Bill Clinton's legacy of PR blunders may be garnished with allegations of furniture pilfering and squandering of public tax dollars on schmancy office digs, but some might
argue he's also left the world of communication with a more positive contribution: a renewed cultural affinity for open forums. The "town hall" meetings so popularized by the
former president have been widely resurrected as a staple PR tactic - not only in economic and public policy debates, but also in business circles.
But while Clinton is perhaps best known for bringing the town hall concept to cyberspace (he conducted the first virtual town hall meeting online in November 1999), many
corporate leaders are taking the practice a step back toward the colloquial, eschewing digital discourse in favor of face-to-face contact between senior management and employees.
Last week, for example, Nextel execs embarked on a 12-city road show that brought the wireless giant's CEO, COO and senior VP of HR in contact with 200-500 employees at a time in
a series of town hall venues.
"We're talking about our accomplishments in 2000 and our business priorities for 2001, including our three-year operating strategy and value goals," says John Clemons, VP of
internal communication at Nextel. The idea being to share the company's competitive vision with employees so they can better understand how they fit into the equation. "We have
16,000+ employees, many of whom have never seen these executives up front. Personal, face-to-face contact is critical."
Nextel employees are invited to submit questions in advance, or to pass up comment cards or take the microphone during each meeting, he says. "Employees need to be able to ask
questions in an unfiltered environment."
Bad News Bearers
No doubt internal communicators' reliance on the town hall concept will increase in the months ahead - particularly if an economic slowdown continues to fuel an ongoing rash of
divestitures, re-orgs and downsizings across North America. Town hall meetings (even if they're done via teleconference or videoconference) can prove critical in instances of
"labor trouble, M&A activity, and other major changes in culture - any time when people need to hear the boss's voice for real and ask questions," says crisis guru Jim
Lukaszewski, president of The Lukaszewski Group in White Plains, N.Y.
"If the CEO spends an hour per month this sends a very powerful message," he adds. It "silences self-anointed interpreters" and grumblers who might otherwise fuel the gossip
mill - and it keeps communication channels flowing in "real time," whereas company news reported in memos or newsletters is usually dead by the time it hits employee mailboxes.
Many practitioners warn, however, that town halls quickly become synonymous with bad news and are viewed as gratuitous if they are staged only in times of crisis. Which is
partly why the marketing division of Sears, Roebuck and Co. holds monthly town hall powwows with its "associates" (employees) to share strategic plans, as well as the outcomes of
recent marketing initiatives - such as sales spikes resulting from the company's "Collegiate Champions" program, which recently honored gridiron athletes from the University of
Oklahoma at the Orange Bowl.
"Our associates like previewing commercials that are in the rough stage, and generally feeling like they are 'in the know,'" says Lee Antonio, director of communications for
marketing and cause-related efforts at Sears. "It's important to have these kinds of established lines of communication throughout the company, so that when you need them, like
in a crisis situation, they're already in place. That way staff know that they can come to the meeting, ask questions, get answers and leave with the facts."
Soapboxes vs. Roundtables
Antonio says Sears' 300-member town halls are interactive to a point; attendees often participate in pulse polls during meetings (using hand-held responders, not unlike the
devices used in ABC's "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.") And staffers are otherwise free to submit questions any time to CEO Alan Lacy through the company's Intranet. But the 75-
minute town hall sessions, for the most part, involve straight presentations from senior execs, followed by Q&A.
This is a common town hall format (Nextel follows a similar programming agenda), but one that's inherently flawed if you ask Hollie Packman, senior consultant with
Communication Development Associates, a Woodland Hills, Calif.-based firm specializing in internal communications strategy.
"We are emphatically not in favor of senior management setting and [preaching] the strategy," says Packman, who instead advocates the use of town hall venues for small
group brainstorming sessions, followed by presentations from each small group to the entire audience. "The most basic level of persuasion is input, and if you have input from
employees you have buy-in. If you say, 'We're going to get a whole bunch of people together and tell them our vision,' it defeats the purpose of a town hall meeting," she
contends.
Packman, whose firm has orchestrated town halls and other internal programs for clients such as Johnson & Johnson, Warner Bros., Palm and MCI Worldcom, says her firm is
most often called in when employees within a department are working toward a similar goal, but not in accordance with a similar vision - and therefore need to get on the same
page. "For example, if it's a pharmaceutical company, the goal may be to sell more drugs, but different groups may have different visions in terms of the strategy they want to
employ to reach that goal," she says. As an aside, Packman adds that her firm is rarely, if ever, engaged by corporate communications departments, but rather is usually hired by
company division managers.
"Employees are going to dictate your strategy whether you want them to or not, because they are ultimately the ones who are going to be implementing it," she continues. "In
town hall meetings, the CEO is there 90% to listen and 10% to answer the question, 'Why are we here?'" Not to preach strategy from the pulpit, she says.
What's the main role for the communications counselor in the town hall equation? According to Lukaszewski, it's not PR's job to dictate messaging strategy either - but rather
to "amplify and interpret" employee sentiment.
"We tend to forget that the boss doesn't really know what's going on [in the corridors and inside people's heads], he says. And even CEOs hear employees' concerns face-to-
face, they may not know what to make of the feedback. You can lead a CEO to a town hall meeting, but can you make him (or her) take a swig of the truth? That the organization is
a live entity that, in the absence of leadership, team-building and listening, will act on its own accord?
(Antonio, 847/286-5569; Clemons, 703/433-4598; Lukaszewski, 914/681-0000; Packman, [email protected])
Speak or Forever Hold Your Peace
Town hall meetings may well be the latest iteration in a slow-brewing movement favoring verbal - as opposed to written - internal communication. Lukaszewski cites GE's Jack
Welch as a grandfather of the trend who "made management science a more verbal process." After pink-slipping 250,000 employees roughly two decades ago, Neutron Jack founded "The
Pit" - a meeting point in Croton, N.Y., where senior managers met weekly, bringing nothing but their brains (no AV). "He forced management to talk their way to success by
verbalizing a clear and clean strategy," Lukaszewski says - the rationale being that strong verbal communication would carry over into a greater level of confidence, and more
natural interactions with employees. In good meetings (town hall or otherwise), "the room moves at verbal speed," Lukaszewski says.
Now, in 2001, many internal communicators are ditching old stand-bys such as videotapes and PowerPoint attachments (sent as follow ups to employees who miss town halls) in
favor of a more verbal chain of communication. Packman says one sheets highlighting "key takeaways" from the meeting distributed to front line managers are more effective than
videos, newsletters and the like. "The front line manager is the most trusted source of information. Research has shown that 80% of people trust their front line manager, while
only 40% trust senior management," she says, citing a study by Larkin & Larkin ("Reaching and Changing Front Line Employees," Harvard Business Review).