Section 4.9. 9. Public Announcements

4.9. 9. Public Announcements

As we discussed earlier, it's important to visibly demonstrate support for your process program. If the program is seen as being an integral part of the business and an important part of the overall corporate culture, then the program will probably be embraced. That's why it's important that executive management shows they are behind the program. And that's why it's important to tie incentives to the program.

Along these same lines, it's important to keep the message of process improvement and program commitment alive in the day-to-day culture of the organization. A good way to promote this is through public announcement.

Many companies are required to report how they are doing financially. They issue quarterly and annual reports. Those are forms of public announcements. You should consider doing the same thing, internally or even externally, for your process program.

There are many ways you can do this, but they all aim to hit the same target: communicating your process commitment and your process achievements as forms of business success. From time to time, the company should publicly announce its progress and its goals in terms of improvement. Some ways of making these kinds of public announcements are:

Newsletters

Regular articles in company newsletters that report on process program use and efficiencies in the organization

Press releases

Sent to local and national media sources that announce program success, extensions, and recognition

Posters

Displayed around the facilities that remind people of the company's reliance on process and the part it plays in the organization's overall identity

Inserts

Perhaps in pay envelopes or company communiqués that ask for improvement ideas, nominations for process awards, or new support suggestions

There are a couple of good reasons for supporting your program with these techniques.

4.9.1. It Makes Good Business Sense

Public announcements of your company's commitment to process and its evolving success with process tells a good business story. It's one that Wall Street is learning to pay attention to. More and more, financial analysts and institutions are including process-related questions in their assessments of corporate value and stability. What was your IT spending last year? How critical is the growth of IT in your strategic plans? Do your IT units have a process program? What kind of program is it? How is it being managed? When you begin to communicate inside and outside that process is part of your business tool set, you gain the perception that you take your business seriously, that you are working to strategically position it for continued success.

4.9.2. Shows Commitment at the Highest Level

When the executive suite invests in public announcements of process progress, the rest of the organization will begin to pick up on the vibe. Of course, the communication must reflect a true commitment to process improvementthat's what the line force will really pick up onbut the visible expression goes a long way to expressing that commitment.

You've seen how it's important to expect only the kind of commitment to the program that you're willing to make. This idea of public announcement, of open announcements, is an extension of that. These techniques keep the voice of commitment resonating in the hallways. I have just completed an engagement with a major Medicare claims management company. Naturally, any company dealing with Medicare claims must comply with a host of regulations; it's essential to the integrity of the business. Everywhere you walked around the placeand this was a huge campusyou would see signs that read, "Compliance. It's not a style job. It's a job style." That's the kind of message that after a while really takes hold in the culture of the organization.