Next Steps: The Middle Manager “Clay
Layer”
For each group of stakeholders, Gotham then developed specific
communications messages, a plan for which media to use, and
a general timeline. Space limitations require that only one
stakeholder group be considered in depth here.
In speaking with colleagues at many companies, Gotham’s
Director of Corporate Diversity found that virtually everyone
has the same experience. Middle managers tend to offer the
highest potential leverage and the greatest challenges. One
colleague referred to this as the “clay layer.”
It must be said, though, that no research was found on this
subject.
The rest of this paper focuses on communicating with and engaging
middle managers.
Engaging the Essential Clay Layer
of Middle Managers
The goals of Gotham International’s new diversity and
inclusion strategy are to help increase the innovation and
creativity of Gotham’s increasingly diverse workforce
and to successfully build market share in several new markets.
As an integral part of this strategy, the middle manager
communication and engagement plan is designed to achieve
the following goals:
Create a positive impact for all employees
and for Gotham’s business results. Teams are
asked to do their existing work in new ways that more creatively
and effectively leverage diversity. The goal is a more supportive
and productive work environment that makes full use of everyone’s
perspectives, experience, and abilities. This directly integrates
diversity and inclusion into each employee’s work program.
Generate middle manager motivation and ownership. Gotham understands that its middle managers must
accept accountability for achieving results in new ways.
These managers will be given responsibility to implement
a key step in the new strategy—engaging the employees they support
in action planning. The middle managers will hold meetings
with their teams to brief the team on new inclusion concepts
and to facilitate the team’s action planning—they
will communicate with their teams in a focused manner.
Ensure consistency. Gotham’s middle
managers are generally familiar with diversity and inclusion
from past training and company communications. They are,
however, taking on a new level of involvement by communicating
leading-edge inclusion concepts and developing and implementing
business-aligned action plans. It is important that the middle
managers convey a consistent message about diversity and
inclusion at Gotham and that the action plans be aligned
with business needs. The communications plan will provide
tools and information to help realize these goals.
Build upon
existing credibility. Employee opinion surveys show
that Gotham employees see their immediate supervisor as the
most credible source of company-related information. Having
the immediate supervisor present the information and collaborate
with their team members in developing their action plans helps
ensure that the employees believe in the information and the
action plan.
As is common in many companies, middle managers’ operating
environment presents added challenges to the diversity communications
plan. Upper management looks to middle managers to “get
the job done.” Typically they must continually find
creative ways to use limited resources in meeting near-term
objectives. Individual contributors expect middle managers
to represent their needs to “the company”. It
is common for middle managers to feel overcommitted, under-appreciated,
and short on time and resources.
To succeed in
this environment, Gotham knew that its diversity communications
plan must meet the 4 Cs:
Concise. Be
as brief as possible so minimal preparation time is required.
Clear. Be crystal clear with minimal
“diversity lingo.” What must be done and how
to do it must be readily apparent.
Content. This work must help get their job
done. The desired outcome must be expressed in terms meaningful
to the job of middle manager. If middle managers’ jobs vary widely, several
versions of the communications package with tailored “content”
might be needed. Gotham found that with careful crafting
they were able to use one message linked to their business
plan.
Connected, to their annual objectives.
Holding the meetings, doing the planning, and implementing
the plans will be part of the middle managers’ annual
performance objectives.
“What” and “How”
of Middle Manager Communications
Gotham determined that middle managers should personally conduct
meetings with the group or team they support. The high level
agenda for this meeting is:
- Help their group or team learn more about diversity
and inclusion at Gotham.
- See ways in which these concepts helped project teams
succeed.
- Develop their own plan for how to work differently and
get similar benefits.
A toolkit was developed to provide Gotham’s middle
managers with the following:
- A facilitator’s guide that includes:
- A suggested agenda for the meeting(s). This provided
a standard meeting design and helped ensure a focus
on meaningful business results. Managers in a production
environment might choose to cover the material in
several meetings.
- Discussion points for each part of the meeting.
This provided a base of knowledge for the middle managers.
- A list of frequently asked questions (FAQs) with
acceptable answers. This positioned the middle manager
to answer typical questions, and reduced the support
effort needed from Gotham’s HR and corporate
diversity teams.
- Intranet and Internet resources for further information.
This guided middle managers to resources with pre-screened
content.
- Guidelines about topics to avoid or refer to subject
matter experts. This helped middle managers avoid
getting into areas that needed strong subject matter
expertise.
- A standard presentation to use. This helped convey
a consistent message across the company.
- Videotapes showing Gotham International success stories.
The videos showed to employees actual team members talking
about their personal and business successes. (If actual
teams are unavailable, scripted professional actors are
one alternative.)
The toolkit was deployed across the company. Strong guidance
helped ensure that the action plans had meaningful business
impact. While generating awareness was allowed as part of
action plans, the primary focus had to be on skill building
and team effectiveness. A relatively tight completion timeframe
of six months helped obtain results while providing scheduling
flexibility so each manager could implement the toolkit consistent
with their individual business needs.
Key Learnings
Gotham derived strong benefits from focusing on middle manager
communications and engagement. Employee morale increased and
teams became more productive. While it is a bit too early
to tell with certainty, it appears that product innovation
and share of new markets are increasing and that employee
complaints are decreasing. Following is a list of key learnings:
- Plan the entire communications goals, timeline, content,
and deployment.
- Customize the goals and message to the middle manager
operating environment and typical work objectives.
- Hold managers accountable for effective deployment through
annual performance objectives.
- Provide content, tools, and references so that it is
easy to do and to help ensure consistent messaging.
- Advise managers as to what topics should be referred
to subject matter experts.
- Focus on creating a supportive and productive work environment,
and on business results.
Next Steps
Initial deployment and the first round of action plans generated
an increased focus on diversity and inclusion as drivers of
business results. The toolkit will be adapted into a standard
planning tool. Future annual work program planning will consciously
take inclusion into account so that leveraging diversity becomes
a way of life and work at Gotham International, Ltd.
