A childhood favourite gets a professional overhaul
Guest post from Katharine Pierce CMP, Director of Professional Development for IABC Canberra.
When I took on the role of Professional Development Director for IABC Canberra this year, I wanted to find fun, challenging opportunities for our members to help them develop their communications careers, especially in the area of strategic advice.
This area is one communication professionals don’t often get the opportunity to ‘practice’. Exercises to help build confidence engaging with executive leadership, developing advisory skills, or responding in situations of organisational crisis are often limited to very specific scenarios, like a natural disaster.
This is where Corporate Snakes and Career Ladders bridges the gap between theory and practice, by using role-play to navigate a series of increasingly complex – and diverse – scenarios to make strategic decisions for the benefit of a large, fictional multi-national organisation called Globocorp.
“Board game on steroids”
In July IABC Canberra was fortunate enough to host a Corporate Snakes and Career Ladders workshop facilitated by Australia's leading Alignment Strategist Zora Artis GAICD, SCMP, FAMI, CMP. Zora is the Australia lead for Archetypical, the company behind Corporate Snakes and Career Ladders.
Fellow IABC Canberra board members who had previously done the workshop described their experience as a “board game on steroids” and, much like the original classic, your goal is to move through the board avoiding the snakes and hoping you land on one of those fortuitous ladders.
Instead of dice you are presented with a series of scenarios you respond to in the role of Carmen Spinoza, Communications Director of Globocorp. Your answers to the scenarios determine how you move forward in the game.
“Working as a team”
My team for the workshop was made up of communication professionals from the public and professional sector which meant discussions related to each scenario were debated and considered through a number of diverse lenses.
I found it interesting to see the differences in decision rationales made by colleagues in the public sector. Recognising these distinctions, Zora created a workshop specifically for those who work in Government communications.
“Watch out for those snakes”
Throughout the game you are thrown curve balls in the form of wild cards that can influence the final results. You may also make a decision that sees you move forward but ultimately end up falling backwards because you landed on a pesky snake. The decisions, and their subsequent results, also capture the nuanced details of interpersonal relationships through the awarding, and deduction, of ‘influence points’.
One memorable result was when we lost influence points with a colleague due to their jealousy of our success - an unfortunate, yet occasionally realistic, scenario than can occur in the workplace.
“Communications is a critical business function”
Working as Carmen you not only have to make strategic decisions in response to different scenarios but consider the way you show leadership through your relationship with the CEO and other members of the company c-suite.
The workshop gave me an insight into a number of advisory styles and how I can use them to feel confident in the decisions and advice I give to senior executive. It also tested my ability to consensus-build under pressure, give insights into my own behaviour and cement how important it is for communications to have a seat at the c-suite table.
To find out more about how you help your team improve their skills, get in touch with Zora direct: zora@artisadvisory.com or +61 410 565625. www.archetypical.org.
Katharine Pierce CMP is an award-winning strategic communicator with more than a decade of experience in digital and corporate communications, project management, stakeholder engagement, public relations and marketing.
She has a particular interest in the role growth hacking plays in the start-up sector and currently supports communications professionals in the Canberra region through her role as Director of Professional Development for IABC Canberra.
In addition to working in the government and education sectors, she spent many years volunteering for TEDx Canberra, pursuing her interest in supporting people to bring their passion and ideas to life on stage.
First job? Here's three winning insights to kick off your career.
In this guest post, Yulia Zaytseva, Media & Communication Professional shares a Generation Z perspective on her Corporate Snakes and Career Ladders learning experience.
New professionals often find it hard to navigate the corporate environment. Without experience, corporate politics and etiquette can often make aspiring executives feel like they are taking one step forward and two steps back.
Experts predict Generation Z will work 18 jobs across six careers in their lifetimes[1], so it made sense for me, as one of them, to invest in my professional development and seek my own answers as a new professional.
In 2020, I attended the Corporate Snakes and Career Ladders workshop in Sydney organised by IABC NSW and hosted by Zora Artis, CEO of Artis Advisory and seasoned IABC leader. Knowing Zora from previous IABC events, I simply couldn't miss the opportunity to learn from her expertise in the communication industry.
Lesson 1: Aim for the moon and you will reach the stars
Corporate Snakes and Career Ladders training participants took on the role of Carmen Spinoza, Communication Director at Globocorp, a fictional multi-national organisation. Even though Carmen's position was much more senior than mine, I saw great value in exposing myself to various high-level challenges she had to face as a leadership team member.
Junior staff members don't usually get a chance to sit in strategic sessions, so taking part in Corporate Snakes and Career Ladders can teach a lot about the nature of boardroom decision-making, strategic thinking, and corporate networking.
The insights and experience we get from such training sessions and talking to more senior workshop participants can help as we advance in our careers.
Lesson 2: We look forward to the "ladders," but it's the "snakes" that create life's greatest opportunities
Mastering the art of informed decision-making and maximising the options available to us is essential to success.
Our decisions are significantly impacted by the environment, such as workplace culture, work colleagues, leadership structure, etc. In the game, like most things in life, we win or lose points with every decision we make because every decision has its own set of consequences.
Experienced communication advisers are good at managing risks and calibrating their decisions based on the current climate, facts, and data, while also following ethical communication standards.
Participating in simulation activities can be beneficial for practicing calculated decision-making. When we impersonate a fictional character, we are exposed to new ideas, different situations, and unfamiliar scenarios that challenge us and push us to think outside the box.
Lesson 3: Thinking two, three, four steps ahead
Strategic thinking is one of the most valuable skills communicators can have. Pausing to think strategically before acting will pay off time and again. Strategy underpins all good decisions, whether it's mapping out a global communication campaign, manoeuvring corporate politics to achieve career progression, or living a balanced, happy, and fulfilled life.
Planning one move at a time is fine for beginners, but if you want to work with the best in the industry and climb the career ladder, you need to be able to plan two, three steps ahead and adapt your strategy on the fly when things don't work out as planned. That's what Corporate Snakes and Career Ladders training helps you to practice.
The game challenges you to bring the bigger corporate picture into focus to make strategic recommendations that help you gain reputation points with the executive team and position yourself and your team in the best possible situation to win. Mastering these skills in real life will ultimately help you advance your career and gain recognition as a truly strategic adviser.
#careeradvancement #strategicadviser
[1] https://mccrindle.com.au/insights/blogarchive/gen-z-and-gen-alpha-infographic-update/
What type of adviser are you?
This article will help you explore your personal advisory style. We have created a self-assessment tool which will help you understand your own preferences in how you like to advise others. Click here to complete the self-assessment.
SPOILER ALERT! We recommend you complete the questionnaire before reading on.
Have you done it? If so, read on….
For those who have completed the self-assessment, here’s a bit more about the Strategic Adviser archetypes and why they work.
One of the most popular tools we have helps people think about what type of adviser they are. In fact, being a ‘strategic adviser’ comes in five different flavours.
So what are the five? And which one are you? An easy way to think about it is via the analogy of a restaurant.
Imagine you are walking into an expensive restaurant for a date with the one you love. You will encounter several different people — all experts in their own field, and all ready to give you advice on how to have the best possible experience. But they will all do it in different ways.
Welcome to “Augustus”, your strategic adviser restaurant.
In fact, maybe your first adviser is one you encounter before you get to the restaurant. You meet a previous customer (or read an internet review): “Aah, you’re going to ‘Augustus’ for dinner! Wow! You must totally have the ‘Barcelona Chop’. It’s their specialty. Divine. And for dessert? There is only one choice. Of course you need to order the ‘Caramel Salée With Meringue’. It’s to die for.” This adviser’s heart is in the right place, and they generally believe that those choices are the best for you. But they have jumped to solution and ‘yelped’ it out before even having a detailed discussion. This is a great approach in a crisis: ‘just tell me what to do’. Yelping out the solution immediately they can save time and make your life easier. But the challenge for this type of adviser — the yelper— is that jumping straight to solution or action sometimes works but is not always the best approach.
After Martha shows you to your table, you’ll meet your waiter, William. This is the third adviser archetype. His job is transactional. He will give you a menu of options and then write down what you say. He’ll deliver whatever you ask. Maybe there will be a little conversation about options, but essentially the waiter’s job is to deliver. Sometimes as an adviser, that is what you need to do. A senior leader needs something and you need to deliver. There is a time and a place for this approach. But doing it too often is career-limiting.
As you choose your meal, you’ll maybe want some wine. Enter Salma, your sommelier. As your adviser, her job is to have a conversation to understand your needs, the context (the meal you have already chosen; your budget; your tastes) and then make a recommendation. At the beginning of your conversation, she doesn’t know your needs, your context, and there is no clear solution from her list of hundreds of options. If it was a crisis and you needed immediate wine, then the yelper is the adviser for you. But the sommelier will explore the issues, make recommendations and guide you towards a good outcome.
Your final archetype is Christiane, the chef. She’s the super expert — and has the Michelin stars, certificates and qualifications to prove it. In her hands, the mundane becomes dynamic. Her technical expertise is second to none and if you need an expert to solve your problems she’s the one for you. Like some chefs, she can be hard to handle. Unlike the maître d’, she doesn’t need interpersonal skills. In fact, you probably won’t even meet her. But her solution will be the thing that you rave about later. As an adviser, she’s the expert and the one that will go away and build a solution to meet your needs.
Successful business partners and strategic advisers will make sure there is an alignment between three components of the relationship:
- What does the buyer want? Sometimes, actually, it is a waiter problem, pure and simple. Just do it. Going in with a sommelier approach is just going to annoy people.
- What is the job? This might be a job description, an RFP or just an email request from one of your colleagues. You need to identify what type of response is needed.
- Finally, as a person, where do you get your energy? Plenty of people ask us, “how do I become a maître d’?” but actually when we quiz them in detail it is apparent they are most happy being a chef.
This typology is a bit of fun, and it comes in useful when diagnosing business partnering relationships. One of the big challenges in consulting or business partner relationships is that the ‘buyer’ and the ‘seller’ can sometimes have different ideas of why the partnership exists.
If you want to know more, please get in touch: info@archetypical.org
The RECIPE for success
Welcome to fourth challenge of our #testingtimes campaign!
To help you explore your influencing styles, we created a self-assessment tool. Click here to complete the short quiz.
SPOILER ALERT! We recommend you complete the quiz before reading on.
Once you have completed the quiz, you can ask for a personalised report and 30 minute coaching session to help you improve your own influencing style.This costs GBP50 or A$90 + tax where applicable.
Have you done the quiz? If so, read on….
During our business simulations we often explore how important it is for a senior executive to adapt their influencing style to the objective and the audience. While many leaders do this intuitively, this is a skill we can all learn and practice.
Indeed, there is a strong market in courses on Influencing Styles. Companies and French and Raven, Musselwhite and Plouffe and the fantastic work of Positive Power and Influence. But the challenge we find is that, while people can (mostly) remember their own preferred style, they have trouble naming, let alone recognising, the other styles in the model.
Influencing styles are like languages. We all have our preferred, our default, and sometimes a second or third language we can speak well. And many of the readers of this blog will be able to recognise other languages even if you don’t speak it.
That’s why we created RECIPE. “R-E-C-I-P-E” is a mnemonic for the six most common influencing styles used in business. Building on the ingredients from existing models, RECIPE can help you understand not only your own style, but be able to spot other styles in action.
Without further ado, here are six archetypes to remember your RECIPE for success:
| Style | What it sounds like… | Use it when … | Tip! |
| Reward | “As a sign of good faith…” “Here’s a little extra” |
… don’t need anything immediate … want to establish long-term rapport |
Every time you work late, for nothing, you are investing in the relationship with a “reward” behaviour |
| Exchange | “What can I do for you?”
“Here’s the deal” |
… you both have something the other wants … short-term |
This is great for sales or to motivate a team with a clear goal in sight. |
| Connect | “This is what we can achieve together” “Yes, we can!” |
… want to create an atmosphere of unity … have a shared goal |
Find the high level goal you are both aiming for. Good for internal communication. |
| Inform | “I recommend this for three reasons” “Evidence suggests that…” |
Your audience will be persuaded by facts and figures | Use it sparingly or when you have an airtight case. Remember: not the only tool in your arsenal. |
| Picture | “Imagine what our business will be like in 2021” “Make America Great Again” |
… you want to tap into emotions … paint a picture of success |
Powerful way to open and close a presentation. |
| Exit | “Let’s take a break!” “Let me reflect and come back to you.” |
… sense you are not getting anywhere … need to change gear … feel you are the wrong person |
This is not bluffing or walking away. Make sure you establish a time and place to reconnect. |
Now put it into practice
Using RECIPE can help you improve your chances of getting what you want, and in a way that works for the other person. A great influencer can mix and match styles depending on the situation. But as with everything mastery takes practice.
Start by taking the time to consider your preferred approach, then start practicing other styles in low-risk environments (like a business simulation!) and, then, start mixing and matching.
Good luck!
Strategic advisers: five perspectives.
In our Corporate Snakes and Career Ladders events, one of our goals is to combine fun with practical tools to help participants reflect on their personal advisory style and think what it means for their own behaviour, and how they work with others.
One of the most popular tools we have helps people think about what type of adviser they are. In fact, being a ‘strategic adviser’ comes in five different flavours.
So what are the five? And which one are you?
Imagine you are walking into an expensive restaurant for a date with the one you love. You will encounter several different people — all experts in their own field, and all ready to give you advice on how to have the best possible experience. But they will all do it in different ways.
In fact, maybe your first adviser is one you encounter before you get to the restaurant. You meet a previous customer (or read an internet review): “Aah, you’re going to ‘Augustus’ for dinner! Wow! You must totally have the ‘Barcelona Chop’. It’s their speciality. Divine. And for dessert? There is only one choice. Of course you need to order the ‘Caramel Salée With Meringue’. It’s to die for.” This adviser’s heart is in the right place, and they generally believe that those choices are the best for you. But they have jumped to solution and ‘yelped’ it out before even having a detailed discussion. This is a great approach in a crisis: ‘just tell me what to do’. Yelping out the solution immediately they can save time and make your life easier. But the challenge for this type of adviser — the yelper — is that jumping straight to solution or action sometimes works but is not always the best approach.
As you enter the restaurant, you will meet your next adviser: the maître d’. Let’s call her Martha. Her main job is to ensure you have a good experience, and to marshal a team of specialists to meet your specific needs. Martha is supportive, helpful and attentive. She knows her stuff but doesn’t parade her knowledge. At times, she will bring in experts to enhance your experience; at other times she will develop a relationship with you to understand your needs in more detail. If you are a looking for a quick transaction, go to a different restaurant. Martha will ensure you feel better after leaving; and will place your needs above her own. As you share a taxi home with your loved one, you probably won’t even remember her name: but she’s the one who made it all happen.
After Martha shows you to your table, you’ll meet your waiter, William. This is the third adviser archetype. His job is transactional. His job is to give you a menu of options and then write down what you say. He’ll deliver whatever you ask. Maybe there will be a little conversation about options, but essentially the waiter’s job is to deliver. Sometimes as an adviser, that is what you need to do. A senior leader needs something and you need to deliver. There is a time and a place for this approach. But doing it too often is career-limiting.
As you choose your meal, you’ll maybe want some wine. Enter Salma, your sommelier. As your adviser, her job is to have a conversation to understand your needs, the context (the meal you have already chosen; your budget; your tastes) and then make a recommendation. At the beginning of your conversation, she doesn’t know your needs, your context, and there is no clear solution from her list of hundreds of options. If it was a crisis and you needed immediate wine, then the yelper is the adviser for you. But the sommelier will explore the issues, make recommendations and guide you towards a good outcome.
Your final archetype is Christiane, the chef. She’s the super expert — and has the Michelin stars, certificates and qualifications to prove it. In her hands, the mundane becomes dynamic. Her technical expertise is second to none and if you need an expert to solve your problems she’s the one for you. Like some chefs, she can be hard to handle. Unlike the maître d’, she doesn’t need interpersonal skills. In fact, you probably won’t even meet her. But her solution will be the thing that you rave about later. As an adviser, she’s the expert and the one that will go away and build a solution to meet your needs.
—
This typology may be a bit of fun, but it comes in useful when diagnosing business partnering relationships. One of the big challenges in consulting or business partner relationships is that the ‘buyer’ and the ‘seller’ can sometimes have different ideas of why the partnership exists.
Successful business partners will make sure there is an alignment between three components of the relationship:
- What does the buyer want? Sometimes, actually, it is a waiter problem, pure and simple. Just do it. Going in with a sommelier approach is just going to annoy people.
- What is the job? This might be a job description, an RFP or just an email request from one of your colleagues. You need to identify what type of response is needed.
- Finally, as a person, where do you get your energy? Plenty of people ask me, “how do I become a maître d’?” but actually when I quiz them in detail it is apparent they are most happy being a chef.
The trick to successful business partner relationships is ensuring an alignment between what the customer wants, the job requirement and where you get your energy.
And this applies not just to those in marketing or PR but also to professionals in other fields such as HR, Legal, IT etc. In fact, we regularly sit down with the other functional leaders in my business where we explore these issues and think about what that means. (Perhaps the same is true in your organization – how often do you sit down with your peers from other functions and think about what your organization really needs from its functional experts?)
If you would like to hear more about this methodology and how to move from one archetype to another, come to one of our workshops or get in touch directly.