Warning: Long post follows

You may remember, during IABC’s international conference in June, I posted an item reacting to a talk given by Dr. TJ Larkin at the IABC Research Foundation luncheon. I re-ran the piece as part of an email newsletter I produce for Ragan Communications. The folks at Ragan (with my permission) sent the article to Dr. Larkin for his reaction. Dr. Larkin has graciously given me permission to reproduce that response here (note the typos are copied directly from the original copy I received). I’ll be commenting on this in several shorter posts to follow over the next few days, as time allows.

I’m creating a new category, “Deconstructing Larkin,” for all of these posts.

As always, your comments are appreciated and valued.

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Shel Holtz critiques our work in his Communication + Technology Insider July 2005.

Mr. Holtz found nothing of value in our book, Communication Change, or in my Research Foundation Presentation at the IABC Conference in Washington, D.C. 

Mr. Holtz describes our book as “Crap!” and “Bullshit!” and says reading the book caused him to react as if inflicted with Tourette’s Syndrome.

Mr. Holtz thinks that our book says that any communication that does not come face to face from the immediate supervisor is a waste.  In other words, employees should never receive anything on paper, never see a Web page, and never receive an email.

A more cautious critic would have wondered why such a ridiculous claim was written by a Ph.D. in communication, published by McGraw-Hill, grew into a McGraw-Hill bookstore best seller, published again in the Harvard Business Review, and today is cited or recommended on more than 200 Web sites (Google search: TJ Larkin and communication).  Either Mr. Holtz misunderstands the context of the book or the world is full of fools.

Every book has a context.  Our book, written by myself and my business partner and wife, Sandar Larkin, is called, Communicating Change: Winning Employee Support for New Business Goals.  The book, as explained in the Preface, is about changing employee behavior.  The book is intended for senior executives trying to communicate a big change against serious employee opposition. 

In this context, the book concludes that the type of communication most likely to change employee behavior: targets frontline supervisors, relies on face-to-face communication, and deals with issues relevant to the future of the local work area.  Our book supports this conclusion with a review of 254 studies. 

Our book, Communicating Change, is inspired by a more important book, Diffusion of Innovation, by Professor Everett Rogers.  Roger’s is the world’s most recognized expert in diffusion.  Diffusion is the study of using communication to change the behavior of large groups.  A central theme in Roger’s work is that groups are more likely to change when the communication comes from local “opinion leaders” compared with more distant sources (e.g. politicians or technical experts).  Rogers supports his conclusion with a review of more than 5,000 studies.

This conclusion is not “crap” or “bullshit” but one of the most respected and verified findings in all the social sciences.

It is, of course, true that different sources and channels may be better for different kinds of communication tasks.  Yes, a Web page may be best for a pregnant employee wondering what benefits are included in her company health plan.  Our book, as is plainly evident even in the title, simply isn’t about that.  Our book is about communicating major change to employee groups who are putting up serious resistance.

Our reading of Mr. Holtz criticism reveals a more fundamental disagreement between us.

To some degree, Mr. Holtz denies that generalizations can be made about employee communication.  We think Mr. Holtz believes sources and channels are basically equal.  Mr. Holtz thinks that what accounts for differences in effect is simply the quality of the execution.  For example, some communicators know how to do CEO communication???others don’t.

This, we think, is what Mr. Holtz means when he says: “Bad Web sites are bad.  Bad hyperlinks are bad.  Bad communication is bad.”  In other words the channels themselves have little or no effects, everything depends on well the communicator does it. 

Mr. Holtz’s belief is reasonable if there are only a small number of studies.  But as the number of studies increase, one assumes that the quality of execution is spread somewhat evenly across the communication in the many studies.  If Mr. Holtz is correct, and sources and channels are basically equal, there should be no significant differences in observed effects (for example, changes in employee behavior).

BUT there are significant differences in the amount of behavior change associated with different sources (CEO vs. supervisors) and channels (face to face vs. print).  The research shows large significant differences??? meaning that some sources or some channels are intrinsically better than others at particular tasks.

For Mr. Holtz to be correct, he needs to assert that across all these studies, researchers consistently selected mostly poorly-executed instances of CEO communication and then compared these to mostly excellent-executed instances of supervisor communication. As the number of studies becomes large, this assertion becomes implausible.

As further proof that generalizations are impossible, Mr. Holtz goes on to cite instances of good CEO communication, for example Lee Iacocca at Chrysler. 

Of course, there are good instances of CEO communication (despite my sometimes exaggerated claims otherwise) but statistically, over a large number of studies, CEO communication is less likely to produce employee behavior change than communication from a supervisor.

A professional communicator with limited time, staff, and money needs to know the likelihood of success associated with different types of communication campaigns.  The communicator could, of course, decide to invest resources in a Lee Iacocca style CEO-driven communication campaign.  However, no rational person could look at the abundance of communication studies and argue that this was the path most likely to produce the greatest amount of employee change.

Consistent with his belief that all communication is essentially equal, Mr. Holtz is likely to reply that professional communicators should do a little of everything: CEO communication, supervisor communication, print, video, Web, and face to face.  This “do everything recommendation” makes sense if you have unlimited time, staff, and money.  Go ahead, put a big chunk of your effort into a CEO-driven communication campaign.  All that research may, in fact, not apply to your company.  Your CEO may indeed be the next Lee Iococca.  But you ought to know???this is a big gamble with your chances of success.

This is the same sort of criticism that Mr. Holtz directs at our presentation for the Research Foundation at the IABC Conference in Washington D.C.  The presentation is available on DVD from the IABC.  Our presentation handout is available on our Web site: www.larkin.biz.

Our interpretation of Mr. Holtz’s remarks is that nothing, in general, can be said of communication channels.  Web, paper, face to face, are, according to Mr. Holtz, all equal, everything depends on the quality of execution.  Do you use them correctly or incorrectly.

Although there is less research on these communication channels, we believe a pattern is emerging:

• Web is best for searching (short, quick, information retrieval).
• Paper is best for comprehension (especially information that is new, long, and complex).
• Face to face is best for overcoming employee resistance to change

Our handout supports the comparison of Web vs. paper with 18 studies showing links on Web pages cause users to cognitively switch toward “navigation” and away from “comprehension.”  The end effect being paper was better for learning information that is new, long, and complex.

This research confirms the feeling many Web users experience when they need to understand difficult content on Web pages: hit print.

Mr. Holtz responds saying the research is defective.  He surmises that the researchers probably included Web pages with poorly designed links.  Therefore it was not the links themselves, but their poor application that caused the lower comprehension on the Web pages.

This is the same sort of criticism Mr. Holtz directs against the 254 studies in our book, the 5,000 studies in Professor Roger’s book, and now the 18 studies in our IABC presentation.  Here again, Mr. Holtz assumes the researchers selected especially poor instances of Web pages and compared them with especially good instances of print.  Why would 18 of the most respected professors in the field of technical communication do this?

Of course there are good examples of links and poor examples of links, but we assume that quality of execution is spread somewhat evenly across the channels, and that the significance difference in behavioral outcomes (for example, Professor Hailey’s 33% less comprehension with Web pages with links compared with the same Web pages without links) are due to factors inherent in the links themselves.  Specifically these researchers think the links draw users into navigation stealing cognitive resources needed for comprehension.  And that paper, requiring almost no navigation, therefore frees the reader for the more cognitively difficult task of comprehension.  Users hit print to free up brain power for comprehension.

As the number of studies finding this result increases (and they are increasing) it becomes harder and harder for Mr. Holtz to argue that all this research is defective.  Eventually a rational person says: hey, there is a trend here.

And, of course, this research finds some Web pages with links that outperform paper even when the information is new, long, and complex???but these instances are statistically fewer. 

And, of course, researcher should investigate these contrary cases and find out why these links did not impede comprehension.  Mr. Holtz, as a widely respected person in our field, is especially qualified to do so. 

But it’s simply strange to say that all this research is defective, and the Larkins are irresponsible for telling professional communicators about this trend. 

However, some of Mr. Holtz’s criticisms are justified.  It is possible, even easy, to pull individual lines from our book or our lectures and make us look foolish.  We try to be provocative and entertaining.  And with critics such as Mr. Holtz, we pay the price.

But we do not share Mr. Holtz condescending worries about our mutual audience.  We write and speak to professionals.  Our audience has far too much experience to think research generalizations are absolute truths. 

Mr. Holtz gives himself too much credit with his claim that he’s providing a “bucket of salt” to go with our presentation.  This audience arrived at the presentation salty through and through.

Mr. Holtz, graciously and generously, mentions that our IABC presentation received a standing ovation from the 600 communicators in the audience.  Only the second time the IABC remembers this happening (Salman Rushdie being the other).

A more cautious critic would have wondered if a standing ovation from 600 professional communicators indicates that somewhere in the presentation there was something worth considering.

Dr TJ Larkin
Larkin Communication Consulting