Connect with your employees
Enslin had to overcome a great deal of negative momentum when he took the reins of SAP’s North American operations. The economy was in bad shape, and employees were all too ready to believe the worst about the state of business, in general, and their jobs, in particular.
With that in mind, one of Enslin’s first and most essential messages to employees was to turn off the television, put down the newspaper and focus on the future, not the present.
“A lot of employees were really concerned about their jobs, about job reductions in the marketplace,” Enslin says. “People were concerned about where companies were going. There was a lot of negativity, so the biggest thing was really to have a positive approach to it, lay out how the plan was going to unfold over the year, lay it out in an articulate manner to the employees, and we did that from day one.”
Having a great communication plan is only the beginning when promoting a vision. Messages are made to stick in employees’ minds through hard work and repetition on the part of company leadership. And that’s exactly what Enslin set out to do.
In addition to traveling throughout SAP’s North American footprint, Enslin began to create interface opportunities with employees through periodic morning briefings and other frequent forms of messaging.
“Employees would see our messages when they first woke up in the morning,” he says. “Maybe not every morning, but maybe once a week, once every second week. It was all about clear communication from us as the executive leadership team, explaining the success we are having and how we’re facing our challenges.
“After three or four months, we got the message out, people understood our plan moving forward and started to understand how we were going to get there. From there, we needed to elevate our game. You do that by getting together with everyone on the sales team, vice presidents, managers, consulting, field leadership, and start to focus on an agenda.”
As upper management, vice presidents, managers and employees began to focus on the customer-centric vision, a dialogue began, and Enslin started to see the blossoming of another critical element in developing and promoting a vision: employee feedback.
Enslin wanted to personally gather feedback on his trips. He wanted to hear what employees were saying so he could harvest new ideas and correct misconceptions before the rumor mill could begin churning in earnest.
“The feedback was pretty incredible,” Enslin says. “As you’re on the road listening to employees, you start to break down pieces where you start to find the things that normally don’t show up on your desk. You start telling them why customers are buying in a different behavior and how we need to adjust. Once we got that type of feedback, we were able to make adjustments in a very short time. People were willing to give their feedback because they knew that action would be taken.”
When it comes to implementing your own communication strategy in times that are trying or uncertain, Enslin says that, above all, you need to have an unwavering focus on and belief in your vision. If you communicate your vision and strategy with confidence, chances are that confidence will rub off on your employees.
“First, make sure that they know your vision is rock solid,” he says. “Understand the reality of the situation, and the reality of the situation in 2009 was that people wanted to know the truth. You have to let them know the truth and explain to them the difficulty of the situation.
“It was an unconventional time. SAP America was growing at 15 to 20 percent; then all of a sudden the market changes.”
And when the market changes, your customers’ needs change. Which is why you need to communicate with customers in much the same way you do employees: buoying their confidence in your vision and strategy, creating a dialogue and opening feedback channels.
