With some notable exceptions, employees in today’s large organization are less committed, less engaged, and more cynical than they were 20 years ago, or even 10 years ago, for that matter.

Today’s executives seem more concerned with issues of corporate governance than with improving employee communications. The corporate mafeasance scandals in recent years have led to a new age of caution, in which corporate leaders care most about not screwing up. Reaching out to employees entails certain risks — you give up some power, you expose yourself to criticism, you may not be able to live up to your promises. So it’s easier to just stick with the old ways.

You’d think that today’s CEOs would be turning to their internal communicators and asking, “How can you help us bring our employees back into the fold? What can we do to inspire our people to stay with us and be more committed to our company?”

But it seems the opposite is true. How many internal communicators get pressured by their executives to do a better job — to be more transparent, more engaging, more human? Instead, we end up complaining that they “don’t get it.” Achieving more open communication is a constant struggle, an uphill battle.

Why?

Is this just our lot on life? Or are we simply living through a particularly challenging time? Or am I completely off base?

Is your organization drowning in email? Microsoft’s Marc Smith has an answer for you: SNARF. SNARF stands for Social Network and Relationship Finder. It sorts your email based on your history with the people who have sent you messages. SNARF indexes your email – paying attention to whom you communicate with and how often. It emphasizes the messages it thinks are most important to you, displaying them in a window with three panes:

* People who have sent recent, unread email addressed or cc’d to you
* People who have sent recent, unread email addressed to anyone
* People mentioned in any email you have received in the past week

Smith describes SNARF – and offers other email management tips – in an article in the Financial Times. Read it at: news.ft.com/cms/s/8d3cef66-c971-11da-94ca-0000779e2340.html

Then try SNARF for yourself at research.microsoft.com/community/snarf/

As communicators we always push for open, honest, candid communication. But are we ready for everything it entails … as organizations or as individuals?

Sometimes the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth can be painful. To hear and to deliver. It’s being pushed as a new communications paradigm by Susan Scott in Fierce Conversations. If you transform your conversations the way the author recommends, you’ll “experience positive organizational change, greater effectiveness in everyday interactions, a renewed sense of purpose, and a new way of relating to people at work, at home and in every area of your life.” And we all want all of that.

Some people are ready for that sort of personal or organizational conversation. Look at the impatience of some of the Y-Gen crowd that’s entering the workforce today. They ask, “Why should you and save up our thoughts about my performance for some staged, annual review. Let’s talk about it right now.” They grew up on video games, operate at twitch speed and are ready to handle good and bad news.

Yet many individuals, departments and organizations aren’t ready for the in-your-face, assume-positive-intent information that some of these conversations can deliver.

What about your organization? Is it ready to hold the fierce conversation? What about you? Are you ready? Can you handle the truth?