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Dummies Guide to Internal Communications

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At the absolute basic level, the solitary purpose of ‘internal communication’ is to make sure that everyone in the team remains ‘on the same’ page at all times.

From the organizational perspective, it helps unity of purpose and action – leading to a unified goal of success for everyone. The employees, on the other hand, consider themselves a worthy part of the narrative when they hear company news much before the world hears it – just as, and more importantly, when they feel that their communication with the organisation is a dialogue and not a directive.

Fortunately, the prerequisites for that overall agreement are just as uncomplicated:

  • Clarity of (purpose of the) message in either or every (vertical + lateral) direction;
  • Catalytic medium for a clear message (some mediums are more suited for some purposes);
  • Correct consumption of message (precise understanding of and action upon the message by the staff);
    and most importantly,
  • Command structure walking the message (if the CEO is messy, no amount of communication can extract discipline from the subordinates)

In other words, Internal communications ought to facilitate decision making at the top via quality ‘floor feedback’ and encourage employee participation and output via clear and compassionate responsibility delegation – leading to overall benefit of the organization, the management and the employees.

It goes without saying, however, that though elementary, the aforementioned, quite like preparation of a project report, takes planning, practice and passion. The only favourable difference is that preparation of ‘internal communication’ blueprint is principally a process of adapting a singular message to its finite modes of delivery – within the finite realm of an organisation:

| A | Formal Face-to-Face Meetings | – |

Unless we are talking of a really small organization (< 50 personnel), face-to-face meetings don’t actually mean one-on-one between the management and individual staffers. The exercise can be split into the usual brackets as follows:

  • Management Meeting (@ CEOs, group heads, division heads et al)
  • Select-Group Cross-Divisional Meeting (@ lateral and vertical core representatives of divisions)
  • Workgroup or Divisional Meeting (@ intra division / group meetings of stake holders)
    and finally, the
  • Entire Organisation ‘Mission & Vision’ Meeting (@ entire strength of the organization)

| B | Informal Face-to-Face Meetings | – |

Anything informal is – or at least ought to be – much lighter. It holds true for informal face-to-face office meetings too. It is difficult to pin down ‘informality’, but here are some of the more obvious ones:

  • Drop-ins (mostly top brass visiting ‘the floor’ but can also be about select few invited for a (non classified) management brainstorming)
  • The Water Cooler Meeting (rarely between the absolute top and the ground level, but fairly effective for levels just about similar or thereabouts)
  • Lunch / Breakfast / Coffee Meetings (between a convener and a small group of stake holders)

| C | Electronic | – |

  • Voice (Phone-in and phone-out @ both the leadership and the staff)
  • Social Media (an internal social network site or a closed group on platforms like Facebook etc)
  • E-mail, including mass group mailers
  • Intranet, including sharing domains like Google Drive, Wikis etc
  • E-newsletters
  • Podcasts (as in an organization wide radio talk, Q&A etc by a designated person every week)
  • Videos (either for the above purpose or to share motivational, educational films @ company objective and targets)

| D | Print and Display | – |

  • Continuous Vision and Mission Docs (explaining new targets and changes @ original vision)
  • Newsletter (preferably with ample – if not majority – space for employee voices)
  • Bulletin Board (especially about forthcoming events, targets and, most importantly, changes)
  • Anonymous Suggestion Box

These are just the broad boxes that you need to tick for effective internal communications. You don’t have to subscribe the exact forms. The form would eventually be decided by the nature of your organisation and the purpose of the activity. Remember, the idea is to facilitate precise, coherent and well-timed flow of information across the hierarchy.

Finally, let’s end this concise guide with one last basic bit of truth:

None of the aforementioned internal communications activities sit in a box; they are all eternal processes – like an invigorating fresh water stream.

This tutorial was published on LinkedIn here

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Entrepreneurship Featured Indian Subcontinent Journalism LinkedIn

So Long, Sabeen Mahmud

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‘Friend’ is a rather strong word, but I believe Sabeen Mahmud and I considered each other almost that – despite not being in touch lately. We had first got talking in 2006 due to our common links then with The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE).

A few years into my own business, I was just about testing TiE organization waters via ‘a mere’ ordinary membership of TiE Ahmedabad (India) Chapter, while she was already, among other things, a guiding light of the Karachi (Pakistan) Chapter. But that didn’t stop her from signing off her first email in her uniquely unassuming, unpretentious style: “32 – non-procrastinating female bachelor (what in the hell is a politically correct alternative to spinster, btw?)”

Last night (April 24), two gunmen on motorcycle pumped five bullets into her body while she was on her way home in Karachi. The attack took place shortly after she hosted a talk event titled ‘Unsilencing Baluchistan’, about the issue of human rights in the province that has played host to a bloody separatist insurgency for many years.

As per the New York Times, Sabeen agreed to host the discussion after it had been canceled at a private university in Lahore, “reportedly at the behest of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate”.

But this piece is not about the politics surrounding the tragedy. Reflecting the DNA of this platform, this remembrance is about Sabeen’s unshackled entrepreneurial spirit.

Though she was already established as COO of Beyond Information Technology Solutions – b.i.t.s, a J Walter Thomson (JWT) associate company, her fierce independent streak reflected in no form better than the place she nonchalantly named The Second Floor (T2F) – “because it was housed on the second floor of a nondescript office building”.

But there was no nonchalance involved with the purpose of the space. Sabeen was clear about what she wanted T2F to be: ‘A community space for open dialogue’.

To gather context about the initiative, read this by NPR’s Dina Temple-Raston:

“If you were in Greenwich Village or SoHo in New York, this would sound like more of the same. But this being Pakistan, the Second Floor is unusual. When lawyers demonstrated after then-Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf fired dozens of senior judges in 2007, demonstrators planned their next moves at the Second Floor.”

One of the more notable recent events of T2F was Pakistan’s first ‘Hackathon’ in 2013 – a weekend-long event with about ten teams focusing on solutions to civic problems in Pakistan.

Organised a few months ahead of the country’s parliamentary elections, the event featured a diverse group of people, from coders, civic planners to private sector executives.  After brainstorming about Pakistan’s three dozen odd problem areas, the selected participants got down to working on nine targeted issues that could be solved with workable, effective apps.

Such was the aura of the enterprise that the administration was more than excited to be a part of it – especially since some of the apps were about identifying, tabulating and reporting government infrastructure and delivery inefficiencies.  Other solutions ranged from crime mapping to emergency services.

Yes, apps for governance delivery – in a region where the latter is still largely non-existent!

But then that’s what set her apart.

A self-confessed ‘tech addict’, she was a ‘Mac snob’ to such an extent that she often gave Steve Jobs credit for shaping her “anti-establishment, anti-war, pro-freedom worldview”. It wouldn’t be too much of an exaggeration to say that design and technology were an extension of her body.

Once during a visit to her maternal uncle (‘Mamoo’) in London, she found herself without connectivity for some reason. “Didn’t mean to not respond – have been in London with no Internet access. […] I tried dialup but his phone line felt like it was from the sub-continent… Any other city and I would have fallen ill but London!!!!!!!! So much to do and see that didn’t miss the lack of connectivity much,” she wrote to me a few days later.

Over a period of 8 years, T2F hosted over 800 events – reaching the current average frequency of about four events a week. The events include corner meetings for independent political candidates, symposia on culture, technology and society, tele-conferencing with exiled leaders and thought leaders from across the world, talks, readings, standup comedy, film screenings, concerts, technology workshops, art exhibitions and pretty much everything that it was approached for. A large number of those events were streamed live, tweeted in real time and digitally recorded for archives.

But it is not about numbers. It is about entrepreneurial spirit being put to effective use in the social sphere.  She once told me, “Street art adds colour and intelligence into a city, without changing the infrastructure”. The context was our conversation about mixing her expertise in design and technology and my understanding of civil engineering and media to good use towards a better society.

With tributes pouring in from New York Times, Pakistan’s current and past leaders and countless admirers on the social and mainstream media, one thing is clear – she added an awful lot of colour and intelligence to her society, despite her abridged stay therein.

“Hatred is inexplicable yet so rampant and accelerating at an appalling pace. You’re right, film/cinema is a potent medium. I’d love to try my hand at it – soon, hopefully” – she once wrote to me.

“It was good to hear that you’re open to the idea of making cinema. Maybe one day we can make a joint production – a lavish musical. What say ya? 🙂” – I had joked back.

Maybe some other time; so long, Sabeen Mahmud!

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Entrepreneurship Featured LinkedIn

Thinking Aloud: To Found or to Not, a New News Product

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As I grapple with the initial, broad mapping of content and technology architectures of a news journalism product that I plan to launch in India, I must admit that I am unusually distracted by the state of brand equity – and the consequent future – of the product category itself.

In the global context, the most recent push for the sobering deliberation came through the fall from grace of the much admired NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams. In an on-air apology, he lamented that a ‘faulty memory’ had led him to falsely claim that he faced intense enemy fire while riding in a U.S. Army helicopter in Iraq 2003. His helicopter was a good hour behind the helicopter that actually did.

Appearing just another unintentional or deliberate error of judgment in isolation, the context around the ‘helicopter incident’ is summed up well by Rekha Basu, columnist for The Des Moines Register, in her writing ‘Williams adds stain to media credibility’:

Decades ago, news anchor Walter Cronkite, with his steady, reassuring presence, gave Americans of all persuasions a trusted ally even when he brought us bad news. Now, at a time when universal trust in any news source — or anything else, for that matter — is a vanishing commodity, Williams had it and he blew it. And it will be harder for anyone in this business to build (emphasis mine).

The example is not about my suggesting that news media hasn’t been gradually battling a fall in credibility. Far from it; Williams just revealed himself to be the latest name in a modern day game in which news credibility is defined by means of either the popular or the partisan.

As an Indian, disbelieving television news anchors feels more like an instinct that evolves as a part of the growing up process – if it is not the government controlled newsroom, it most probably is the corporate house dictated one.

The broad difference between the two is that while it is easy to arrive at the discount percentage for India’s sole official / government news channel, it becomes impossible for anyone to know the extent of the ‘shaping of news’ under the guidance or pressure of principal advertisers / sponsors of news media vehicles.

Case in point with regards the latter is the ongoing ‘Essar links’ saga, which concerns alleged planting of stories in influential news media by senior journalists on behalf of Essar Group, an Indian multinational with interests in steel, energy, infrastructure and services sectors.

Alongside, even as I write this, newsrooms in New Delhi are abuzz with stories about a document of the country’s Enforcement Directorate (ED) that suggests out of ordinary funding arrangements of a media house – and the corresponding fretting of the big-ticket journalists and anchors who benefited from it. Expect an ivory tower or two to come down in India this summer.

You would think that it would be big news in India. But the only place where it is buzzing right now is Twitter – that new platform / medium for news as it happens. The rest of the country shall, as in the past, never learn about the details. It doesn’t care either, perhaps.

Unfortunately, everyone in the news media landscape knows that ‘Essar links’ are the kind of dealings that keeps many, if not most, organisations float above about 82,000 other news / journalism media titles (Source: 55th Annual ‘Press in India’ report) in India – and consequently survive for a new print.

So then, if many in media believe that ‘links’ with large business groups is part mode of ‘ensuring return on newsroom investment’; if large part of the readership today gets its news via Tweets and Facebook shares – only the 140 characters and / or headlines, mind you – rather than through purchase of the actual news sources, and most part of the society doesn’t care about who reports (‘writes’) what for whom and for what reason, how would you rate a NEW news product as a viable business proposition?

This is not an essay in pessimism. This is just to reflect upon and invite thoughts/ideas about succeeding in a scenario wherein a most vibrant product category might actually be a great platform for sowing seeds for glory but not really for reaping rewards of honest risks.

This musing was published on LinkedIn here

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Featured Foreign Policy Association (US) Indian Subcontinent Journalism People

Repatriation Still a Far Cry in Bhutan: Exiled Journo

Evicted from Bhutan at the age of 11, Vidhyapati Mishra spent two decades in U.N.-funded Bhutanese refugee camp in eastern Nepal before resettling in the United States. Just a week before his departure from Nepal to Charlotte of North Carolina, self-learned journalist Mishra also featured in the New York Times with his powerful narrative story exposing the other side of the Bhutan’s gross national happiness.

In conversation with Anshuman Rawat, he talks about the plight of exiled Bhutanese and the prospects of their repatriation:
……………………………………………………………………


Vidhyapati-Mishra-small-300x300-150x150Your story plays on a note that is very different from the happy piece of music that the world associates with Bhutan. Can you inform our readers of Bhutan’s lost narrative about the pain and displacement of nearly one-sixth of its people – including your own family?

Like the United States of America, Bhutan is a country of immigrants. Among other ethnic groups, the Nepali-speaking citizens, whom the regime called as Lhotshampas, are the only people that Bhutan accepted for permanent settlement through formal written agreement with Nepal. The first lot of Nepalese had arrived in Bhutan in 1624. The migration of these people into Bhutan started after the formal agreement between the then rulers of Bhutan and Gorkha (now Nepal). However, the Bhutanese rulers treated them as second-class citizens until they were accepted as citizens by granting citizenship certificates in 1958.

The citizenship act of 1958 became the basis for evicting over one-sixth of the country’s population as it willfully divided even members of the same family into various classes, thereby arbitrarily tagging some members as “non-Bhutanese.” The state imposed various policies and mechanisms including martial laws to terrorize and suppress citizens. The government shut down schools, later they were turned into military barracks, where innocent citizens were tortured, women gang-raped and even killed. Lhotshampas and their supporters like Scharlops from eastern Bhutan were unlawfully fired from their jobs, and were refrained from all kinds of public services. Restrictions on Hindu culture and celebration of festivals and were imposed along with a ban on properties sale. The state authority implemented the ‘One Nation, One People Policy’ sternly warning all citizens to follow just Buddhism. The when such activities became rampant, Lhotsampas and their supporters organized mass protests and demonstrations.

Hundreds of demonstrators were arrested and many killed arbitrarily. The government labeled participants of those mass demonstrations as “anti-national agents,” and were later evicted.  The Royal Bhutan Army (RBA) arrested citizens en mass. They were brought to school-turned-military barracks and tortured inhumanly, forcing them to sign Voluntary Migration Forms (VMFs) in order to leave the homeland by abandoning everything.

RBA arrested my father, and he was tortured in a military barrack for 91 days. When all options to save his life failed, he decided to sign the VMF that gave us an ultimatum of just one week to quit the nation. And, it was the Hobson’s choice for my family to leave the hometown, and accordingly we arrived at Bhutan-India border, from where Indian lorry trucks loaded us and dropped in eastern part of Nepal.

How much of Bhutan’s actions, in your opinion, can be compared with the Buddhist majority aggression against religious minorities in Myanmar and Sri Lanka? In other words, do you believe that a part reason of the plight of the Lhotshampas can be ascribed to a gradual rise of assertive political Buddhism in the region?

The Buddhist majority aggressions against religious minorities in Myanmar and Sri Lank do have some common parallels. However, Bhutan’s intention to create purely a Buddhist state by evicting majority of Hindu citizens has different version.  It simply wants a typical Buddhist society without the existence of other religions like Hinduism or Christianity.  As even claimed by regional analysts, the Bhutanese regime was not happy with growing number of Nepali-speaking citizens in public services and educational opportunities availed by Lhotshampas, who are hardworking and patriotic by nature. Further, democratic movements in Indian territories operated by Indian Nepalese added more fears to the regime, and eventually exercised the ethnic cleaning. But, Bhutan clearly knows that the suppressed groups like Lhotshampas and Scharlops are not fighting for a separate state or power capture, but what they want is justice, equality and same participation as enjoyed by the ruling elites in the national building process.

What is the current status of the issue in terms of internationally accepted statistics about the number of refugees, their locations and the means of sustenance?

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) that has been overseeing the ongoing third country resettlement, the agency has received over 100,000 submissions for resettlement. Of them, over 80,000 refugees have already started leading new lives in various western countries. The United States of America has alone accepted over 65,000 persons, and even assured of accepting more. Canada and Australia have ranked second and third respectively in accepting refugees for resettlement. Similarly, New Zealand, Denmark, Norway, Netherlands and the United Kingdom have also resettled the Bhutanese refugees, but their number in each country is below 1,000. Each country has its own legal provisions for ensuring sustenance of humanitarian immigrants like refugees. They receive cash, housing and material supports for a certain period, which could be months or years depending on circumstances. The refugees become acquainted with the new environment and society, eventually start entry-level jobs, and plan their education, and career. It is a matter of pride that some of those who were resettled in early 2008 have already become citizens in America and Australia.

India can, arguably, do the most about the issue. But given its historical and special relations with Bhutan, do you ever see it taking a tough stand? What can force India to do that?

In various occasions, refugees trying to enter into Bhutan through India were blocked, detained and even killed. India has direct hand in dumping the refugees in Nepal by loading them in its lorry trucks while they were driven out of Bhutan in 1990s. Miraculously, India doesn’t allow refugees to use the same route for returning home now. India, one of the bystanders to the atrocities in Bhutan, in fact keeps on supporting regime, which is of crucial concern not only for the refugees, but also for the international community. The resettled refugees from various western countries should make their voices aloud and urge India to assist in repatriation of willing refugees from Nepal, and abroad. The Indian media, and civil society could be other powers for pressing the Indian government as regards to repatriation of Bhutanese refugees with dignity and honor.

Outside the region, how would you describe the efforts of the Lhotshampas to get their rights? Also, what has been the response of and actions, if any, by the international community?

The repeated failures of refugees to enter Bhutan have evoked frustrations among them, who were later compelled to abandon all campaigns by choosing to start new life in the West through their resettlement. This has empowered the regime, to a greater extent, for becoming more rigid towards the refugees’ calls for dignified return. The Bhutanese authorities always wanted to shadow the issue of repatriation, and resettlement package has helped them achieved this. This is why the so-called democratic government of Bhutan has turn deaf ears to genuine demands of the refugees. The government’s version on repatriation has still remained intact. Around 80,000 Nepali-speaking citizens are deprived of citizenship certificates, and voter’s identity cards inside the country that prepares to hold the second general elections later this year. For those citizens, their fellow friends in refugee camps are more privileged as they can opt to begin their new lives in developed western countries. On the other way, the resettlement has also helped Bhutanese refugees to expose all forms of atrocities the regime carried out in early and late 1990s while carrying out a well-perpetrated mass exodus, and educate the international community. The failure of the international community in convincing Bhutan to accept its citizens back home has given enough rooms for refugees to make a judgment that their dreams to return to their homeland are shattered due to the third country resettlement program.

Finally, what do you think are the prospects for repatriation?

Several rounds of high-level bilateral talks between governments of Bhutan and Nepal yielded no better results at end of the day. Bhutan continued applying numerous delaying tactics in the name of repatriation. Until recently, the Bhutanese government maintained that it was serious towards repatriating its citizens camped in Nepal, yet to no avail. Bhutan continues to play with lies. For the ruling elites in Bhutan, the resettlement has, more or less, resolved the longstanding refugee imbroglio on humanitarian basis. It can’t be denied that the existing model of democracy, defined by the Bhutanese ruling elites to simply suit them, still awaits major transformations to an inclusive citizens’ platform. This is possible only through major political changes, aimed at bringing ongoing state-sponsored suppressions on ethnic and religious groups to an end. Citing Bhutan’s continued lies; it’s indeed going to be a big miracle if by any chance repatriation takes place. I must not be wrong to mention here that the repatriation of exiled Bhutanese is still a far cry.

The article first appeared on the Foreign Policy Association blogs network site here

 

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Featured Huffington Post (UK) Journalism

The Tricky Business of Permanent Residency

[This article was first published here on The Huffington Post]

The jury is still out on the cost of providing fast-track residency to affluent foreigners

There are many ways in which modern societies are getting shaped across the world. Australia cast its vote recently in favour of crafting one by handpicking well heeled citizens from other countries.

On May 25, Australia’s Immigration Minister Chris Bowen unveiled a new visa scheme that offers wealthy migrants a fast-track residency provided they invest around $5 million into either government bonds or Australian companies.

In the normal course of the procedure, migrants are ranked according to criteria like age, qualifications and English language skills, along with a requirement to reside in the country for a specified period of time before they qualify.

Terming the initiative as an ‘investment visa’ aimed to address shortages of skills and capital and boost job-creation in the country, Bowen said, “People who are willing to make a significant investment in Australia through various investments will receive concessional treatment when it comes to permanent residency.”

“The significant investor visa will provide a boost to our economy and help Australia to compete effectively for high net worth individuals seeking investment immigration,” he added.

The minister said that Australia expects to hand out 7,000 new investment visas through this fast track system, which will come into force on July 1.

The scheme would see Australia join the ranks of Asia-Pacific’s New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore, which provide for migration on the basis of investment of a specified size and conditions.

Under New Zealand’s Investor Residence Scheme, immigrants can gain residency rights in the country by investing NZ$ 1.5 million (US$ 1.1 million) for a period of four years. This program requires the applicant to be under 65 years of age and have three years of business experience.

The Investor Plus Residence Scheme goes a step further and offers permanent residency to anyone who makes an investment of NZ$ 10 million in New Zealand for 3 yrs. No age, business or English language proficiency is required under this program.

In Hong Kong, millionaire migrants can earn residency rights via the Capital Investment Entrant Scheme (CIES) by investing HK$10 million.

But nowhere in the world is the phenomenon more pronounced than in Singapore, which, as per a new report from global management consulting firm Boston Consulting Group (BCG), had the world’s highest density of millionaire households in 2011. The report, released this May, revealed that more than 17% of all households in the Southeast Asian city-state had private wealth of US$ 1 million or higher during the year.

What provides a telling perspective to the ‘badge of honour’ is that according to Singapore government statistics from 2011, Singaporean citizens make up just 63% of the country’s population – implying that more than one in three residents of the city-state are foreign-born permanent residents or temporary residents. Merely 11 years ago the figure was 74%, while in 1980 it was 91%.

Helping the rise of percentage of foreign nationals are government schemes like the Global Investor Programme (GIP), which allow wealthy foreigners to attain permanent residency status if they invest a minimum of $2.5 million in a new business or an expansion of an existing business, and have an annual turnover of at least US$30 million or more.

Permanent Residence visa is highly valued in Singapore among expatriates as the city-state has one of the world’s highest standards of living and is one of the nerve centres of Asia’s economy.

On the other hand, the small population of Singapore, quite like that in Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong, make it necessary for the country to invite foreign entrepreneurs to create new businesses, new products and new jobs – especially in tough economic times such as the present. According to government statistics, Singapore’s fertility rate of 1.2 is well below the replacement rate of 2.1 – implying that the country’s workforce would shrink drastically if more foreigners are not allowed in.

But the upsurge in the ratio of foreign nationals – both permanent residents and foreign workers – has led to a corresponding rise in the disaffection among the locals on the issue.

Many Singaporeans believe that permanent residents come to their country to reap the benefits without any obligations. A prevalent sentiment among the critics of government policies like the GIP is that foreign-born residents take jobs, push up property prices and add new strains on the city-state’s infrastructure. The impression is said to be responsible for the worst ever showing by the ruling party in last year’s elections.

Reacting to popular dissatisfaction, Singapore recently canceled a scheme that allowed wealthy expatriates to gain permanent residency (PR) in the Southeast Asian city-state if they brought in a minimum of S$10 million ($7.8 million) into Singapore for five years including using up to S$2 million on buying a property.

The Financial Investor Scheme (FIS) was brought to an end in April as it was believed that the scheme was used by many expatriates to buy property at inflated prices and fuel the country’s booming property market – thereby pricing locals out of the market.

The decision is seen to be in tune with the government’s decision of imposing an additional 10% property tax on foreigners last year to avoid Singapore becoming a place for only the rich.

But beyond concerns about rising property prices, the red carpet for foreign entrepreneurs has led to people like local Singapore journalist Jaya Prakash believe that the government is biased towards foreigners, allowing them to sweep up jobs that should be given to locals and fill places in schools meant for Singaporeans.

Some groups have even claimed that a large expat population – and its highly visible alternate culture – is threatening their sense of national identity.

Clearly, financial benefits travel only as far as they are allowed to by the socio-political costs of a policy.

Australia may want to learn from Singapore’s experience on the subject and pick the best path ahead for itself.