Chairs and Directors Training Workshop: Leadership and Communication

Todd Norton,

Associate Professor, Murrow College of Communication

Recording date of this workshop is

October 23, 2014.

Some of the rules and procedures discussed in this workshop are

subject to change.

Please check university resources before relying exclusively

on this recorded presentation.

Choose an image that best describes your idea of a “leader”

• Which leadership style best suits you? Why? What convictions are associated with this ideal leader?

What actions do you expect from this leader

Leadership Communication Styles

• Concern for people vs. production/task

Please suggest contexts when the following styles are effective and ineffective

• Country club: emotionally supportive Work assignments are “suggested”

• Impoverished: effectively absent workers can “Fend for themselves”

b/c they “know jobs better than anyone”

• Middle of the road: balances demands

• Team leader: collaborates Jointly formulate goals, schedules,

responsibilities

• Authority/obedience: Directs good in a pinch, but criticizes and

assigns blame

Aspects of building an adaptive culture

Strong/Weak Cultures• Adaptive cultures are nimble, they build employees and

momentum to grow and change as needed to achieve its goals. Avoid lay-offs, focus on long-term career paths

(promotion), support employee training & development, empower employees through innovative use of organizational structure and resources. As a result, lower turn-over and reduced costs.

• Inert cultures are static, they tend not to motivate or inspire employees, leading to stagnation over time (negative entropy). Short-term employment according to org needs, minimal

investment in employees, performance is not clearly tied to reward. As a result, increased cost from turn-over and loafing.

Consistency is key!!

Three Building Blocks of Organizational Culture – Andy Freire:

1) Behavior: e.g., how much time do we really spend incorporating the things we say are core to our organization?

2) Symbols: e.g., how much time is spent on the things we say are core? What stories do we tell about ourselves?

3) Processes: e.g., how much does contribution to what we claim are core activities impact raises?

Leadership in Adaptive Culture Organizations:

• Defines a core mission through simple words (easy to understand and explain)

• Aligns words with actions

• Serves the customer (stakeholder)

• Grows the business

• Develops employees

Leadership in Inert Culture Organizations

• Articulates a confusing and complex mission

• Places member needs ahead of customer needs

• Emphasizes personal gain over team achievement

(example is Enron’s Rank & Yank team assessment)

Boeing Vision Statement

• The Boeing Vision is: People working together as a global enterprise for aerospace leadership. How will we get there?

• Run healthy core businesses• Leverage our strengths into new products and services • Open new frontiers

• In order to realize our vision, we consider where we are today and where we would like to be tomorrow. There are certain business imperatives on which Boeing places a very strong emphasis.

• Detailed customer knowledge and focus that understand, anticipate and respond to customer needs.

• Large-scale systems integration that continually develops and advances technical excellence.

• A lean enterprise characterized by efficiency, supplier management, short cycle times, high quality and low transaction costs.

5 Steps to Create/Redefine Organizational Culture

1. Define 3-4 guiding principles or values that define who you are as an organization.

2. Use the principles to guide every business discussion and decision.

Words are meaningless unless they spur new behavior

Use guiding principles to guide discussions and decisions

3. Build the principles into all your performance and management systems.

Make sure that your people and performance management systems measure reward behaviors consistent with guiding principles

5 Steps to Create/Redefine Corp. Culture

4. Create a 2-3 day leadership development experience that reinforces the behavior and values consistent with the principles, and insist all senior leaders attend.

You need to constantly reinforce words with action Create an experience based leadership development

program that reinforces the values and behaviors consistent with guiding principles

5. Expect resistance, involve stay the course with passion and patience.

Expect some cynicism at first

Mission vs. Vision vs. Slogan vs. Objectives

• Principles, values and convictions are the commitments driving your organization

• Mission is a clear, concise statement about why your organization exists.

• Vision is the overall picture of where we are headed, what is possible and what the future looks like

• Slogan = public messages to represent organizational mission to public

• Strategic Objectives are deliverable outcomes of your Mission

CEREO “About” page

Building on grassroots energy and passion, CEREO serves as a progressive hub for environmental research, education and outreach at Washington State University.

With a reputation for excellence and international reach, CEREO seeks to apply innovative technologies and management tools to the ever-growing challenges of climate change and environmental sustainability.

CEREO’s dynamic network of faculty, staff, students, and industry leaders works to resolve environmental issues through the power of collaborative partnerships. Guided by a roster of distinguished scientists, center members explore the connections between natural ecosystems and the human aspects that underlie environmental change.

CEREO operates as a clearinghouse for a wide range of environmental projects such as watershed management, tracking the nitrogen cycle, and studying urban socio-ecological systems. Projects are initiated and conducted by a diverse community of people with expertise reaching from agriculture, biology, and communication to engineering and education. CEREO also brings a strong social science component into play, providing perspectives from experts in economics, political science, philosophy, anthropology, and more.

CEREO offers timely interdisciplinary expertise and problem-solving skills. For example, the center can help researchers better incorporate computer science skills into their environmental studies by merging data with informatics. CEREO hopes to prepare WSU students for real-world careers in the environmental arena by providing training and workshops unavailable elsewhere on campus.

Project ideas and involvement are welcome from anyone in the WSU community.

Crisis Communication

The term “crisis communication” is generally used in two ways:

1. It describes the communication activities of an organization or agency facing a crisis. They need to communicate about that crisis to their organization, various partners, and the public.

2. The term “crisis communication” is associated more with emergency management and the need to inform and alert the public about an event. In this case, crisis communication might refer to the community leaders’ efforts to inform the public.

Typically:

Occurs unexpectedly

May not be in the organization’s control

Requires an immediate response

May cause harm to the organization’s reputation, image, or viability (CDC Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication, 2012)

Crisis Communication ExamplesKSC continues investigation into employee fired for misconduct, releases emails

Amy Bishop, former professor at University of Alabama, Huntsville, …fatally shooting three colleagues and wounding three others at the school in 2010

Syracuse University bravely saves students from exposure to journalism

Crisis Communication: do’s and do not’s

University Considerations & Resources• As appropriate coordinate with College Dean,

Emergency Management, University Communications, Facility Operations, Environmental Health & Safety, Human Resources, Washington Attorney General – WSU Office

• Build relationships with at least some of these critical resources before you are in a crisis, including contact information

• Scan your environment for potential crises—the bulk of crises are ‘smoldering’ crises

If you wish to have your attendance documented in your training history,

please notify Human Resource Services within three days of today's date:

hrstraining@wsu.edu

This has been a WSU Training

Videoconference