Cup cake comms is alive and well

Restructuring your business? Jobs in peril? Unpalatable cost cutting on the cards messages to share with employees? Or maybe you want to engage them in the company’s exciting plans for the future?

It may be the fact I am still reeling from an unpleasant bout of flu (could I still be in that temperature-induced fug) but a senior colleague and I have come to a startling realisation this week with the arrival of a corporate missive from another part of the business.
We’ve been getting internal communication wrong for years.
Many of you internal comms folk have also been doing it wrong with your coaching of senior leaders; relentlessly consistent, clear, relevant and timely comms; creating opportunities for employee involvement, conversation and innovation to help your business shape up in an increasingly competitive world.
The answer to all the corporate challenges you may ever face as communicators is simple. Cup cakes. Yes, that’s right. Forget all those things you have been doing – not to mention ensuring your channels are four and five way – cupcakes are a culinary panacea for all internal communication on any subject whatsoever.
Losing your job? Here’s a cupcake. Having a stressful day/life/career? Here’s a cupcake. Restructuring your team and department? Here’s a cupcake. Let’s celebrate you aren’t getting a pay rise this year – here’s a cupcake.
And even better if you can send out those delicious bits of sponge to land (icing side up, obviously) on each employee’s desk.
And who said April Fool’s Day is just one day in the year!

Doggone it, who's in charge here?

Having once been on a course entitled How to be as happy as your dog (and I didn’t even have a canine companion at that time) I feel I am more then qualified to talk about training in all its forms - both good and bad.

The dog course was unsurprisingly awful but the memory lives on in the sheer entertainment value of recounting how I ended up woofing at my fellow course companions and laughing hysterically. Clearly How to be as happy as your dog lived up to its title and promise.

Now the real reason I mention training is that a client and friend of mine has a tiny little dilemma involving her as head of internal comms and her lovely leadership and development colleagues in HR.

Their corporate battle is being fought over whom is best equipped and experienced enough to coach some of the organisation’s line managers in the fine (and forgotten) art of conversation with their teams.

L&D have a fabulous e-learning module (an oxymoron) and Powerpoint deck (always good for truly involving communication) into which, doubtless, the hapless line managers will be sheep dipped - thus transforming them and their communication skills forever.

My pal feels it will take much more than that and is suggesting an experiential approach. She has even mooted HR and IC work together (god forbid there’s collaboration across the silos).

The jury is still out but I would be interested to know from others if this is a topic causing friction in your own business.

And while you're doing that, I'm off for a walkies.

No more wafting about strategy without delivery!

Today’s communicator has to be business savvy – know more about the business and the market in which it operates than the CEO. I was on my soapbox at a recent Sequel run ASPIC seminar on internal communication where the fabulous wallpaper at The Soho Hotel threatened to overshadow my bright orange dress. With just one PowerPoint slide, the dress, and my 'resilience' music to boost me up for tricky days in comms - Start Me Up by the Rolling Stones - I was able to share what today's communicators need to focus on if they want to be taken seriously by their CEO and the business. You can read more about it here:http://tinyurl.com/qdpboz3

Coco the Clown and the Man Who Wanted Windows

This is a true story. I once saw an ex-boss lock herself into a cupboard rather than confront the bobble hat wearing would-be editor who turned up for a job interview at our creative comms agency. As the candidate - looking more like Coco the Clown in her equally shocking, bright stripy tights, mismatched skirt and tie-dye top - cycled across our courtyard, there was nothing else for it. It had been a long, tiring day of interviews and my MD was laughing so hard that tears were coursing down her face and she simply couldn’t face this candidate and take her at all seriously for a client-facing job. So into the cupboard she hopped. An extreme reaction perhaps but often people find it hard to imagine how important first impressions are to a potential employer. It’s the same with the bit at the end of every interview when your ‘maybe’ next boss asks you if you have any questions? Asking about holiday entitlement or salary as the only question or, even worse, not saying anything at all are a definite no-no. Particularly if you are going for a communications role. Equally unimpressive are questions of no relevance whatsoever. A candidate once asked me whether our company had windows. It was the only question, it was the early 90s, so I assumed he meant the Microsoft Operating System. But no, dear readers, he was talking about the glass variety you can see out of. Apparently his current office had no natural daylight. A shame. However, as I was potentially employing him as a comms consultant I felt there were way too many other more strategic and insightful questions he could have put to me – old fashioned future employer that I was. And, as I showed him the door, I really couldn’t imagine him working with any of our clients, asking them the right questions or giving them the best solutions. So my top tip if you can absolutely not think of anything worthwhile to say is to just say this: “What are the key objectives you would expect me to achieve in the first three to six months?” True it can flummox them but switched on folk should be able to respond. Just don’t say it wearing fancy dress!

Why 'cascade' is a corporate comms myth-take

There is one dreadful word still bandied about in internal communication. There are several but one I'd particularly love to see buried in the corporate comms nonsense graveyard of terms and practices is 'cascade'.

I know it still exists because a well-meaning FTSE big boss recently mentioned to me he had 'cascaded our annual results so every one of our 20,000 employees now knows and understands where the business is going'. Fingers crossed with that one.

I have also spotted 'cascade' lurking in Linked In forums, in IC articles and as a key achievement in communicators' CVs.

And we are not in 1990 anymore, Toto!

Anyone reading this post (apart from my mum) will have a few such archaic words they loathe too. Would love to share those. But surely in internal communication, and in a world where people are connected more than ever before, 'cascade' should have died out dinosaur-like a decade or two ago?

'Cascade' is no way to do business, folks. It is a corporate myth to imagine information cascade's like a waterfall through a business from the top to the bottom just because the CEO speaks about strategy and a thousand managers' not-very-brief briefing packs are produced. Even if the approach does start with lots of good intentions, as one comms grandee suggested brilliantly, the process 'leaks meaning at every level' and mostly grinds to a halt somewhere  in the middle because people have more important things to do - like work.

Conversation and helping facilitate that is what matters and that is sometimes a whole lot harder to achieve yet ultimately more effective and a tad more grown-up.

Cascade can always reinvent itself -  as a name for a bathroom company.

A real tale about bad internal communications

This isn’t an award-winning case study in great internal communications. Just a real life story where the absence of it is all too evident. Lessons can be learned which is why I am sharing it.

The normally cheery and uber helpful ticket check guy at my local railway station told me today he is being replaced by a machine. Indeed, rather like the Sword of Damocles, said machine is already in situ, right behind him silently waiting to take over his job.

Now I love change – particularly when it’s for the better – but my current operator Southern Rail and the equally appalling bunch waiting in the franchise wings - haven’t a clue about running trains. Which is really frightening when you consider that’s all they are supposed to do. When you throw in Network Rail it’s a rail recipe for disaster.

None of them communicate well – with staff, with commuters/customers or with each other. That means every day feels like a crisis comms scenario. And as a comms pro I have managed a few of those. Indeed, good old Southern Rail isn’t doing great on employee engagement bearing in mind the machine that’s replacing my experienced, cheerful, helpful chap has already been installed before he’s even collected his P45. I could fly to New York in the time it has recently taken me to get to work in London but thanks to my chap at the station and his help and advice he does make me feel valued as a customer, albeit one spending some thousands of pounds for the sheer, giddy pleasure of delays, cancellations and random jettisoning on to freezing platforms. He sadly tells me the service we are all getting is ‘disgraceful’. Not surprising when everyone can see it is and he doubtless gets the brunt of commuters’ increasing rage on a daily basis.

Where is the company’s leadership in all this?

I politely enquired when I might have an opportunity to find out why the service is deteriorating so and was told senior managers prefer their ‘Meet The Managers’ sessions on the concourses of large, open stations rather than smaller ones.

“They are very scared of actually meeting customers face-to-face”, says my man in the know.

Nuff said.

Shame of the macho managers on the 18.47

A man on my London train today referred to his colleagues as mostly 'dead wood.'
His travelling companion boasted he was relishing a major restructure involving the 'low hanging fruit' in his team.
A third besuited assassin smiled as he described wielding an 'axe' to decimate his 'headcount' by 25% in the next six months.
It's not the first time I've heard employees described like this and with such obvious disdain.
Sadly it won't be the last.
Macho posturing on the 18.47pm? You betcha!
But something else too. What struck me about the very loud conversation across the aisle was the realisation that someone somewhere had given these three men responsibility to manage people in their respective organisations through difficult times.
Can't imagine this terrible trio of horrible bosses doing that with any sense of leadership.

Here are some tips for communicating a restructure the right way http://bit.ly/zaDJPI 

A taste of things to come

I have just started an exciting new job full time at VMA Group and had a great first day which in more than 20 years I can honestly say hasn't really been matched.

And no, this isn't me sucking up to my new employers (an unattractive trait at the best of times). I am just slightly agog as I have worked for some big old companies who should know better about how they treat new staff (as well as their existing people) and pride themselves on checking how they are doing it at least once a year with those marvellous engagement surveys that cost the GDP of a small nation.

Many of my other new starter experiences have felt like that old Japanese game show Endurance, battling to try and get a computer pre-ordered three months' ago; tussling with security guards on the door the first morning and for the following fortnight saying over and over again mantra-like "but I DO work here"; devising my own induction when there was no obvious one coming and lack of it got me locked in the office with no escape; and, in one memorable case, pleading to be given a security pass so that I might meet the CEO without an armed guard. 

First days at work can feel like this!

It's a funny old thing being a Head of Internal Communication and perhaps actually wanting to meet and work closely with the biggest cheese from the outset. Moving freely around the organisation so you can do your job. I just felt that six weeks after starting with this huge organisation with its robust People Strategy promising great things for employees that getting a security pass to the building on the first day should have been a tad easier.

 

But back to my new role and Day One. Firstly I got introduced to everyone in the company - at least 50 people and a handshake with all of them; was handed all my equipment, including the Crackberry; given a two week planned induction timetable with lots of sessions working with various colleagues and a two day training course; welcomed by my own personal 'Buddy'; given a delicious box of chocolates and taken out to lunch with my new team.

I shall report back if it goes downhill from here. But these are very good signs. Lessons should surely be learned. I am also available, for a very low fee (!), for any HR colleagues who need to know more about how it should and shouldn't be done!

Advice on strategy that's out of this world

Always an interesting moment when you tell a client the only way they will make head or tail of the company's complex, strategic goals is to imagine they are talking about them with a Martian.
Today isn't the first time I have suggested it but it got to the point where both of us were reaching for the paracetamol and the gin in our bid to bring clarity to the corporate strategy. Sure I have no idea whether a) Martians exist b) they can speak English or c) if they do, whether they give a toss about articulating strategic goals on the red planet. But it is a fun and surefire technique to help you cut through the gobbledegook that sometimes even comms folk find themselves bogged down in.
Today was a prime example as we vainly tried to retrieve some key messages from a raft of almost incomprehensible acronyms, jargon, and nonsense. We were in danger of repeating the same language in our comms plan, so tough was it to decipher and so immersed were we in trying to make sense of it all.
"Wait!" I said. "Step away from the plan. Let's pretend we are talking to Martians."
(Client looks at me as if totally off rocker).
Me: "If a Martian wanted to know what we were trying to do, what would we say to keep it simple?"
Six clear messages were duly produced.
Client smiles with delight and says: "You are a comms genius and deserve twice your daily rate, Sarah!"
Yeah, well maybe she didn't actually say that but am sure she meant it.

Back of a napkin comms tips

Note to self. I must stop going out at weekends and ending up sitting next to people at dinner who want me to help them communicate better with their staff but would like my gratis top tips for it between the main course and pudding! This weekend's impromptu surgery/counselling session took place during a wedding reception and actually did involve me writing on the back of a napkin - albeit one with lovely confetti shapes on it.

All common sense, of course, but it still amazes me how much common sense gets overlooked in the hurly burly of business life.

My top tips for the lovely manager sitting on my right (cousin of the bride, no less) are repeated here and are in no particular order:

• Communicate with integrity: tell the truth always and without exception. If you don’t know the answer, say you will find out and come back to people
• Make time to communicate and make the most of that time
• Remember the basics: people want to know the who, what, where, when, why and how of any communication and ‘what’s in it for me?’
• Think about what you want people to Think, Feel and Do as a result of any communication
• Use stories. The right anecdote can be worth a thousand theories or facts and people are more likely to remember them
• Build trust and credibility. Be visible and approachable, engage the people who work with you openly and fully
• Check for  understanding. Ask questions and provide context and further information if needed.

How do corporate despots survive?

The fabulous eye of cartoonist Tom Fishburne is in spot on focus with this amusing array of corporate characters. If I was a talented artist like Tom I might add the Talk To The Hand guy and Mrs Shssssh You Have Nothing Interesting To Say While I'm In The Room - both of whom I have encountered. And let us not forget Mr Jump-Up-And-Down-On-The-Spot-Ranting-In-The-Middle-Of-An-Open-Plan-Office whom I met on one, very memorable, occasion along with 150 aghast colleagues. Now, I hasten to add, I have worked with many brilliant, inspiring people but there have been a few really, really bad ones along the way. And I am not alone. One such baddie is the bane of a good friend's life. 
My pal is pretty resilient but has extreme challenges with one of those 'Unique Individuals' who everyone seems terrified of, who has single-handedly added triple digits to the sick leave stats, yet whose budget and organisational power remain solid and growing, year-on-year. (Think Edward Tufte's Stalin doing a PowerPoint presentation for more of a pen picture).

In his three million years of service with the organisation, scary, unpleasant, upward managing, nightmare Head of Function big cheese has clawed his way up and all the while successfully avoided any attempts at leadership support, training, performance management and Decent Human Being immersion courses.
Yet it's my pal who is being coached on how to handle this despot and all to improve communication! It's a complete mystery to me what these fiendish folk are good at apart from filling dead men's shoes or roles left by better people having babies. Yet how do they survive? If there's a war for talent, if CEOs are generally wanting to embrace employee engagement, and if research shows people leave their manager not their company, tell me how do they get away with it? If anyone knows, then do please put me out of my misery. 

Read more about 'horrible bosses' from body language guru Carol Goman.

Food for thought

At dinner on Saturday night I was lucky enough to be sitting at the lively end of the table. Amid a range of topics which could have given the BBC Question Time panel a run for its money, my very entertaining companions were regaling me with their stories of life in the companies where they worked, particularly their views of poor communication.

Happily it didn't take long to stop feeling like a doctor who can never socialise any more because strangers want to share their illnesses over the cheesy pineappley things on sticks.

None of what they told me was surprising (which is why there is still plenty of work out there) and I had a few 'remedies' to give them between the starter and pud. Much of our conversation surrounded our views of the barriers to effective comms, how to spot them and points to avoid.

So here they are, sans a particularly tasty bottle or two of chenin blanc and in no particular order:

Listen up: communication is about listening and acting upon what you hear. It’s not just telling people what to do

What's the story? This starts with the leaders of the organisation – many of them struggle to agree on a strategy or if they have one find it challenging to articulate it or share it with employees

Honesty is the best policy: businesses are often governed by their external agenda thus there is still tension around timeliness and transparency of information which needs to be shared with employees

Loosen up: a command and control organisation often struggles with good communication – the great irony is that the military learned long ago that, if you want to win, you have to engage the intelligence of everyone involved in the battle

Do what I say not what I do: everything we do communicates, particularly our behaviour

Take responsibility: effective communication is the responsibility of managers - leaders at all levels need to be able to communicate openly and honestly. It's not a third party activity run entirely by a comms team at HQ!

Hold that thought: there is no shame in saying “I don’t know”. Try: “I don’t know but I will go and find out and come back to you.”

As ever, please feel free to add your thoughts...

Henry Kissinger and keeping calm in a crisis

'There cannot be a crisis today; my schedule is already full.' Henry Kissinger knows what he's talking about and you can't imagine this famous former US Secretary of State not keeping his head when all around are losing theirs. Watch out FIFA!

The same keep-calm-and-carry-on approach is true for the numerous comms pros responding to a 'top tips for handling a crisis' post on Linked In this week.

My top tip, based on managing a crisis in several organisations, is how critical it is for IC and leaders to have a core plan and stick with it - avoiding all temptation to respond and react to everything. 

The human instinct to panic is great and never more so when your crisis is playing out in the media, or with unions, regulators, stakeholders and customers. But please resist 'tit-for-tat' comms as a response to everything everyone is saying about your organisation. It only makes your business look like it's losing control and can also prolong and fuel the crisis. 

That doesn't mean your comms plan should remain static. Indeed, as all good internal comms practitioners know, any communication approach needs to measure its effectiveness in terms of clarity and understanding and in a crisis regular pulse checks with employees are vital so you can respond accordingly.
Just don't lose you own head as tensions rise and keep the messages clear, relevant and timely.

Keep a finger on the pulse of best practice

I love that social communications has opened up the world to sharing knowledge across time-zones and specialities. Not that it's a panacea for networking but it's a great addition to the mix.

Sure Twitter and Linked In can harbour plenty of pretention, self-promotion, hidden sales pitches, and, my old favourite, 'stating-the-bloody-obvious'-as-if-it-was-original-thought.'

So too can face-to-face events and conferences.

But you can get some golden nuggets of wisdom and good practice tips in the blink of a cursor or tap on the keypad from employee comms people who really know what they're talking about or from those in associated fields.

It doesn't matter if you work for a big utility, a global bank or a company that puts widgets on widgets. Don't get hung up on the sector you work in.

People are people - with a few variations on humanity - whatever the business they work for. And as we IC folk are largely focusing on the people aspects of business performance you can still pick up ideas and advice from your fellow practitioners working in a diverse range of organisations, large and small.

In the hurly burly of corporate life, it's sometimes tricky to find time to gauge whether you're unnecessarily reinventing the wheel or could be learning a new way of doing things for greater business benefit.

Even in the thick of action and a meaty challenge or two I have always tried to keep an active and enquiring mind about what others have tried and tested and, in return, shared my own experiences of the job. Social communication really helps with all that good stuff and you can make 'real' connections that stay online or transcend that.

Indeed for today's practitioner it's essential to be connected in one way or another or both. Keeping your finger on the pulse of good practice is what your CEO will expect and it's good for your career (which you take with you wherever you go).

Be interested to know what others think.

Industry events: the good, the bad and the ugly

To go or not to go to an industry conference - that is the question.

With the growth of Linked In, Twitter and other social media, sharing knowledge in this business is easier than ever. Some of my virtual worlds often meet up face to face to network and swap war stories. It got me wondering how the world of the practitioner conference is faring and reminded me of a big online debate had with colleagues and peers this time last year about the value and ethics of the large conferences which used to be the only way to connect with people doing what you do every day.

I think conferences are like any comms channel. They are only as good as the content - whether it’s going to really add value to me or someone who works for me, whether it’s going to provoke fresh thinking and sharing of best practice, and whether I will make new connections or catch up with people I already know.

I have worked both in house and agency/consultancy side and been to some absolutely shocking events repackaging common sense and charging people the equivalent of an oligarch's annual expenses - with nothing to take away.

Equally I have happily paid to attend or send a colleague to events run by individual practitioners, agencies and membership bodies such as IoIC, CIPR and IABC. Usually these offer a healthy mix of strategy and tactics leaving my sometimes jaded outlook well and truly refreshed and giving team members food for thought to help their professional development. Freebies (again with the most pertinent content) are always welcome when budgets are tight or non existent and there are more and more of these.

But beware one of two that look 'no strings attached' but can be financially ruthless. A few years ago I was almost thrown out at a 'free' annual conference for senior practitioners when they ‘unmasked’ me as an interim head of internal comms – apparently a heinous crime because “suppliers only want to speak to budget holders.” I thought I was – trust me I was in that job for a very long time, had signed more than enough supplier invoices and helped a lot of change happen.

Their short sightedness (call it ignorance) and, frankly, rude dealings with me means they never get my personal recommendation and I always give colleagues a health warning if they get tempted. It’s a small world and we are so connected that events charlatans be warned. We know who you are!

Top tips for IC people - please add yours!

People who know me know how much I loathe all the hot air around internal comms, engagement, call it what you will. It's usually coming from the sort of people who have never actually got their hands dirty and wouldn't be tempted out of bed for less than £2k a day.

Still I guess you gotta earn a living. Yesterday, in my bid to make my office a clutter-free zone, I found a copy of an article I'd written in an industry mag which connected with some of the comments I have seen on Linked In and Twitter recently from new IC people looking for tips and advice on the job.

I wrote the article for Melcrum last year with the key points I felt were worth sharing with other comms practitioners about the role of internal comms and the people helping to make it effective.

They asked me to write it (and no, sadly it didn't involve chocolate or cash incentives) because I have been doing this stuff for a wee while and happened to have a particularly challenging role at the time heading internal communications for Royal Mail in the UK.

What was interesting about the exercise was having to hone down what I felt were the most relevant points bearing in mind the job has changed so much in recent years as have business leaders' expectations. And, naturally, I had a bit to say. 

Thank goodness for all those years as a journo and the invention of the bullet point. Yes, the resulting piece had a bit of an 'IC manifesto' look about it, but it is a true reflection of what I believe are the key ingredients for good IC and great IC people.

For this post, there are a couple of points from my 'Ban the fluff in your function' IC manifesto (!!)  which I always keep top of mind. Please feel free to have a look at the full post and add your own.

• Don’t be afraid to say what you are thinking and challenge the status quo. Big organisations have a tendency to say they tried your suggestion in August 1985 and it didn’t work. 

•  Get back to basics – don’t overlook simple ways of communicating for something fancy with bells on it. Conversation is best so do what you can with that in mind.

• Prioritise your priorities or you will soon find there are not enough hours in the day. If you match your comms strategy to business priorities that’s a good start.

Align leaders' actions and words

Actions speak louder than words is a phrase that is never more true than in a corporate context. Carol Kinsey Goman speaks wisely about the importance of leaders matching their behaviour with the words coming out of their mouth if they really want people to believe in them, what they have to say, and act on it.

As communicators I think we are in a unique position to observe this more than many folk in the business, particularly when coaching managers on how to have the most fruitful and inspiring conversations with their teams.

There's no doubt it can be very hard work.

I recall many instances, my own and gleaned from colleagues, about leaders with a genuine want to engage people but who failed to realise that their own behaviour was going to be the main barrier.

• The financial services company whose executive team wanted more 'openness' including open plan offices but who swiftly installed glass cubicles and wooden doors so you could see them but couldn't hear them.

• The bankers who did get rid of their private dining room but carried on having their lunch delivered to their offices on silver domed platters - a daily ritual watched with incredulity by employees who had just seen 25% of their colleagues axed in the name of cost-cutting.

• Or the very genuine but nervous boss who turned up for a factory team building event dressed in a very expensive Italian suit and Rolex and couldn't understand why no-one could relax.

An important part of our role is to help leaders at all levels avoid the pitfalls of non-verbal communication which is just as important, if not more, as the verbal kind. But to have that conversation in the first place you need to be in a position of trust. To get there means understanding what you need to do to add the most value to the business and getting on with it.

Recounting these sorts of anecdotes also helps and I welcome more for the collection plus tips on how you've addressed it.

Yes, but, no, but

‘No’ is a lake in the south central region of the Sudan. It’s also a great word to put people totally straight on what you will or won’t do. And I love ‘computer says no’ in Little Britain.

But I don’t feel it’s a word internal comms people should use too much if they want to be successful in a business.

Nor should the word 'yes'.

Too many internal comms professionals suffer from Corporate Client Afflictions and always say 'yes' particularly with demanding stakeholders who are 'doing the most important things in the business which everyone needs to know about right NOW!' The result is a comms team drowning in workload, rapidly losing their resilience and the ability to consult properly. Knee-jerk, non-integrated and ah-hoc communication might keep the client happy but it sure as hell will confuse everyone else in the organisation.

The best advice for dealing with tricky stakeholders is to take a deep breath and remember someone has come to you for your friendly professionalism, expertise and guidance. Some may be up against a deadline themselves or been given strict instructions by their boss to ‘get that comms out!’

Avoid 'no' and too much 'yes' by simply adopting a positive stance on any request for comms assistance and couple this with further explanation and context to qualify how best you can help. Try to show you understand their point of view. Empathy is very, very productive in this situation.

If you strongly disagree over a particular issue, a firm, fair, diplomatic approach is entirely within most people’s capabilities coupled with constructive suggestions of a way round it.

Once in a while you may get someone totally obnoxious – ‘a unique individual’, which I feel is a brilliant euphemism, wielding their job title around like a great big sword. They can make you feel personally affronted, raise your hackles high and make it difficult to think on your feet. A good tip is to say something like: “I understand what you are saying and it is obviously important so give me a bit of time to think about the best solution and I will get back to you shortly.”

Thinking about the best solution and taking time out like this will give people a very good impression of a professional who cares a lot about getting it right and will strengthen how you work together now and in the future.

If you still can’t work it out, there is always gin!

Top tips from Scott Eblin on dealing with rude people: http://tinyurl.com/6k6glj2

Why strategy schmatters

It's that 'chicken and egg' scenario over what comes first - a business strategy or a comms plan. A comms plan is not a business strategy but sometimes in lieu of the latter (and yes it does happen, dear reader) you can pull together a framework for communicating what the business should be sharing and start the dialogue. 

The inexperience of youth had me waiting around in one organisation for the leaders to neatly explain where the hell we were going as a business so I could wrap a lovely bit of comms activity around it. In hindsight I would have been waiting for at least 18 months and possibly lost my job for twiddling those thumbs. 

After six weeks of much umming, aahing, sucking of teeth (their own) and mysterious meetings between the great and the good in the leadership team there was still no sign of clarity much less action. What's a gal to do? All I could do was grab the situation by the corporate throat and get on with deciphering a lot of Powerpoint slides discarded on photocopiers, ditto random speeches lurking in publications and emails, uncover content hidden in the intranet's dusty bits of cyberspace and invite myself to meetings about meetings in a bid to piece it all together. The result? A draft narrative and a first tranche of activity signed off by the Board who were more than happy after that to get involved in bringing the strategy to life and develop it further with employees. 

Interestingly another company I worked for had a business strategy to help them achieve their goals over the next five years. Sadly my initial delight faded fast. The strategy team hadn't really tested their theory and plans though their Powerpoint skills were up there with the best SlideShare has to offer - truly out of this world. Presenting us with 35 slides, filled to bursting with gorgeous figures, pointy arrows and creative Venn diagrams is all well and good but when the comms team tried those old fashioned 'who', 'what', 'why', 'when' and 'how' words, the strategy turned to dust.

Public speaking v death

It was US comedian Jerry Seinfeld who claimed people are more afraid of speaking in public than they are of death! While public speaking in not for the timid, speeches and everything that goes into creating memorable and persuasive ones are what keeps plenty of people awake at night and are what many of us will have to do during our career.
I would rather stick pins in my eyes than stand on a giant conference stage and spout forth but apparently as long you have something worth saying (have a long, hard, honest think about that) and structure the whole thing in the right way, you need never suffer from 'glossophobia' again.
There are three vital ingredients for a great speech - 'head, heart and guts' in the right proportion.
For speakers it's all about empathy with your audience, making a personal connection with what you are talking about and sharing stories which reinforce the point you are making.
There are also a number of tools of rhetoric to include - from using imagery to asking questions and making contrasts. For the latter, Neil Armstrong said it all with : 'one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.' And it's important to use wit wisely. Making a speech isn't an audition for a stand-up comedy routine - even if your audience end up rolling in the aisles and not for the right reasons. One-liners are better than set piece jokes, and self-effacing humour wins hands down. Here endeth the lesson.