A particular paragraph caught my eye this morning and helped me understand why Ginni Rommety, the CEO of IBM, is on of the most powerful and influential tribe builders on the planet: she has great communication skills.
In the following paragraph, my friend Tereza Nemessanyi explains how Rommety left a simple voice mail that allayed PricewaterhouseCoopers employee concerns right after PwC was purchased by IBM in 2002.
“She also reached out to all PwC employees personally. The morning the acquisition was announced, they arrived to the blinking red light of a voicemail notification on their phones. “Got to admit feelings were mixed,” wrote Tereza Nemessanyi, then a principal consultant at PwC, on her blog. “As a creative type, I was nervous of what I knew as a very rigid culture.” The following two-minute message welcomed her personally to IBM, assured her that IBM would retain the best elements of the PwC culture, and most important, got her excited. “Jeez, that woman leaves some seriously good voicemail,” wrote Nemessanyi, who tells me she was tempted to move to IBM but ended up staying with PwC’s parent.”
By reaching out to the PwC employees early, directly, and effectively (even “got her excited”), Rommety helped get the PwC employees integrated into the IBM culture. She earned a lot of respect and made a critical step toward bringing several thousand PwC employees into her loyal tribe of raving fans.
How about you? What simple step can you take today to communicate with your tribe and build loyalty?
Read the entire article here:
IBM’s Ginni Rometty looks ahead
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Gina Carr
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