The Emerald Forge

Mindful Leadership Development & Mediation

~ Have you wondered if mindfulness training is right for you or your team?

~ Is a major disagreement in the organization making it difficult to operate?

~ Are you in need of a certified mediator to help settle a legal dispute?

We are here to help.

“The mind can adapt and convert to its own purpose the obstacles to our actions. What stands in the way becomes the way…”

~ Marcus Aurelius

Please use the menu above to navigate to the ‘Book Now’ page for more specific information or to book services or feel free to email, text, or call directly:

TheEmeraldForge@gmail.com 954 445 7125

 

When internal Strategic Communications strategy is life or death in business - C.F. Londono, June 2024

Under a healthy global strategic communications approach the employees of a company, no matter how large, or small are each like a small microcosm of the brand strategy and messaging of the microcosmic encompassing strategy crafted by the directors of the organization, ideally informed by the Strategic Communications expert on the board. Both the short term and long term profitability of a company and its prestige are dependent on both the competence and commitment of the people who work there. Big changes, like mergers, acquisition, down-sizing, or new technology can all create situations for employees that can sap them of that essential core sense of motivation that fuels the employee's desire to apply themselves and withstand the challenges they face.

In a presentation once made by Professor Dan Ariely, he explained how easy it is to ruin an employee's sense that their work and their contribution to a company that has real meaning to them. For as long as that sense of meaning is kept intact by a steady internal campaign of communication as to the company goals, challenges, and ongoing strategy, employees have a sense that they are working together as a team.

As Ariely said himself, employee and individual moral actually grow stronger the harder they work as long as the sense of meaning of what their doing and their own contribution to the outcomes of achieving the collective goal of the company is nurtured. Dow Chemical Co.'s "Human Element" storytelling campaign was one of the best known examples of this. Although at first it didn't work and only 59% of employees felt informed and connected to actually being the "human element" in the campaign to help solve the world’s problems. The ingenious efforts of the campaign to instill a sense of being company ambassadors and of really understanding the achievements being made by the company’s research and development teams engineering new products actually supercharged the organization so that 90% later felt it really made a difference and more than achieved the campaign's original objective.

An example of something where the opposite was done, was the merger and acquisition of Snapple by Quaker Oats. It famously lost virtually $1.4 billion by purchasing the very trendy Snapple Beverage Corp. but then by not being prepared to onboard and keep the entire network of employees and partners that made Snapple successful it completely squandered what made the organization successful, both it’s people and the network that formed the organizational glue that made it a vital high performing organization. Their lack of an IMC approach that would have identified those essential steak holders, identified obstacles/resistance, identified assets to help overcome these, and then enable the assets to neutralize and transform the obstacles into opportunities meant that that Quaker had to sell Snapple for $300 million to Triarc Cos. 27 months after they purchased it. A powerful brand is often as much or more of an inside job. Strong internal communications strategy, how it instills meaning, often informs the quality of the human parts of the engine under the hood driving the organization’s potential either around its corner of the world or globally.