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It’s the first week of March and on your commute to work you read that new cases of the coronavirus were identified in the United States.

Some days later, you receive an email from your boss that the office is closed and that you’ll be working from home for the foreseeable future.

Working parents wonder what they’re going to do with their children – how am I supposed to be their teacher and lead this conference call? – and millennials, thought to be ‘comfortable in their usage of digital technology,’ cringe at the notion of virtual happy hours.

“At least it’s just temporary,” most of us thought.

Yet fast forward 15 weeks and here we are, many of us still at home, reflecting on how far we’ve come, how our routines have evolved, and whether this will be our new normal. The fact of the matter is that for many of us it will be. In a recent survey conducted for our client, Littler, 50 percent of employers said they were considering requiring more employees to work remotely to reduce physical office costs, and most said they were amenable to accommodating work-from-home requests.

And contrary to what we’d feared in the pandemic’s early days, what many are finding – despite this monumental evolution – is that people at work have remained collaborative, innovative, and creative.

How? At least for us here at Greentarget, we can chalk it up in large part to our core values. Here’s a glimpse at how we’ve applied them to our new work lives.

  • Work Hard. Embracing a work-life balance – when work is literally in your own home – may seem more challenging than ever, but we willfully accept that challenge by remembering that we are fulfilled and energized by embracing serious work on serious issues and achieving results that exceed expectations. As part of Greentarget’s commitment to wellness and in an effort to recharge so we can reengage purposefully, we hold quarterly yoga and mediation sessions for all employees, among a slate of additional wellness initiatives.    
  • Be Authentic. At Greentarget, being authentic means that we listen with empathy, and seek to understand each other, our clients, and the world around us. The need for compassion, particularly for those struggling to balance the needs of their families and work, has never been greater. Offering to dive in or lend a hand when a colleague needs to pull away for a few hours isn’t deemed cumbersome, it’s simply our dedication to one another.         
  • Embrace Curiosity and Drive Creative Thinking. The shift to work-from-home, while it may have been familiar to a handful of organizations, was novel to many. Businesses and individuals alike found themselves searching for new ways to learn, grow and challenge conventions. At Greentarget, we’ve launched a completely virtual internship program, have ditched the conference line and replaced it with video meetings, and held an informative webinar for nonprofits seeking to have their COVID-19 story heard, just to name a few examples.
  • Embrace the Stretch. The last several months have pushed us outside our comfort zones, introducing new routines and habits, but that discomfort has fueled growth. In April, each member of the team submitted a picture of how they have been embracing the stretch during their time in isolation. From learning how to play the keyboard to setting up an indoor 9-hole golf course, it’s safe to say we have a pretty fun and creative group.
  • Grow as Individuals and as a Team. Despite adversity, we can surely say that we’ve come together to ensure we continue to deliver the service and counsel our clients have come to know and expect, and we’ve grown as individuals, as a company and as a partner to our clients as a result. To celebrate, the team has been challenged with individually growing an herb – cilantro, chives, dill, mint, oregano, etc. – provided by Greentarget, which will be used for a cooking or cocktail competition once the shoots start coming in. We also put together ‘The Greentarget Cookbook’ last month, where everyone submitted their favorite recipe – who doesn’t benefit from that?!   

Sure, COVID-19 and the subsequent stay-at-home orders brought confusion and frustration, but it also taught us that even as businesses evolve, corporate values – if they’re a true reflection of your business and your employees – should always ring true, both inside and outside the office.   

Return to COVID-19 Resources for Communicators

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The past few months have seen communications professionals reaching for their crisis manuals over and over. Yet while these manuals may serve as constructive guideposts to start, their use is limited: how many playbooks, for instance, contain guidance on “abrupt, plague-induced lockdown” or “mass anti-racism movement and worldwide protests?”

Some fundamental crisis tenants, like communicating with empathy and transparency, apply in any scenario. But if these latest crises have shown us anything it’s that there’s no one way to plan for everything. Instead, the sudden lockdown and the pressure organizations felt to respond to last week’s events underscore why today’s communicators need an improvisational mindset.

Defining an improvisational mindset

To be clear, improvisation does not mean quickly coming out with vague platitudes and hollow statements expressly designed to meet the expectation for some sort of response. Nor does it mean – in this context, at least – moving ahead heedlessly, without any thought at all.  

Rather, an improvisational mindset encourages communicators to pivot fast to meet changing conditions, move the conversation forward, and back up words with action – the way a musician or comedian adapts to the scene or song at hand and acts in ways which progress it.

Frank Barrett, author of Yes to the Mess: Surprising Leadership Lessons From Jazz, summarizes the challenge well:

We live in a high-velocity world with so many cues and signals that don’t come to us with clear messages. We are always facing incomplete information, and yet we have to take action anyway. Improvisational mindset means you have to leap in and take action to say yes. If you’re just in a problem-solving mindset, your imagination is going to be shrunk. You have to have a mindset that says ‘yes’ to the possibility that something new and interesting and creative can emerge.

What’s more, we perceive improvisations as truly authentic not simply because they’re made up on the spot. But it’s precisely because the performers are so practiced and credible that they can improvise effectively.

In the corporate world, authenticity tends to stem from a company’s track record. Nike, for example, could quickly improvise an ad denouncing racism because it had “built equity with its inclusion of Colin Kaepernick in a 2018 ad campaign.” For many others, the better choice was to donate to relevant groups or outline steps to improve their own diversity.

Embracing “yes, and…”

The “yes, and” approach that drives improv is always useful, but especially in today’s increasingly unpredictable business environment. Fortunately, in the past few months we’ve seen our clients embrace this mindset. Here are a few examples.

  • Internal stakeholder coaching – We’re helping several clients coach their lawyers or consultants on how to leverage earned COVID-19 media coverage and content in client conversations and outreach. The thinking here is that the “last mile” of client outreach, which happens one-on-one, is most impactful – and now more than ever. They’ll have to be ready to think on their feet and lead with their humanity. If your organization’s professionals are unaccustomed to this type of touchpoint, an improvisational approach can help make them more effective in off-the-cuff situations.
  • Flash surveys – A few clients of ours quickly pivoted their quantitative research efforts to better understand emerging client needs and concerns. One law firm, for instance, launched a flash survey of its clients because they had been conducting a survey that felt suddenly, if temporarily, irrelevant. We moved fast to help them generate a new survey that yielded relevant results and insights. Ultimately, the flash survey findings grabbed media headlines in top tier HR trades and national business media.
  • Online focus groups – Similarly, we have several clients launching virtual focus groups as a way to obtain qualitative measures/feedback on various issues and offerings. These insights are critical in empathizing with particular audiences, and in avoiding tone-deaf positioning of products and services.
  • Agile content production – For another client, we developed a three-part podcast series about the impacts of COVID-19 on the energy industry. The process, which would typically take at least a month, was finished in about a week. Similarly, we improvised to quickly edit a survey report – originally fielded before the world was sheltering in place – so it could elucidate how the findings became even more relevant and useful in light of COVID-19.

It’s unlikely we would have conceived of these projects in typical times – but then, atypical times require atypical responses. As communicators, it’s our job to say “yes, and” to new situations and find creative ways to address them head on.

Return to COVID-19 Resources for Communicators

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Most GCs don’t find client alerts useful. Making them better may be easier than you think.

In a recent survey of GCs, we found that their preferred medium for Covid-19-related content was email – by a long shot – but only 35% found email content to be useful.

In other words, the majority of professional services firms’ client alerts, at least on Covid-related topics, aren’t up to snuff.

The good news is that in most cases, it’s not the information itself that’s letting recipients down. What’s missing, rather, is a sense of empathy for the stressed-out, inundated reader. Too often those readers get an email with a subject line that tells them nothing, containing massive blocks of jargon-filled text, loaded with background information they already know. There may be valuable insights hiding in there, but who has the time to hunt them down?

Firms can do better – with just a few tweaks. Here’s how.  

1). Subject lines: just tell us what we’re going to learn. Too many subject lines tell us the subject – “New EEOC guidelines” – without any hint of what the firm has to say about them. That’s only half the battle. A good subject line describes, in a few words, the subject of the alert (e.g., new EEOC guidelines) and what the reader will get out of reading it. For instance: “New EEOC guidelines, explained” ; “New EEOC guidelines – 3 things employers need to know”; or “FAQ: New EEOC guidelines”.

2). Cut to the chase. Everyone knows Covid-19 is unprecedented. Yet alert after alert opens with a preamble reminding us of the fact. No need. You’re talking to informed professionals. Lead with a sentence telling the reader why they need to pay attention (i.e., what’s at stake) then quickly describe what you’re going to offer.  

3). Understand what service your content is providing. The effective client alerts we read tend to include one or both of the following: 1) A clear, concise summary of a new legal development; or 2) Considerations, action-items, and/or insights around a certain topic. What’s key is to recognize which kind you’re writing and develop it with that in mind.

A mere summary – highlighting the key points of a complex law – might be useful if it’s easier to read than the law or regulation itself, and if it comes out before news organizations have covered it in-depth. Likewise, if you’re offering actionable insights, don’t wait until the final third to get them; hyperlink to the context and put your insights in clear, succinct bullet points.

4). Use descriptive subheads, short paragraphs, bullet points and even visuals if you can. Again, just think about how you read emails. You’re basically skimming for what might be useful, right? And what makes skimming easier? Subheads that tell you what’s in the section to follow; bullet points that have ample space between them and aren’t heavy on text; and short, concise paragraphs that aren’t filled with long names of laws/regulatory bodies that everyone knows by acronym anyway.

5). Consider employing a few reliable stock formats. I like knowing, when I get my New York Times morning briefing, that it’s going to follow a familiar format: a few summed-up stories, a recipe and little joke towards the end, and so on. I like, too, that it comes at pretty much the same time every morning. In short, I appreciate it because it tells me, via its format and style, what, where, and when I will find useful/relevant information.

Client alerts may not be so simple – it may not be possible to reliably send them out at the same time. But you can train readers on what to expect when they open one up. It will endear you to them and, as a bonus, it’ll make alerts easier to write.

Some stock formats that we’d suggest:

  • FAQs – Just remember that it’s better to have more questions (and shorter answers) than multi-paragraph answers to a single broad question.
  • Checklist – Providing a checklist of actions/factors to consider on a specific topic – that a reader could print out and keep on their desk – is the ultimate utility. Just keep it to one page.
  • Summary + Insight – In other words, two short sections: 1) What you need to know (i.e., brief summary of issue with hyperlink, and why it’s important – but again, keep it to a minimum); and 2) What to do about it (i.e., professional guidance). Clearly delineate them with the same subheads every time.
  • Panel – Why not just grab direct quotes from your subject-matter experts – (ideally) ones that sound like the way they actually speak – and toss it into a Q&A format? The alert could start with a quick summary of what’s at stake, then collect 3-5 paragraph-long quotes from different sources sharing their perspective/guidance on the topics. It’s a good way to make alerts engaging, personable and easier to write, while showcasing distinctive voices and the breadth of the firm’s intellect.

If for some reason none of those work, just remember your audience: a busy, intelligent, informed individual who doesn’t owe you any of their time and doesn’t need or want to be pandered to.

And remember that now more than ever, people do want to hear from subject-matter authorities. It’s your job (and ours) to deliver that message effectively.

Return to COVID-19 Resources for Communicators

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Our Director of Social & Digital and Director of Content & Editorial Strategy provide a roadmap for using LinkedIn to help professional services firms garner leads and improve their social selling capabilities. In our latest video installment, they offer tips and strategies in the following areas:

  • Effective Thought Leadership
  • Optimizing Your Profile
  • Connecting with Potential Clients
  • Creating Content
  • When & How Often to Post

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How do we design immediately actionable research with longer term implications? In our latest video installment, we explore a few different nimble and flexible approaches to research that help professional services organizations demonstrate true subject matter authority and drive door opening conversations for client development during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

Return to COVID-19 Resources for Communicators

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With COVID-19 disrupting life around the world, staying informed matters more, to more of us, than ever. And that’s causing a somewhat surprising side effect:

Authorities are back. And not just the kind who order you to stay home and wash your hands a lot. I’m talking about true subject matter authorities – those experts who have the knowledge and experience to help us make sense of what’s happening.

With information overload, and particularly misinformation overload, plaguing all of us, now is a big moment for authoritative spokespeople who can provide clarity. “People realize when the chips are down, and everything is on the line, and you can be the next person in the hospital bed, it’s the experts that you want to listen to and the experts you wish you had listened to all along,” Marcia McNutt, president of the National Academy of Sciences, recently told the Associated Press.

As McNutt and others explore this topic, they typically emphasize experts on health-related issues. But even a glance at the news shows us that the COVID-19 crisis is wreaking havoc on nearly every aspect of our lives. With audiences and journalists alike desperate to know what it all means, now is also the time for those with deep understanding of critical issues of all kinds to engage.

That goes for legal minds who can explain how rules and regulations apply to an unprecedented scenario, policy experts who can explain moves by the Trump administration and other officials, and consultants who can speak to how business leaders can guide their organizations through a “new normal.”

At Greentarget, we believe authorities like that not only have the opportunity, but the responsibility to contribute to the conversation at this pivotal time – both by speaking for themselves and by working with journalists to help disseminate their point of view through the media.

Public Trust for Industry Spokespersons Was High Before the Pandemic

One bit of good news: Even before the pandemic hit, trust for industry spokespersons was high, according to the Edelman’s 2020 Trust Barometer, which measures the average percent of faith in institutions like NGOs, business, government and media. Further, the findings showed that 92 percent of employees said CEOs should speak out on issues of the day, including retraining, the ethical use of technology and income inequality.

The public already trusts individuals in positions of authority and wants them to speak out more. That’s significant because it underscores how effective thought leadership – as opposed to more noise – can stand out, even in normal times.

And now, as journalists desperately try to keep up with COVID-19’s unprecedented impact in all its forms, they have an increasing appetite for experts who can provide passionate, insightful views that break down how this will affect businesses, healthcare, employment and other critical issues.

Tips on Engaging With the Media

If you’re new to the game of thought leadership but don’t know where to start when speaking with reporters, keep these points in mind:

  • Be Specific: Journalism and research are and will be increasingly data driven, and spokespeople must adapt their messaging accordingly.
  • Be Credible: As public trust in journalism continues to build, it will be increasingly crucial that spokesperson messages are trustworthy while delivering valuable content.
  • Empathy Counts: As newsroom staffs shrink, media relations strategies must be thoughtful, deliberate and empathetic to reporters.
  • Raise the Thought Leadership Bar: Commercial messaging is already a challenge, but the bar for thought leadership is getting higher. Editors will look for content that not only communicates expertise but provides information their audience needs to know.

Thought leaders have a real opportunity to rise above the noise in a moment when expertise is especially valued.  We need our smartest and best thinkers to engage and direct a smarter conversation. Now more than ever.

Return to COVID-19 Resources for Communicators

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