Forget damage control ... focus on the C.I.

Explaining to shell-shocked victims that somehow it's better if their jobs are eliminated must not be the corporate communicator's primary focus.

Forget Damage Control... go for the C.I.(*) A lot of us have been worrying about change, downsizing, restructuring, etc. Forget it. We've been looking in the wrong direction. Explaining to shell-shocked victims that somehow it's better if their jobs are eliminated must not be the corporate communicator's primary focus. We need to concentrate on what has been the categorical imperative of business since day one: Growth.

Surprised? If so, you have a lot of company. After only eight million or so layoffs, the tide may change although 300,000 layoffs in 1996 put us ahead of the 1995 pace. The chief economist of Morgan Stanley & Co., Stephen Roach, has pronounced that less isn't always more. Michael Hammer of "Reengineering the Corporation" fame soon will be seen getting on board the same boat.

Although a longtime proponent of downsizing, Roach was lately quoted as saying that he now feels that it's "...highly debatable whether plant closings and layoffs ...would result in long-run improvements for the economy and workers in general."

In a recent meeting, Hammer told an audience of managers, "The real point of this is longer-term growth on the revenue side. It's not so much getting rid of people. It's getting more out of people." We agree. The question is "How?"

Roach also shakes a critical finger at businesses who rely on "...slash-and-burn restructuring strategies that have put extraordinary pressures on the work force, rather than investing in new technology and worker development."

When England's journalists found out he'd changed his mind, Roach was vilified in the London press and pilloried on a national television interview which began, according to the Wall Street Journal, with the host asking him if he "wanted to apologize," for all the pain and suffering he caused.

"Is this a joke?" Roach retorted. No. Not to all the Europeans who'd lost jobs it wasn't, and at the time of that interview joblessness in the European Union, which has 30 percent more people than the U.S., had a 10 percent unemployment rate. In fact Europe has seen job cuts every year for the last five years. As a business strategy it hasn't proved broadly effective in generating profits. Quite the contrary, as John Harris, the president and CEO of The Forum Corporation, rightly points out. In a recent study of 131 companies that had been through "intense cost-cutting drives" between 1985 and 1990, only 27 percent were profitable and growing.

Actually, some people without the benefit of Morgan Stanley's research department came to the same conclusion a long time ago.

In the U.S., we have decimated our work force with layoffs. According to a New York Times poll, a job loss precipitated a major crisis for one in 10 adults in this country. This can be a devastating experience, and it's bad for business in general because it encourages us to take our eyes off the ball. If we can't see it, we're not likely to connect.

Disconnect - Reconnect

One of the things that makes us so fearful and distraught by job loss is, as financial guru Peter Lynch recently put it, the "...disconnect between the performance of the economy and how the media report on the economy."

Contrary to the European experience, Lynch points out the U.S. has added 12 million jobs since the last recession bottomed in early 1992. The U.S. national unemployment rate, as of December 1996, was 5.3 percent.

While many are broadcasting that the sky is falling in their neck of the woods, few are trumpeting that a new day is dawning around the corner. Would you like to know how we can make losing a job less traumatic, help front-line workers think like CEOs, and have a heck of a good time doing it along the way? Before I get to how, I need to be candid about something.

More jobs will be lost over the next several years. By some estimates the largest 500 enterprises in the U.S. will cut two million more positions by the time all our computers choke up on the year 2000. Why? Job loss is part of the inevitable process that occurs when industries peak and decline. How many people make typewriters or textiles in the U.S. now, compared to 1977? How many people make computers and write software?

What can we do? We can and must reconnect with the categorical imperative of business: Create growth.

Think Like the CEO

Before we can get the front line to think differently, first we must start thinking like smart CEOs. As the enormously talented corporate communicator Kirk Kahrs once said, "Make the logo smaller and the idea bigger." That means we take a strategic perspective. For communication professionals, the first question we must ask and answer is, what is our objective? You know what? Whether your business has 50 employees or 50,000, the answer will be the same. How do I grow?

When professional communicators focus their collective resources on growing our businesses, we will contribute to a general change in attitude. We will begin to see a shift from negative to positive. We can give people a sense that they have some control over their work lives. When we do that a couple of things happen: Our companies make more money, and people feel better about what's happening - even when they lose their jobs.

This is not a theory. For it to be a theory, it must be correct in every circumstance, and I will acknowledge that there may be circumstances that defeat us. Antoine de Saint-Exupery pointed out that "the injustice of defeat lies in the fact that its most innocent victims are made to look like heartless accomplices. It is impossible to see behind defeat, the sacrifices, the austere performance of duty, the self-discipline and the vigilance that are there - those things the god of battle does not take account of." We can make it possible to see and celebrate the success of the "defeated." Let us not make them defeated, but only briefly routed.

Unreported Victories

At the same time there are many, many victories, many more than are reported. "Hold it!!" I hear this anguished cry. "My CEO doesn't believe that communication can make a real difference at our company." I challenge anyone to identify a business with untapped potential that can't be helped by a thoughtful communication strategy. Here's a fact: More CEOs know this than are willing to admit it. As one big retailing client recently told me, "The communication program is working great, but we consider it a strategic weapon, and our CEO doesn't want our competitors to know what we're doing." This was in response to my request to publish an article about what we'd done. Communication can have an enormous positive impact on people and businesses. David Pincus, director of the MBA program at the University of Arkansas, thinks that more CEOs need to see proof that communication works before they invest in it. If they wait, their competitors may prove it in ways they fear most. You may have a new CEO before he has a chance to change his mind. Think I'm crazy? Read on.

Not-so-innocent Victims

A California-based nail and staple manufacturing plant was acquired by a tool maker with more than 300 divisions. The way this parent company operates, every division is responsible for its own balance sheet. It's a successful company, making quality products that tend to dominate its market niches. Now the acquired firm, which was part of a portfolio of assets, was not doing well - that was the principal reason it was sold.

After about a year of new management, things failed to improve. Fixed costs remained much higher than industry norms; absenteeism was high; the plant was dirty. Quality was terrible. Morale was in the dumpster.

Finally, an investigating team from the new parent company went out to see why things were so incredibly bad. They looked high and low and saw manufacturing problems and waste problems and attitude problems and it started to make sense, but there seemed to be no reason why this plant should have all these problems.

The investigation continued on the production floor, and in a moment of candor one of the workers told the visiting HR director the secret that the people on the machines carried around: They were expected to fail. They had been told they were not expected to work up to the industry standard.

No Such Animal

"We thought you bought this place for a tax write-off" is how this worker said it. The perception of the worker population, mostly minorities from several different cultures, was that it didn't matter what they did, because they weren't supposed to succeed. They were just "...a tax write-off."

The team from the parent company huddled. They felt they had found the key. The first step toward improvement was firing the plant manager. The feeling was that had the manager adhered to the categorical imperative of business, the workers would never have believed the write-off lie. Whether he had or hadn't promulgated it, it was his job to communicate that the goal of the factory was not a loss, but a profit.

Next the team called a meeting with key employees and started communicating real information. The first move was exploding the tax write-off myth. These people were told the unvarnished truth: There was no such animal as a tax write-off, at least as far as this company was concerned. The acquirer was not in the tax write-off business, but the usual business of making things and selling them at a profit.

It was a big shock. It was a bigger shock when they were told that if they didn't start turning things around, the plant would be closed. Next everybody was called to a meeting where financial facts and goals were made clear. Full disclosure was made of what it cost to operate, and of the profit-and-loss situation. Now people were waking up.

The entire operation was given a very aggressive cost reduction goal that would put it in the same league as the rest of their industries. They were promised whatever expert help or technical resources they needed. They were made responsible for the results. Failure meant the end of the business. Success meant that, for now at least, they could keep their jobs.

The workers huddled. They asked for help. They changed things. They started enjoying what they were doing. They cut production costs, cut waste, cut absenteeism, cut worker compensation claims. At the end of six months they were making terrific progress. At the end of the year they hit the goals that they had previously thought impossible. They felt great. The experience was energizing. That was the good news. The bad news was that the progress wasn't enough. Although the manufacturing process had been brought into line with the industry at large, fixed costs they could not control eventually spelled doom for their plant.

Line Up the Economists

John Kenneth Galbraith is credited with saying that "if all the economists on the planet were laid out head-to-toe, it wouldn't be a bad thing." On the other hand, if the economists are starting to think that cutting jobs to boost corporate earnings is a bad idea, then maybe we shouldn't. And if not, then what's the implication for corporate communicators? No one will miss the thrill of layoff announcements (although acquisitions and large-scale strategic moves causing job loss will never stop). Galbraith also said that, "All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: It was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership."

Our job carries the same categorical imperative as our CEO's job: Grow the business.

Stock market analysts demand it, stockholders demand it, employee opportunity demands it. If your business isn't growing, the chances are it's shrinking, so you'd better be demanding it too. Maybe your company isn't erupting at the 30 percent annual growth that companies such as Staples are achieving in a growing market. Maybe it's 3 percent growth that's coming out of a competitor's share in a flat or declining market. Either way, it's growth and everyone would rather see the sales and profit line going up on the graph than the other way. Make no mistake about it, those record stock prices we see will not remain at their lofty levels unless company fundamentals continue their upward march. We need to face the facts, not dance around them.

Kant's categorical imperative was moral. Ours is, too: We must communicate that our mission is to grow the business, but we must tell the truth while so doing.

It's not just a growing stock price that drives growth, and it's not simply a paycheck that delivers job satisfaction. We are social creatures. We want to be winners. We want to be part of something we can be proud of. We want to feel that our efforts create something of value. To do that we need to know stuff. At the most basic level we need to know what our jobs are and whether we're doing them properly.

Communicating for growth is the essence of good coaching: It's teaching, managing, encouraging, informing, enabling - all done at the right time with a positive spirit.

Dancing on the Grave

When the workers in the nail plant found out that they could affect their destiny, they grabbed the wheel with both hands. Every cost factor that they could control came down. Where goldbricking had been winked at, it was no longer tolerated. Expertise was borrowed and applied. The plant was clean. People did not walk past scrap paper, they picked it up. Quality was the equal of any competitor. When the announcement came that the plant would be closed anyway, no one was surprised. Why? Because by that time they understood the economics of the business.

They knew that they were being beaten in the marketplace largely on the basis of fixed transportation costs that they could not control. The workers decided to celebrate the closing of their plant with a final meeting at a restaurant that was located inside the local bowling alley. They ate steaks and they drank beer and they celebrated the success they had achieved. Even though the plant hadn't made it, the people had. They proved they could understand how the business worked and produce as efficiently and effectively as any plant in their industry. They were proud of that.

They had a right to be proud. This confidence and awareness and sense of responsibility were characteristics that they would carry on to their next jobs and they knew they could do it again. They had demonstrated they were valuable. They weren't afraid. They knew they would find other work because they knew what made business work. They would be smarter about selecting their new jobs than they ever had been. They enjoyed themselves that night and danced on the grave of the plant that had set them free.

People want to know what they are expected to do. They want to know where they stand. They want to know how they can excel. They want to be part of something larger, and creating business growth, with all the associated opportunities and benefits, fits the definition of "something larger" for quite a few of us.

* the Categorical Imperative

Drew Suss is a consultant and writer based in Deerfield, Ill. You can E-mail him at [e-mail]