You never know what could happen when you take time off from work. For Chris Doherty, a doctor's appointment took him away from the office for a day - and as luck would have
it, that was the day Doherty was named the winner of the 2006 Pinnacle Award from the Washington, DC chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators.
"I didn't expect it at all," recalls Doherty, who received the award in an April 5 ceremony. "One of the directors in my group nominated me for the award, but I was not aware
of that. I was out for a minor medical procedure and all of a sudden I got a flurry of congratulatory messages on my BlackBerry."
Doherty, the vice president of internal communications for Sprint Nextel Corp. in Reston, VA, was cited for his achievements in offering clear and concise messaging
relating to the merger of the telecommunications giants Sprint and Nextel.
Working within a tight time frame mandated by federal regulatory requirements (December 2004 to August 2005) and addressing a large audience spread across multiple locations (a
total of 80,000 employees), Doherty was challenged to address thorny issues arising from the merger. And if one were to expand the thorny issues into botanical analogies, Doherty
realized from the start that he needed to nip the potential for false information in the bud before it germinated.
"We began something called The Rumor Mill on our intranet," he recalls. "This allowed employees to anonymously submit rumors they may have heard about the merger, and it
allowed us to address them. We decided to co-opt our own grapevine."
Indeed, no rumor was too silly for Doherty to answer. "The silliest rumor was when someone wanted to know whether it was true that we were going to undo the merger," he adds.
Straight Talk
Yet Doherty notes many of the questions raised were highly serious: Inquiries regarding potential layoffs, disruption of benefits, employee relocations and the ability to
combine Sprint and Nextel's very different technological platforms. Doherty coordinated a company-wide Webcast with the CEOs of Sprint and Nextel that addressed the major
questions relating to both the new internal schematics and how the newly merged company would be able to compete against its telecommunications rivals.
Doherty also helmed the broadcast celebration on the day the merger closed. The broadcast simultaneous brought together six satellite-linked locations and a Webcast
presentation.
The IABC/Washington cited the ROI on Doherty's efforts when citing him for the Pinnacle Award: Gary Forsee, the Sprint Nextel CEO, said the efforts of employees to put the
corporate integration into place was six-to-nine months ahead of schedule, Goldman Sachs issued a statement in October 2005 praising the company and noting it "remains on
track to avoid any significant disruptions related to the merger," and Bloomberg reported 20 out of 25 analysts who follow Sprint Nextel rated the stock as a "buy" due in
large part to the smooth merger.
For Doherty, his award his evidence of the importance of concise corporate messaging aimed at the workforce. "Internal communications was engaged very early on," he says.
"Management made sure the employees were front and center and were updated on our plans for the future."
Contact: Chris Doherty, [email protected].