Where’s internal communication headed?

Expert views on IC trends for 2015

What does effective internal communication look like?

This Institute of Internal Communication e-book on IC trends for 2015 identifies some key issues that will have an increasing impact on the work and priorities of internal communicators in the coming months. In particular, it throws an important dilemma into sharp focus: what does doing a good job in internal communication look like, and how is this changing?

One thing is clear – internal communication is evolving, and fast. One major plus is the scope for greater influence at Board level. However, more is also expected in terms of being able to provide concrete evidence that IC strategy is achieving the desired business results. And practitioners must also recalibrate their thoughts on what constitutes useful IC activity, their relationships with others in the workplace and how to demonstrate their own professionalism.

Key strands of the challenges ahead include:

Measurement: increased focus on doing this more systematically and effectively, and the advantages of being able to ‘mine’ deeper and more complex data

Leadership: the role of internal communicators in supporting authentic leadership, and true engagement rather than just ‘engaging communication’

Workplace trends: avoiding the pitfalls of the new marketing focus on employee advocacy, and an increasingly global workplace that brings the challenges of culture difference

Social trends: more effective adoption of enterprise social networks to achieve full potential, and working with the social networking know-how of employees for business advantage rather than running one step behind

Technology trends: advances leading to a reduced requirement for internal communicators to undertake more routine tasks, so how do they ensure they continue to add value?

Standards: as the profession comes of age, moves to establish recognised frameworks for what constitutes best practice and excellence

Now take a tour of all these topics with the following thought-provoking contributions from industry experts and thought leaders.

Catherine ParkEditor

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Introduction

© Institute of Internal Communication 2014All or part of this text may not be reproduced without prior permission from IoIC. Please credit IoIC and where appropriate the contributor by name when quoting from this work.

As IC practitioners we learn early on that to succeed and even survive in our field requires a high

tolerance for ambiguity. Organisational life is uncertain. We may be confident that change will happen but how and when are far less clear. So we look for signs and then extrapolate – if x then y and maybe z. Above all, we seek wise counsel and ask experts for their view of what’s ahead.

Even then, we need to sense-check what we hear. From the academic who forecasted years of continued stability in eastern Europe just months before the Berlin Wall came down, to the weatherman who rubbished fears of a hurricane just hours before the great storm, even experts don’t always see it coming.

We rely on data to monitor our environment but part of the art is to choose the data-source carefully and to know which lessons to draw from it. In the

contemporary world of IC practice, few sources will be more credible than those assembled in this e-book. We’ve asked our magnificent seven-strong panel of trend-watchers to throw their individual lights on the emerging shape of IC in 2015. We hope you find their insights valuable as you chart your own path into the next 12 months and beyond. Steve DoswellChief Executive, Institute of Internal Communication

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Foreword

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People doing it for themselves and impacts of automation

T here are two significant challenges about to hit internal communications professionals

in the next year. One has been heading their way for a while, the other is just beginning to appear on the horizon.

During the recent Scottish Referendum people were amazed to see a supposedly disengaged citizenry suddenly become animated and active. This caught Westminster and the media on the hop. The high level of engagement was not all attributable to social media but, as with The Arab Spring, it was clearly part

of what happened. Those same people using those same tools work for you.

They are working out that they can work things out and that they have a voice.

‘Employee engagement’ is going to be seen as a token gesture when the true shift in balance in our

organisations becomes apparent. Staff are learning to think for

themselves and to learn together how to do things better and faster.

Arguably management are adapting more slowly, especially the ever

beleaguered middle management.

There is an exciting role for internal communications professionals to help this group to catch up. Help them to use social tools and take part in real conversations with staff. Help them to be more acute in their observations, more concise in their writing, more effective with their stories. Help them to take the skills some of them are learning on the web and apply them to the workplace.

The second challenge is more remote but more profound. The next wave of automation is primed to hit ‘knowledge workers’ and there is a strong possibility that computers will be able to do at least as good a job of writing all staff emails or standard procedural communications. When this happens there will be a need to add value in different ways.

If the corporate messages and managerial communication are done by machines, the focus will be on the unpredictable, the spontaneous, the person-to-person communications that help businesses to run smoothly. This is what social platforms are for and again where communications professionals can help. Working through networks, and working online, will become key parts

of getting things done. Helping people adapt to this new reality is going to be critical to success.

As director of knowledge management for the BBC, Euan Semple was one of the first to introduce social media tools into a large, successful organisation. He subsequently worked with organisations such as Nokia, the World Bank, and NATO to help them do the same. Today he is a consultant for major organisations around the world, supporting them in making better use of new technologies.

His book Organisations Don’t Tweet, People Do is a milestone for managers who deal with social media within their enterprises.

Staff are learning to think

for themselves and to learn together how to do things

better and faster

Euan Semple

“”

Authentic leader and the role of the communicatorSheila Hirst

Demands on organisational leaders have changed substantially over the last

decade. ‘All knowing’, omnipotent leaders have left organisations with a legacy of follower disillusionment and inertia. Stakeholders inside and outside the organisation are now looking for a different type of ‘authentic’ leader, one who has conviction rooted in a strong ethical purpose and is able to make mindful decisions in a constantly changing environment. Critically, these leaders need to be able to connect with followers and engage them in both the decision-making and the implications of those decisions.

OmiliaHirst research indicates that authentic leaders need a different service from their communicators. As always, leaders need to be heard and seen, but now it is even more urgent that they listen and act on what they have heard. So, communicators have to strive even harder to find touch-points and forums where genuinely open dialogue and challenge can occur. Increasingly, leaders want to use their own voice rather than a crafted

script and in order to get the tone and messages right and respond sensitively to people’s mood and receptivity, they need help to gain greater insight and context. For the communicator this goes beyond segmenting an ‘audience’ or providing non-specific engagement measures, it means providing rich data, to tell what is going on in followers’ work environment and indicating how this will impact receptivity when leaders and followers meet.

To support authentic leaders to connect with their followers in a richer deeper way, communicators also need to add a set of coaching skills to their repertoire. They need to bring out a leader’s authentic voice and capability to hear what is being said to them, explicitly and implicitly, and respond appropriately. This involves developing the skill and confidence to ask probing questions that strengthen leaders’ purpose and develop their self-awareness and capacity to listen. Communicators also need to develop the courage to challenge when this is not happening rather than trying to remedy it with safe ‘corporate speak’ that convinces no one.

In summary, supporting the leader to be perceived as authentic by helping them clarify their purpose, understand their followers and recognise their own values and communication strengths is where the communicator of the future will add most value.

Sheila Hirst is an experienced consultant, facilitator and coach. She combines experience gained from senior management roles in both SMEs and large corporates, with 25 years in the field of organisational and personal communication and change both in the UK and globally.

As a director of OmiliaHirst, Sheila specialises in coaching leaders to find and use their authentic voice. She supports key individuals to develop their leadership capability through a greater understanding of themselves and others.Sheila is running a new coaching master class for the Institute of Internal Communication.

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To support authentic leaders

to connect with their followers in a richer deeper way,

communicators also need to add a set of coaching

“

”

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Internal communication as a function and practice is now quite well adopted in FTSE companies and global institutions.

Most corporate leaders know that unless their people are in the know and minded to co-operate, their vision and practical plans will remain a figment of their imagination.

Many organisations are also lucid about the commercial and cultural purposes of internal communication which broadly speaking starts with information sharing and graduates towards engaging people in decision forming on everyday matters and big ticket strategy and change:• Articulate the company story/strategy and

share it with everyone with local adaptation – the information role

• The community/culture purpose – provide great examples/stories about activities that exemplify the desired culture and inspire emulation

• Provide the means/channel for people to innovate work process/product

• Provide employees with voice so they can express needs and speak up

• Stimulate employee advocacy in their communities to drive talent, business and reputation

• Include employees in execution of strategy

(and possibly in origination) – creating line of sight between ‘my job’ and the big idea

The Yeti in the process is the use of engaging communication to mask what is still authoritarian, coercive leadership.Remember the critical test of real engagement – “all or some colleagues are invited to challenge and contribute to everyday operational and big ticket (strategy/change etc) decisions/challenges/opportunities that affect them, and which they can improve and accelerate”1.

Contrastingly, engaging communication about decisions taken by the few and communicated to the many may be engaging communication but it is not real engagement. There is way too much engaging communication masquerading as real engagement through ignorance or misguided intent. The term engagement is often empty rhetoric disguising what are top down campaigns and cascades, perhaps with a feedback loop.

Real engagement requires a shift from command and control/nanny knows best styles of leadership, to well governed mutuality involving strong leadership about

some of the ‘what’, but not all of it (as it tends to be under command and control) and very little of the ‘how’.

Conservative attitudes to power is the ‘Yeti’ of employee engagement and no amount of engagement programmes, surveys and the like will substitute for more mutual styles of leadership. This is the conversation that needs to occur in Britain’s C-Suites.

John Smythe, a founding partner of the Engage for Change consultancy, specialises in organisational communication and engagement. He was previously an organisational fellow with McKinsey, undertaking research into employee engagement, and has held senior public affairs posts for three American corporations: Occidental Oil, Bechtel Corporation and Marathon Oil.He currently chairs Engage for Success’s Social Media Group and Cross Cultures Group.

He is a well-known speaker on leader and employee engagement. Other published works include CEO: Chief Engagement Officer: Turning Hierarchy Upside Down to Drive Performance.

johnsmythe@engageforchange.com www.engageforchange.com

Real engagement or just engaging communication?John Smythe

The term engagement

is often empty rhetoric disguising

what are top down campaigns

and cascades, perhaps with a

feedback loop

“

”

1 From The Velvet Revolution at Work: The Rise of Employee Engagement, the Fall of Command and Control

Data, digital and avoiding the employee advocacy trap

W hen Heather Yaxley and I researched the history of internal communication in

2013, it became clear that some aspects of practice are evolving fast and at the same time some long-standing issues remain.Research and measurement has long been the Achilles Heel of internal communication practice. There are a number of reasons for this, including the gap in the skills that practitioners need to conduct research, a reluctance to be held to account, and the way that the ubiquitous employee engagement survey dominates organisational research to the detriment of more meaningful research about communication.

However, this situation is changing. The commendable emphasis on measurement in government communication is establishing research as a core requirement for all communication activity. This makes sense, as precious resources are much better employed if they are based on robust research. I see this development spreading much more widely in 2015.

A second trend is a more informed approach to the implementation and use of enterprise social networks (ESNs). We are

entering a second wave for ESNs that will start to go beyond technical deployment challenges into more effective adoption that starts to realise the benefits of sharing information across organisational departments. There is also an opportunity for internal communication practitioners to advise senior managers to use ESNs to communicate more regularly and informally with employees so that they are better informed.

On the other hand, organisations will come under intense pressure from marketing, digital and management consultancies to adopt ‘employee advocacy’. This is based on the premise that employees, if encouraged, will tweet and post positive comments about their organisation using their personal social media. Of course, where organisations have a strong management-employee relationship that is based on trust, honesty and employee voice, then employees may naturally post positive comments that are genuinely held. When employees post comments because they are told to, authenticity goes out of the window – and of course friends and colleagues will spot this a mile off. Helping organisations to avoid this reputation trap will be a key challenge in 2015.

Kevin Ruck specialises in the measurement and evaluation of internal communication. He is a founding director of PR Academy which provides qualifications and training in all aspects of internal communication and PR. He initiated and designed CIPR’s internal communication qualifications.

He has worked in communications within the telecoms and ICT sector for more than 18 years.

Kevin is the editor and co-author of the book Exploring Internal Communication. He is a regular speaker and author on all aspects of internal comms. Further information is available at the Exploring Internal Communication website.

Kevin Ruck

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When employees post comments

because they are told to, authenticity

goes out of the window – and of

course friends and colleagues will spot

this a mile off

“

”

How government is driving up standards of internal communications

The Civil Service employs 400,000 people across 17 main departments and nearly 300

Arm’s Length Bodies (ALBs). Given the scale of the workforce, it is vital that we are making the best use of our internal communications functions.

The Government Communications Service launched the IC Excellence project in January 2014 with the aim of making our best practice the standard. We’ve adopted the MacLeod principles and set out the model approach to delivering brilliant IC on the IC Space website. We’ve made the Heads of Internal Communications Group part of the formal governance of our profession, accountable to the Ministerial Board and driven through a cross government review of internal communications that is improving standards.

Too often IC is used to ‘send out stuff’ which is not only ineffective but also detrimental to the profession itself, as many talented communicators

do not see internal communications as a

fundamental discipline of the PR mix.

Taking this into account, the IC Excellence project identifies IC as a powerful management tool through ongoing campaigns which inform, engage and empower coaching and involving leaders throughout the programme. The work is a combination of tactical and strategic actions, all aimed at improving internal comms standards and enhancing the reputation of the discipline.

There are five outcomes that we will have achieved once the project is complete:1. A model for delivering effective

communications which can be evaluated and improved

2. A clear career path for internal communicators and every communicator working in IC for part of their career

3. An effective network of internal communicators across government and ALBs driving up standards of practice

4. Senior leaders valuing IC as a management discipline and understanding the importance of their role in communicating to staff

5. Managers are better equipped to inspire and have difficult conversations with their staff

This programme has all been delivered in-house by our own internal communications team. There is a long way to go, but we have a clear route to IC Excellence.

To find out more visit the IC Space website

As executive director for government communications since 2012, Alex Aiken has been responsible for creating the Government Communications Service and developing cross-governmental campaigns.

He was previously director of communications and strategy for Westminster City Council where he led the policy, member services and communications teams. He served as part of the group that oversaw the implementation of the Tri-Borough Shared Services programme and established the Westco communications consultancy which works for public and private sector clients.

Alex Aiken

Too often IC is used to ‘send out stuff’ which is not only

ineffective but also detrimental to the

profession itself

“”

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The Culture Map

In today’s globalised economy, it’s not unusual for a British person to give a presentation in China, for an Italian to

negotiate a deal in Nigeria, or for a German to coach to a team of Brazilians. You can do your business over email, or on the telephone, or you can get on a plane. That’s the easy part. The hard part is figuring out how to communicate effectively with another culture. The more the world globalises, the more important this skill becomes. Is it Americans who don’t like criticism and the French who don’t mince words? Or is it the other way around? Does speaking forcefully to your Brazilian collaborators signal strength, or rather disrespect? When your Indian colleague tells you yes, but it somehow strangely sounds like no, what is the best way to respond?

Most managers have little understanding of how local culture impacts global interaction. Even those who are culturally well-informed, who travel extensively, and who have lived abroad often have few strategies for dealing with the cross-cultural complexity that impacts their team’s day-to-day communication.

To help people improve their ability to understand the cultural differences

affecting their work, and to enhance effectiveness in dealing with these differences, I have developed a tool called The Culture Map. It is made up of eight scales representing the management behaviours where cultural gaps are most common.

The eight scales are based on decades of research into culture from multiple perspectives. The scales are:• Communicating: explicit vs. implicit • Evaluating: direct criticism vs. indirect

criticism• Leading: egalitarian vs. hierarchical • Deciding: consensual vs. top down • Trusting: task vs. relationship• Disagreeing: confrontational vs. avoidance • Scheduling: linear-time vs. flexible-time • Persuading: applications-first vs.

principles-first

By reviewing the relative positions of various nationalities on each scale, and by examining multiple examples and strategies, managers learn to decode how culture influences day-to-day international interaction. Then they are equipped to avoid the common pitfalls.

The best communicators have always

needed to understand human nature and personality differences in order to get their message across – that’s nothing new. What is new is that in the twenty-first century we must understand a wider, richer array of communication styles than ever before. We must be able to determine which aspects of our interactions are simply a result of personality and which are a result of differences in cultural perspective. We need to adapt our approach accordingly.

Erin Meyer is a professor at INSEAD where she specialises in the field of cross-cultural management, intercultural negotiations, and multi-cultural leadership. She is also the programme director for two INSEAD executive education programmes: Managing Global Virtual Teams and Management Skills for International Business.

Erin’s business experience includes leading multi-cultural teams as the director of training and development at HBOC and as the director of business operations at McKesson Corporation.

She is the author of the new book The Culture Map: Breaking through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business

Erin Meyer

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We must be able to determine which

aspects of our interactions are

simply a result of personality and

which are a result of differences

in cultural perspective

“

”

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Come with data – leave with respectLiam Fitzpatrick

Something interesting is happening in the world of data and intelligence; and it might just advance internal

communication a little.

Once, IC pros got along nicely with a bit of instinct, a lot of experience and a smattering of low animal cunning. CEOs were once happy to listen to the advice of the wise old IC manager alone. Over time, that has changed. We’re getting a bigger role and the doors of the executive floor are being opened to us. Modern leaders know that we have value to add and want to see us add it.

Yet, sitting at the boardroom table you quickly notice that everyone has a spreadsheet. Smart communicators have worked out that organisations are data powered; a set of facts has become more potent than a pithy anecdote.That’s not just because we have to show where the money is going. The need for evaluation is well understood and, although the tools are still evolving, we’re getting pretty good at explaining what we’ve done and what impact it had.

In the last few years I’ve noticed more and more comms people using data

and organised intelligence gathering to understand what has to be done. It’s not just about retrospective measurement, it’s about designing and predicting.

Recently I saw the IC function in two different organisations commission their own statistical analyses of the employee survey. They built detailed models of employee segmentation, they saw why some channels worked and not others and they identified the real factors shaping how staff felt.

Other organisations have expanded how they collate, analyse and report qualitative intelligence. One large bank has employed a statistician in their global comms function.

There is a simple reason why this obsession with data is going to stick. Communications managers are enjoying the feeling of being listened to that experts experience. The people with evidence will always carry more weight than people who operate on gut feel alone. And a CEO who has been exposed to proper intelligence won’t want to go back to flying blind.

Liam FitzPatrick runs the change consultancy Agenda Strategies and leads campaigns around the world in a number of sectors.

He has 25 years’ of experience in change, PR and IC which included his role as global head of internal communications at Marconi during its financial restructuring and working on change and transformation projects in a wide variety of situations.

He is one of the authors of Internal Communications: a Manual for Practitioners published by Kogan Page. When he’s not talking about change he’s going on about long distance cycling!

The people with evidence will

always carry more weight than people who operate on gut

feel alone

“”

About the Institute

The Institute of Internal Communication (IoIC) is the UK professional institute dedicated

to supporting IC practitioners throughout their career.

We are a not-for-profit, membership organisation and all our activities are based around five key pillars:

Advocacy – we work continuously to promote a wider and deeper understanding of internal communication and the added value it brings to organisations of all kinds and sizes

Career development – through our training and qualification programmes we are equipping practitioners to be the best they can be

Community – we are a forum and network, bringing people together from internal communication and other related fields to exchange ideas, experiences and techniques

Thought leadership – we are building a body of high quality knowledge to explain and demonstrate the impact of internal communication

Organisational development – we are investing in the development of the Institute so we have the capability to provide the best support for IC professionals now and into the future

The Institute provides seminars and workshops, stages a national conference, runs the largest competition for internal communicators in Europe, provides short training courses and accredited qualifications, and supports a large knowledge bank.

For further information visit us at:www.ioic.org.uk

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© Institute of Internal Communication 2014

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