Inspiration for delegates
Inspiration came thick and fast at the IoIC Conference – thanks to a double Olympic gold medal winner and a host of other great communicators, as the event truly lived up to its theme of ‘Preparing for peak performance’.
Olympic rower Steve Williams – who won gold at both the Athens and Beijing Games – set the bar high with an opening presentation packed full of emotion and motivation.
The unenviable task of following him fell to author Jane Sparrow who proved very much up to the task with an insightful look at how leaders can build a culture that unlocks the potential of their teams.
Emma Berry, head of internal comms at pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, offered a look at how her team almost doubled the number of employees who said they were ‘proud’ to work there with a campaign called One Voice.
The opportunity of recession was the subject tackled y Russell Grossman, director of comms at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.
There was plenty of interactive revelations from ‘the Unconference’ presented by founder of What Goes Around Ltd, Doug Shaw, while marketing consultant Tony Franco offered an array of examples of innovative thinking by communicators.
Institute chief executive Steve Doswell opened the day by telling delegates: “Some day this recession is going to end and when it does we need to be ready.
“Our survival skills may not be what we need when the economy starts to grow, so what do we need?”
Steve Williams did not provide any specific answers for communicators but his Olympic story was a riveting and inspiring one.
From being the “spare man” at the Sydney Olympics to gold winner at the following two Games, it was a gruelling tale – but the themes of “blind trust” and teamwork that emerged truly showed what “peak performance” was all about.
He trained six hours a day for seven days a week and said: “You don’t win the gold medal on the day, you win it in the four years leading up to that day.”
And he added: “Friction in a team is really important. If you have a consensus that means there’s only one idea and if that doesn’t work, you’re stuffed.”
Jane Sparrow started with an example of how lowly paid baristas kept their coffee shop open after the 7/7 bombings in London even though they had been told they could shut because they said people needed somewhere to go.
“What makes a group of baristas who are paid little more than minimum wage defy a direct order and carry on regardless. Imagine a world where all our organisations are full of people like them.
“If everyone in your team was at peak performance, what would that do for the economy at large? It would be awesome!”
Jane said to achieve this you need to turn colleagues into “investors” - people who will put in more than they take out.
She identified five types of leaders needed to make this happen:
1) Prophet: aspirational, inspirational and visionary, the person people want to get behind.
2) Storyteller: they understand the Prophet’s vision and will tell everyone how to get and ‘what does it mean for me?’
3) Strategist: this person makes the vision a reality, they have a plan to implement it.
4) Coach: too few of these in most organisations because it takes more time to coach someone than just tell them what to do – but it’s a really, really powerful role.
5) Pilot: the calm, consistent person with their hand on the tiller, you’ll never see them running round with their hair on fire.
Emma Berry championed the power of colleague voices – and Pfizer has more than 100,000 employees in 150 countries.
When she joined the company there was a culture of employees not talking about their job outside because in a heavily regulated industry there were fears they would “get it wrong”. As a result, Pfizer’s reputation suffered.
She launched the One Voice campaign, which had one goal – to make sure every Pfizer colleague was able to represent the company with confidence and pride.
Her team concentrated on three areas:
1) Setting the record straight
2) Sharing the stories
3) Thought leadership
Starting with colleague focus groups, they tackled tough questions head on like “Don’t you just make money out of people being ill?” The answer is Pfizer’s medicines and vaccines actually help cure and prevent illness to people all over the world.
But Emma explained: “We equip them with facts about how much money we spend on research and how many medicines don’t make it to market.”
One Voice was carried out in many ways including posters on the back of toilet doors, diaries, z-cards, information on the intranet, quarterly magazine, and crucially getting the Pfizer leadership behind it.
The results were impressive. In 2009 before the One Voice campaign, just 49% of Pfizer employees said they were very confident and proud about working for Pfizer. By 2010 it was 80% and in 2011 it was 87%, and the campaign is still going on.
For delegates the ideas continued to come thick and fast and interactive sessions from Doug Shaw and Tony Franco sparked enthusiastic debate on everything from making innovative use of old channels to using emotional appeal and giving more voice to employees.
And the whole event was captured in graphic form by artists from Creative Connection (see picture of Jonny Glover and Marcel O’Leary in action at the top) leading to more discussion as well as a permanent reminder of the day.
 Inspiration came thick and fast at the IoIC Conference – thanks to a double Olympic gold medal winner and a host of other great communicators, as the event truly lived up to its theme of ‘Preparing for peak performance’.
Olympic rower Steve Williams – who won gold at both the Athens and Beijing Games – set the bar high with an opening presentation packed full of emotion and motivation.
The unenviable task of following him fell to author Jane Sparrow who proved very much up to the task with an insightful look at how leaders can build a culture that unlocks the potential of their teams.
Emma Berry, head of internal comms at pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, offered a look at how her team almost doubled the number of employees who said they were ‘proud’ to work there with a campaign called One Voice.
The opportunity of recession was the subject tackled y Russell Grossman, director of comms at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.
There was plenty of interactive revelations from ‘the Unconference’ presented by founder of What Goes Around Ltd, Doug Shaw, while marketing consultant Tony Franco offered an array of examples of innovative thinking by communicators.
Institute chief executive Steve Doswell opened the day by telling delegates: “Some day this recession is going to end and when it does we need to be ready.
“Our survival skills may not be what we need when the economy starts to grow, so what do we need?”
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