The document discusses Many-to-One communication, a new format used by Airbus to foster a global company culture. It allows employees to provide feedback to executives, who can respond collectively. Airbus launched a "Straight to Tom" platform for the CEO to engage all 52,000 employees worldwide. It was successful in bringing together different views, making the CEO transparent, prioritizing popular posts, and mobilizing silent participants. Some back-office processes needed improvement to handle approvals and translations for responses. The platform helped Airbus assess opinions and improve engagement across its global organization.

1. > Many-to-One® communication;
the new format fostering one
Stefan Kruijer, Airbus
Georg Kolb, straightto global company culture at Airbus

2. Communication formats at a glance
One-to-One Many-to-Many
@
One-to-Many Many-to-One®
Seite 2 – 16.05.2011

3. The cascade as we know it
Feedback Feedback Feedback
Executive Board
Executive
Officer Divisions
and Regions Departmental /
Team Leader
Employees
Leadership meeting
Team meeting
Employee meeting
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4. One-to-One
Feedback Feedback Feedback
Executive Board
Executive
Officer Divisions
and Regions Departmental /
Team Leader
Employees
Leadership meeting
Team meeting
Employee meeting
> Most powerful on recipient
> Doesn‘t scale
> Need to research who is worth doing it with
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5. One-to-Many
Feedback Feedback Feedback
Executive Board
Executive
Officer Divisions
and Regions Departmental /
Team Leader
Employees
Leadership meeting
Team meeting
Employee meeting
Internal and external media
> Most efficient, but often irrelevant on individual level
> Lack of feedback
> Need to go from „push“ to „pull“
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6. Many-to-Many
Feedback Feedback Feedback
Executive Board
Executive
Officer Divisions
and Regions Departmental /
Team Leader
Employees
Leadership meeting
Team meeting
Employee meeting
> Allowing for many senders and receivers
> Great for small expert networks
> Doesn‘t scale beyond the Dunbar number
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7. Many-to-One®
Feedback Feedback Feedback
Executive Board
Executive
Officer Divisions
and Regions Departmental /
Team Leader
Employees
Leadership meeting
Team meeting
Teamsitzung
Employee meeting
Mitarbeitersitzung
Feedback
Many-to-One
> Creates relevance through collective feedback
> Highly scalable
> Engages silent majority
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8. Challenge: foster trust in one global company culture
First company wide engagement survey in October 2009:
> Employees motivated by the product (e.g. Airbus 380),
but not as much by the organisation
> Employees don’t feel listened to when communicating problems
> Call to action by CEO: create new open communication culture
across hierarchies to foster trust in one global company culture
page8 – 16.05.2011

9. Goal: openly communicating as one company
> Raise engagement level with
52,000 employees worldwide
> Create opinion radar
> Support “one company”
strategy across geographies and
languages
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10. Integrated with
worldwide
Interface in employee
four Airbus portal
languages: en, Airbus|People
de, fr, es incl. SSO
Employees post
feedback (e.g.
questions,
comments,
ideas) Employees
prioritise
feedback of
colleagues
Responses on
top-rated posts
from the CEO
"Straight to Tom" – Many-to-One platform for the CEO
page10 – 16.05.2011

11. Bundling
posts using
Agenda setting
algorithm and
using impulse
crowdsourcing
feature
(image & text
or video)
Responses
targeted on
those Prioritising
interested feedback:
reading,
searching,
Responses and sorting, voting,
posts recommending
translated
In Airbus
languages
"Straight to Tom" – Many-to-One platform for the CEO
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12. Many-to-One Many-to-Many
359 34.018 votes
posts bundled 1.146 comments
One-to-Many
50 answers
11.780 requests answered
171.963 unique visits
"Straight to Tom", user stats: 23 September 2010 – 30 April 2011
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13. What worked
> One company view: bringing views of all locations together on one
platform
> Openness: CEO transparently listening to all staff
> Efficiency: posts bundled, one response addressing multiple requests
> Relevance: posts prioritised, individual interests separated from
collective interests
> Participation: Silent majority mobilised by low barrier of entry
> Radar: Opinions and moods can be assessed at any time
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14. Learnings
> It’s more than IT (cf. triangle)
Culture
Comms
> Back office processes needed
some leveling: IT ROI
> Approvals for responses
> Coordination of translations
page14 – 16.05.2011

15. Legal advice
straightto® and Many-to-One® are registered
trademarks of direktzu® GmbH, Berlin,
Germany.
http://www.straightto.com
http://www.direktzu.de
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