Oblique Strategies

I work on my own a lot. There are benefits. Above all, I choose the music. All day. Every day. And if there’s cricket on, I listen to that instead. Bliss.

But, even for an only child, I can miss human contact. Especially the chance to bounce ideas off colleagues. I have some sympathy with Marissa Mayer’s work in the office edict.

There’s another phenomenon I must deal with. Sometimes I’m the expert, the guru, the seen-it-done-it, not-to-be-questioned sage. Sometimes I’m the freelancer; here’s the brief, the scope, deliver these outputs. Neither necessarily builds in the challenge to get to a better solution.

Without colleagues to spark off, or sources of friction, how do I keep getting better? How do I not churn out the same product every time?

Enter Brian Eno. I listen mostly to 6 Music. They play great music, and he’s made a lot of it, so he pops up frequently. And I’ve heard him talk about his Oblique Strategies. These are designed to break creative blocks by encouraging lateral thinking. I’ve been taking one each day with the instruction to trust the card even if “its appropriateness is quite unclear”.

First up: “Remove specifics and convert to ambiguities”. I was writing an EVP report. Not only was the appropriateness entirely unclear, but it felt like bad - absurd? - advice. But as I came back to it, it sort of came into focus. I kept a lot of specifics but I looked at what people didn’t say, what they alluded to, what it might all mean. It’s still all solid research, but taken that bit further.

Next: “Look at the order in which you do things”. Another report; this needed representative quotes to add meaning. It’s massively valuable, but by god, it’s laborious. I usually leave it last, and it’s a good sense-check. But I did it earlier, it became a more fundamental part of the report and it felt less tedious.

Then: “What to maintain?” I’ve been touting myself about a bit, and I have a lot of things to say. But what really makes people prick up their ears and say “Oh, really?” or “Tell me more…” Work to do but it may make my pitches more focussed.

The lesson: look for inspiration in unlikely places. (Just make sure that those places are likely to be more fruitful than Steve Wright’s “Big Show”…)

Social Listening

It’s a seductive prospect. That you can tap into the internet and understand more about your employer brand. That social media will help you appreciate what punters associate with a career at your firm, and that you can quantify their perceptions.

But there’s a problem. It doesn’t really work*.

Stopping and reflecting, you can probably see why. When did you last speak online and at length about your job? With a balanced picture of pros and cons, and what you expect to gain? And what about your next job or prospective employer? Reader, I prefer to imagine that you have better things to do.

And if people are talking about your employer brand in any volume, you need to rely on automation to sift the employer brand chat from the consumer, and to accurately assess the sentiment. That’s tough.

But, what this means is that there is a range of opportunities for employers.

For one, they can get out there and engage with said punters. Properly, not rolling out a stream of content that gathers no interaction. Actively, socially engaging with those that follow them or tweet about them.

For another, we can put ourselves in the punter’s shoes. If they dive in online, they’ll find a limited amount of useful information. We can make some good assumptions about their perception of your brand, or how it will be formed.

For a third, it means that your .jobs or /careers site will influence the perception – probably to a greater degree than you imagine. There’s the credibility, the they-would-say-that-wouldn’t-they? issue, but that’s hardly insurmountable.

If people aren’t talking about you, then you can start the conversation. And that’s a great opportunity.

* Of course, it can work. I have to have bold opinions, or they revoke my blogging licence. And I’d be delighted to be proved wrong. Where it does work well is where there’s already a strong employer brand (carefully established or lumbered with). It works well for graduate positions. There’s Glassdoor and other review sites and forums. And there’s always some chat that you can find. But it’s about going in with realistic expectations – and probably looking to other options for external perception.