Technique 8.9: Leadership and Communication Indicators

Communication Effectiveness Indicators

Getting a message across to all the key players in an organization is a challenge.  It is the responsibility of leadership to ensure that the knowledge workers understand why the organization is doing KCS, and what the benefits are for both the organization and the knowledge worker.  Communication Effectiveness Indicators assess the level of buy-in and understanding across the organization. Do the mid-level and team leaders in the organization understand the benefits and their role in supporting the knowledge workers success with KCS? Do the knowledge workers understand KCS in the context of the big picture as well as understanding the KCS at the task level?  This is critical if we expect knowledge workers to make good judgments at the task level in the context of the bigger picture.

Communication effectiveness is measured through surveys and assessments conducted repeatedly over a period of time.  The surveys need to be crafted in a way to assess understanding and buy-in.  Some organizations have gone as far as having semi-annual interviews with knowledge workers to assess this.  Based on the learnings from the interviews, they suggest actions to improve understanding and buy-in to the leaders of the organization and then track the improvement over time. 

Organizational Value Indicators

We have discussed the three categories of benefit KCS creates:  

1. Operational efficiency
   1. Increased capacity
2. Self-service success
   1. Increase the frequency users use self-service
   2. Increase the user's success rate 
3. Business improvements (products, documentation, processes and policies)
   1. Number of improvements identified and submitted to the business owner
   2. Number of improvements implemented by the business owners  

These benefits are realized at different points in time along the KCS journey. And, the way in which each will show up varies by organization.

The strategic framework (see Technique 8.2)  is helpful in identifying how the KCS benefits line up with the organization's goals. If we use our sample Strategic Framework we can identify the following Organizational Value Indicators:

• Customer 
  • Loyalty (NPS)
  • Customer effort
  • Renewal rate
• Employee
  • Attrition rate
  • Employee engagement/loyalty
  • Employee effort
• Business (financial)
  • Revenue growth
  • Expense management
  • Profitability 

We want to establish baseline positions for these items and then track progress.