NS: What was the “lightening
rod” for initiating change at the BBC? When did the
move for change begin?
RG: In early 2000 when Greg Dyke, a new and dynamic chief
executive (or in our case, director-general), arrived.
Greg (he was always “Greg,” never “Dyke”)
had gained a reputation for great creative leadership in his
previous organisations. He believed work should be about having
fun as well as ensuring excellent performance. He also understood
the potential of internal communications to create lasting,
positive change.
Recognising that communication means to “share”
not “talk,” he was also a great listener. He often
diverted his journeys en route to somewhere important by turning
up unannounced at radio stations around the UK. He’d
pop his head round the door to listen to “ordinary”
people’s problems. Behavioural communication like that
speaks volumes.
NS: Which forces within the BBC were most instrumental
in facilitating change successfully? How does an organization
identify these forces?
RG: Undoubtedly, Greg Dyke himself was a critical force,
and that was fairly easy to identify!
Our HR director (now called the Director of BBC People) was
also a pretty important catalyst. He’s a mold-breaking,
lateral thinker who worked strategically with Greg to effect
change so that transformation genuinely came from within the
operation itself, not as some diktat of HR. In an organisation
like the BBC, where anything other than programme making functions
has low credibility, that was key.
Identifying the iconic leaders wasn’t difficult. Persuading
them to be leaders for change was. It was potentially career
limiting for them. “Creative” and “management”
don’t necessarily go together at the BBC. We overcame
that by having one or two of the biggest icons make public
statements about how they felt it was really important to
do this (for a while at least!).
Of course, organisation development functions like strategic
HR, training and internal communications helped as well. We
were very much there all the time “under the waterline,”
propping up the operation. We have largely been seen but not
heard though. We all knew that change would not have been
popular otherwise—the “dead hand of HR”
syndrome.
NS: What were the primary obstacles or challenges
you experienced during this process?
RG: Managing expectations has been challenging. By doing
change “with” people rather than “to”
them, we’d built up a considerable momentum for accelerated
change.
Those 98,000 suggestions for making things better from our
“just imagine” sessions still boiled down to 15,000
separate ideas for change. Some people expected us to put
them all in, and at once!
Getting some of the people who suggested the changes to go
off and effect the ideas themselves (we put them in contact
with people in the organisation who could help them do this)
was a masterstroke which also helped get out the message virally
that we were serious about change. Plus, if the answer to
the suggestion was “no”—people could see
why that was if they’d been involved in the analysis.
Finding time among the change professionals to progress the
programme has also been a challenge. There have been no consultants
to help us—Greg wasn’t a believer in them. Many
of my team, and others throughout the BBC involved with change,
have regularly been working 50 – 60 hour weeks. We haven’t
found a solution to this, and it’s ironic that one of
the change initiatives we’ve launched is designed to
create a better work-life balance!
And then the biggest challenge was the dark day in January
of 2004 when Greg Dyke suddenly resigned as a result of the
Hutton report (http://www.the-hutton-inquiry.org.uk/).
NS: You’ve said that you performed consistent
and ongoing measurement of the change program. Please describe
what you did and how you communicated the results to the employees.
RG: There is no point in doing anything in my view unless
you can measure how well you’re doing.
The BBC has run a staff attitude and opinion survey every
twelve months since 1998. We include and track the usual measures
like “Do you feel your contribution is valued?”
and “Are communications open and honest?”. The
independent and respected UK firm MORI runs the survey, and
we post the raw results on our Intranet as soon as possible—usually
within a few months of the closeout date. Our executive committee
takes and debates the results—again, as quickly as possible—and
importantly, the actions are also posted for all to see. We
adopt a similar process down each of the BBC’s 17 divisions.
Because the pace of change has been too fast for an annual
survey alone though, we’ve also done an online “climate”
survey since May 2000. This is a monthly snapshot done online
and sent to 2,000 people in rotation from a randomised database
of all BBC staff. It means people don’t receive the
survey any more frequently than once a year.
Returns usually number around 500, and the results are accurate
to within about 4 percent of the true figure for the entire
BBC population.
The survey tracks a range of key measures for advocacy and
communication so that we have statistics throughout the year
and not just at the time of the MORI survey.
It can also measure more tactically, for example, to assess
digital take-up, the effect of a big event or a marketing
campaign. The internal communications and change teams use
the results, and these results inform our Executive Board
and the BBC Governors through a monthly "feedback report,"
compiled by internal communications. If there are big issues
being fed up through there, we make sure people know the result
through the usual internal channels.
This feedback report is especially interesting for the spontaneous
verbatim responses—rather than just the flat figures.
It gives you a real feel for where people are.
NS: Describe how the BBC has evolved since the
change program began.
RG: The place feels friendlier, more relaxed and more colourful.
Our vision beforehand was “to be the most efficiently
managed organisation in the public sector.” Now it’s
“to be the most creative organisation in the world.”
Which would get you out of bed in the morning?
In hard terms, it’s led to genuine collaboration and
co-operation between people and departments. This has evolved
into more ground breaking, innovative programmes and services
which, through combinations of different inputs, have become
a whole greater than the sum of their parts.
There are also the seeds of better leadership throughout
the organization—and better followership as well. This
is a slow burn, and we’ve certainly got some way to
go, but there is a new wind beginning to blow through our
top 700. Leaders can of course be anywhere in the organization,
and we’re also much more alive to that than we were.
The bottom line is that the BBC is now far better equipped
corporately to face what will be a challenging future than
we were in 2000.
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