommended
reorganizing Michelin's communications department against key target
audiences and offered three potential operational models. One
challenge with this project was that Michelin senior management in
France, were not aware of how PR is conducted in the US, how
competitive it is and how much difference it can make to
sales. Michelin asked Golin/Harris to present its
recommendations to Michelin senior management in France.
Senior management accepted the team's recommendations and the new
organization was put in place.
Media Research and
Management
Determining a Positive Media Positioning for a US-Based
International Hi-Tech Company
When Forrest was VP Research and Analytics at Applied
Communications, his team was asked to assess the media perceptions
of six US-based hi-tech companies operating in China. The
parameters of the analysis were to look only at English-language
media about these six companies. The team found most of these
companies had tried to position themselves as Chinese
companies. However, the media, and by report, the Chinese,
were not buying this. The company in the best apparent
position was one, which had described itself as a US-based company
that, through its operations in China, could help China compete in
the international hi-tech market. This was well received by
the media and the Chinese. The team also noted the media far
more frequently quoted Chinese rather than European or American
managers of hi-tech companies operating in China.
Our recommendation was to develop messages supporting the same
kind of positioning as the successful company. In addition,
the client observed that most of the client company's managers were
from the US and noted the Company should consider increasing the
number of Chinese in management positions in China.
Managing More Positive Media Coverage for
Genentech
When Forrest Anderson was VP Research and Analytics at Applied
Communications, a biotech/pharma client was about to have one of its
drugs receive a preliminary hearing, and, assuming the hearing went
well, approval for marketing. Forrest's team assessed the
coverage of the preliminary hearing and noted the media were much
more likely to pick up material that used common rather than medical
language. The team also noted stories that included patients
tended to be much more positive than those that did not. We
recommended the client adjust its media materials to use common
language and to include more patient stories. The client
followed our suggestions and, when the drug was approved a few weeks
later, the client received more, and more positive coverage.
We received an award from the Holmes Report for this work.
Enhancing Michelin, North America's, Media
Coverage
When Forrest did the initial Michelin, North America, media
analysis, he noticed Michelin received extraordinarily positive
coverage on topics associated with safety. At the time,
management wanted to position the company as technologically
superior and pushed for technology stories. Forrest suggested
that if they wished to increase their positive coverage, they should
do more safety stories. Michelin followed this suggestion and
did indeed generate more positive coverage in the following years
based on increased safety coverage.
Assessing the Impact of One Year's Media Relations for
Chrysler
While Director of Research for Golin/Harris, Chrysler asked
Forrest Anderson to evaluate the effect of a year-long program to
improve media perceptions of the company. While Chrysler had a
list of media it felt were important, it had no benchmark value for
media perceptions against which to measure. Forrest designed a
research plan that asked the media what they liked and disliked
about Chrysler's media relations, how they would prefer to receive
information, and so on. To get at the change in perceptions he
asked each media representative whether his or her attitude toward
Chrysler media relations was better than, the same as, or worse than
it was a year ago. Media responses to this last question were
overwhelmingly positive, and Chrysler PR was able to share this
information with management.
Competitive
Research
Reviewing One Year's Competitive Activity for a Major
Player in the Computer Storage Space
And Making Recommendations
for Outflanking the Competition and Achieving a Stronger Position
When Forrest Anderson was Managing Director of Context Analytics,
a major player in the computer storage space asked his team to
review the past year's competitive and communications activities in
this category. Forrest and his team did a media analysis of
the six primary competitors in the field. This analysis
included a review of the share of specific topical discussions as
well as how fast each discussion had grown that year. In
addition, the team spoke with experts in the field and reviewed the
activities of each competitor as reported in the media. One
competitor was of particular interest to the client because of its
aggressive marketing and recent acquisitions.
Through the media analysis, Forrest's team was able to
demonstrate the client had ceded a position in rapidly growing
topical discussions. These topics were growing in importance
because of regulatory changes. The team's review of marketing
activities and web sites revealed the client's main competitor had a
much more customer-friendly approach than the client did. In
addition, when announcing mergers, the main competitor had outlined
the direction it expected the business to go and how it planned to
compete in that space. Forrest's report noted that the client
had historical experience in this space, but that the competitor had
had to acquire its way into it. By mounting a
thought-leadership communications program in that space, the client
could take it before the competitor could.
Forrest presented these findings to the client chief executive
and his heads of marketing and sales. The presentation meeting
moved immediately from presentation to a discussion driven by the
Chief Executive, regarding the changes in operations and
communications the client needed to make to compete more
effectively.
Competitive Research for a Server and Network Hardware
and Software Vendor
While he was VP Research and Analytics at Applied Communications,
Forrest wrote weekly competitive research reports for a major server
and network hardware and software vendor. The reports reviewed
the current and expected activities of five competitors and two
issues important to the client. The expected activities were
triangulated based on reports in the media, references in competitor
executive speeches, analyst statements and so forth. Forrest
summarized the most critical developments at the beginning of the
report. He also suggested messaging and tactics the client
could use to outmaneuver and deposition its competitors.
Assessing Attitudes and Perceptions of Design
Engineers
When Forrest Anderson was Managing Director of Context Analytics,
a microprocessor intellectual property company asked Context to do
research to determine awareness and attitudes of design engineers in
market around the world. The research was to measure changes
from awareness and attitudes measured a year earlier. Forrest
contracted with an international publication for design engineers to
e-mail invitations to complete an on-line questionnaire. The
study yielded 200 US respondents, 200 European respondents (UK,
France, and Germany) and 200 Asian respondents (100 China, 100
Japan). Forrest designed the research to enable him to
identify not only how positive engineers were toward the client and
its competitors on various topics, but also to identify which of
these topics were most important to the engineers. In his
analysis, Forrest set up grids for each geography ranking issues and
attributes in importance to those geographic respondents and showing
the ratings for the client and each competitor. He focused on
those attributes and topics most important to the engineers and
showed where the client was in a relatively strong or weak
position. He then recommended operational and communications
strategies for each reason based on these results. The client
was very satisfied with this work and asked Context to do the study
again the following year.
Competitive
Market Assessment
Since beginning his own consulting practice in 2004, Forrest
Anderson has completed two secondary research projects for the
client of a major PR agency with an office in San Francisco.
The reports assessed the competitive strengths and weaknesses of
seven major competitors of the client in a specific business
area. Forrest identified which companies were actively
pursuing the market and the product and communications strategies
they were using to execute their strategies. The client
considered its strategy, based on the initial report, and asked
Forrest to review three more companies with a focus on a specific
product area.
Agency Services and Account
Planning
Serving as Research Director for PR and Consulting
Firms
Forrest Anderson serves as a research director on call for a
number of small- and medium-size agencies. He helps them put
together research to support new business pitches and ongoing
clients. He designs research projects for these agencies to
execute, and revises and validates those the agencies propose.
He writes programming methodologies. He conducts account
reviews. He can stand in as a member of the account team in
new and ongoing business. He can manage junior research
resources
Competitive Market Assessment
Since beginning his own consulting practice in 2004,
Forrest Anderson has completed two secondary research projects for
the client of a major PR agency with an office in San
Francisco. The reports assessed the competitive strengths and
weaknesses of seven major competitors of the client in a specific
business area. Forrest identified which companies were
actively pursuing the market and the product and communications
strategies they were using to execute their strategies. The
client considered its strategy, based on the initial report, and
asked Forrest to review three more companies with a focus on a
specific product area.
Account Reviews
When Forrest was Director of Research for Golin/Harris, he was
responsible for the agency's account reviews. Forrest wanted
to move the review process more toward the advertising
account-planning model. In addition to reviewing the status
and issues on the account, Forrest asked account leaders to prepare
a brief on the external and internal threats and opportunities the
client faced in the coming year. When asked, Forrest and his
research department helped account teams develop these briefs.
With this information, the review discussion focused on what the
agency should plan to do for the account in the coming year.
This in turn enabled the account managers to be proactive with their
accounts and recommend actions based on their issues analysis.
Account managers appreciated the discipline of standing apart from
their accounts long enough to review the overall business situation
and bring fresh ideas to their clients. The account reviews
regularly lead to increased business from the clients.
When Forrest was principal of Forrest Anderson and Associates,
Inc., he did account reviews for independent agencies.
