HBR<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0got it right: Leadership really is a conversation Leaders earn trust when they are authentic and straightforward. That may mean addressing topics that feel off-limits, such as sensitive financial data.<\/p>\n Athenahealth, a medical-records technology provider, has gone as far as to treat every one of its employees as an \u201cinsider\u201d under the strict legal meaning of the term. Insiders are defined as employees entrusted with strategic and financial information that could materially affect the company\u2019s business prospects and hence its stock price\u2014a status typically accorded only to top-tier officers. Opening the books to such a degree was a risky move, discouraged by the company\u2019s underwriters and frowned upon by the SEC.<\/p>\n But Athenahealth\u2019s leaders wanted employees to become insiders in more than just the regulatory sense; they wanted them to be thoroughly involved in the business.<\/p>\n Perhaps this level of open communications would have prevented the Volkswagen and Wells Fargo scandals that damaged the reputations of these prestigious companies in 2016.<\/p>\n Headlines you won\u2019t see in 2017 \u201cEmployees prefer news about their jobs from social media\u201d\u00a0 The truth is that employees prefer to get their news from their direct managers.<\/p>\n \u201cTechnology implementation stalls when leadership seeks employee input on changes\u201d Perhaps wishful thinking by those holding tightly to Windows 98, the success of your change management (OCM) plan depends on early and frequent employee input.<\/p>\n \u201cExit surveys show employee value propositions make little impact on workforce retention\u201d Your enterprise\u2019s employee value proposition (EVP) is the sum of all contact, or touchpoints, that make up the employer brand.\u00a0\u00a0 Creating a culture of communication, and embedding an ethical framework, will improve employee retention, loyalty and productivity.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s to a less anxious, more engaged New Year.<\/p>\n \u00a9 2017 David Cheatham<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Part 2 of 2 For more than two years\u00a0Harvard Business Review\u00a0interviewed professional communicators and HR leaders at a variety of organizations\u2014nearly 150 people at more than 100 companies. Both implicitly and explicitly, participants mentioned their efforts to \u201chave a conversation\u201d with their people or their ambition to \u201cadvance the conversation\u201d within their companies. HBR\u00a0got it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","category-information"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emersongroupinc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emersongroupinc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emersongroupinc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emersongroupinc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emersongroupinc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/emersongroupinc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2927\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emersongroupinc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emersongroupinc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emersongroupinc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/strong>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/emersongroupinc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Communication-1.jpg\")
Smart leaders engage with employees in a way that resembles an ordinary person-to-person conversation more than it does a series of commands. Furthermore, they initiate practices and foster cultural norms that instill a conversational sensibility throughout their organizations. Chief among the benefits of this approach is that it allows a large or growing company to function like a small one. By talking with employees, rather than simply issuing orders, leaders can retain or recapture some of the qualities\u2014operational flexibility, high levels of employee engagement, tight strategic alignment\u2014that enable start-ups to outperform better-established rivals.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>Now that we considered headlines you will read in 2017, let\u2019s briefly mention headlines that you\u00a0won\u2019t\u00a0<\/em>see this year.\u00a0 Resolve this year to pay attention to trends that are here to stay.![\"\"](\"https:\/\/emersongroupinc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Communication.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/emersongroupinc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Cheatham-headshot.jpg\")
David Cheatham is the founder of Transform Communications, LLC, a communications consultancy specializing in aligning employees and implementing change across the enterprise. The company\u2019s tagline sums up David\u2019s approach to the workplace: Inform, Engage, Inspire. \u00ae\u00a0\u00a0 David also teaches in the School of Business at Rutgers University.\u00a0 Contact: <\/em>David@Transform-Communications.com<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n