I value simplicity and directness in communications. Too often we spend time mired in details that bury our main message. When I attended the Council of PR Firms 2011 Harvard Leadership Program taught by Dr. Ashish Nanda we studied the miraculous turnaround of SAS airlines. When businessman Jan Carlzon took over the Scandinavian airline in 1981 it was tanking. The airline was facing industry challenges including rising oil prices, deregulation and others. But one of the biggest issues was its very own bureaucratic culture that had hand-tied front-line employees; they could not make timely customer service decisions. To succeed Carlzon had to revolutionize the company and he had to communicate it in a revolutionary way.
He was known for saying, “An individual without information can’t take responsibility. An individual with information can’t help but take responsibility.”
But the challenge was how to deliver information effectively to a wide audience. One of the most unique approaches he took was in writing a book entitled, Let’s Get in There and Fight! and he sent it to every single employee. Right down to every gate checker, maintenance worker, baggage handler, flight attendant, manager and pilot.
The text was simple; the images were cartoons – almost child-like – conceivably drawn by Carlzon himself.
For example, he showed a plane taking a nosedive. The text reads, “We are in bad shape. But we have not reached crisis point yet. If we were, we would not know how to get our nose up again. He showed a plane soaring, “But we can. If we are ready to fight for our jobs and our future.”
No business analysis, no pie charts, no graphs, just a clear call to action, simply presented.
You have to see the book to believe it: http://www.slideshare.net/thecroaker/jan-carlzons-sas-presentation
He also met face to face with employees, listening, surveying, and empowering them to make decisions, eliminating middle management along the way. Employees, especially the front-line, rallied around his leadership and communications style. We watched video of Carlzon speaking. He was engaging, simple and inclusive in his delivery, always using “we” and “us” rather than “you” and “them.”
The changes at SAS led to Air Transport World naming SAS Airline of the Year for 1983 just two years after Carlzon applied his leadership. Dr. Nanda told us Jan Carlzon’s turnaround of SAS is one of the classic business case studies at Harvard.
