Messages That Matter: Scaling Leadership Communication Without Losing Touch

00:00:00: I think it's seven times

00:00:00: people have to hear something

00:00:02: before they will decide to take action

00:00:04: or decide to make a decision.

00:00:05: What I always tell people is

00:00:06: just about the time you think

00:00:07: you can't say it one more time,

00:00:09: oh my gosh, I can't repeat myself

00:00:10: one more time,

00:00:11: that's about the time that the message

00:00:12: is probably starting to get in.

00:00:14: So, keep going.

00:00:22: Good morning.

00:00:23: Good morning. How are you this morning, Amelia?

00:00:25: I'm doing good.

00:00:26: How are you, Jennifer?

00:00:27: I'm great. Thanks.

00:00:28: Awesome.

00:00:28: And for everyone at home, we're both new to the You've Got Comms Podcast.

00:00:32: I will be your host today, Amelia.

00:00:35: I'm from Staffbase and have been here

00:00:37: for almost four years now, just crazy.

00:00:40: Jennifer is coming to us as a guest.

00:00:44: She is the founder of

00:00:46: Soundtrack Consulting, where she helps

00:00:48: CEOs and CHROs scale communications as they scale their business.

00:00:53: So, she's got deep expertise in M&A, leadership transitions,

00:00:58: employee engagement, and partners with leaders to bring clarity,

00:01:01: authenticity, and connection to moments of change and transformation.

00:01:06: Did I get that all right, Jennifer?

00:01:08: You did.

00:01:09: Thank you.

00:01:10: Before we dive into these questions, I wanted to ask you, because you shifted

00:01:15: from employed internal comms to more of an independent consultant.

00:01:19: And there's a lot of things that are fun about that and scary about that.

00:01:23: But, really, for you, it seems like your involvement in internal

00:01:26: comms is what excites you beyond just whatever the one org was that you worked.

00:01:30: So, what excites you about internal comms, whether it is

00:01:35: right now or when you made the switch?

00:01:38: Why was it the time, and why is it still the time that this is all relevant?

00:01:41: Well you know, Amelia, I have kind of a different career path.

00:01:44: I started out as an engineer by training and spent the first part of my career

00:01:49: on the operations, R&D, manufacturing side of the business.

00:01:54: And during that time, we were going through

00:01:56: some tremendous growth, which is a great thing to have.

00:01:59: It provides so many opportunities in a company

00:02:01: when you're going through a period of great growth.

00:02:05: But that growth resulted in a lot of change.

00:02:08: And what we found during that period of change is that we were scaling

00:02:11: a lot of things to support the business as it grew.

00:02:15: And the more change we went through,

00:02:17: we started to have some resistance to change because people didn't

00:02:21: necessarily understand

00:02:22: why we needed to do things differently, because we'd been successful.

00:02:26: And so, I raised my hand a couple of times and said,

00:02:28: "You know, we hire really smart people.

00:02:30: I think if we just explain to them why we need to change,

00:02:34: even if they don't like the change, they'll understand and they'll participate

00:02:38: in the change." And so, after I'd said that a few times, somebody said, "Well,

00:02:42: why don't you take a swing at that and see if you can make that work?"

00:02:45: And so, that's how I ended up in communications.

00:02:48: I didn't set out to build a career in communications.

00:02:51: So, fast forward half of my career,

00:02:54: 14, 15 years, we had tripled in size.

00:02:57: We had acquired a dozen companies.

00:02:59: We'd had several leadership changes.

00:03:01: And we were . . . I had been, this whole time,

00:03:04: adapting the communications function, building it, changing it, reinventing it.

00:03:08: It was time to reinvent it again.

00:03:10: The business had changed some more.

00:03:12: And as we went through that process, I looked at the new organization,

00:03:17: the new design, and felt like those were fantastic jobs,

00:03:21: and it was time to give somebody else a chance to build that,

00:03:23: where I had been building for so many years, and go out on my own.

00:03:27: I was still really enjoying the internal communication work.

00:03:29: And I really was excited to work with companies

00:03:33: that were in those early stages of growth and experiencing that same change

00:03:37: in scale that we were experiencing, and help them through that process.

00:03:40: And so, I decided to go out on my own and work with those companies to build

00:03:45: through that growth for them.

00:03:47: That's so fun.

00:03:48: I mean, you came from

00:03:51: the don't shoot the messenger.

00:03:53: You were the shooter.

00:03:54: So you have that mindset of you're not really

00:03:57: spending decades learning how to craft the perfect message.

00:04:00: You spent decades learning how to retain the message as the employee.

00:04:04: So, that was a very unique background.

00:04:07: As things are scaling, for your original company

00:04:09: and beyond, it's been 15 some years later,

00:04:13: what are the chances and risks for internal communications

00:04:17: in such fast-scaling environments like that?

00:04:20: Well, you know, really, the risks are that if you don't communicate,

00:04:24: you leave people behind.

00:04:25: People don't understand why things are changing.

00:04:28: They're uncomfortable. And one of a couple of things happens.

00:04:30: They either resist the change, and it slows things down,

00:04:33: or they just don't see where they fit in the future, and they leave.

00:04:37: And you can lose really talented people that way.

00:04:39: And so, really, the risks in not communicating or not

00:04:44: being intentional in how you communicate during a period of change

00:04:48: are that you're going to leave people behind.

00:04:50: Now, the upside of it is that you can paint a picture of the future

00:04:54: that employees are really excited about and bring them along by helping them

00:04:58: see how they will contribute

00:04:59: to the success of the company and what that looks like.

00:05:02: The great news about that is while it sounds like a really complex thing to do,

00:05:05: it can be pretty simple.

00:05:06: It doesn't have to be complicated to be really effective

00:05:08: and start to bring people down that path with you.

00:05:12: Yeah, that's amazing.

00:05:13: And you even kind of said it yourself at the beginning

00:05:16: when you said you were an engineer and just raised your hand and had that idea.

00:05:20: And it is that the way these communicators need to change and adapt

00:05:25: their strategies is the way they also need to change their leadership strategies,

00:05:29: not just the way they're communicating.

00:05:31: Because often, when they're on the ground and they're working with you guys as

00:05:35: founders, CEOs, whatever, it's very one-on-one.

00:05:37: You have a lot of face time with these people.

00:05:40: And as you grow, it might be someone you never ever met.

00:05:43: So as these companies scale and leadership communications

00:05:47: are shifting from one-to-one or small group at least,

00:05:52: now it's more one-to-many and email and town hall, things like that.

00:05:56: What are the biggest risks in doing that

00:05:59: since it might feel a little more impersonal that way?

00:06:02: But how do you preserve the trust

00:06:04: and the personal aspect of speaking at scale like that?

00:06:08: Well, Amelia, you're right.

00:06:09: I think the biggest risk is that people feel that they've lost access

00:06:13: to somebody that they've always had one-on-one access to before.

00:06:16: You have great leaders that are proven communicators.

00:06:20: They're very personable.

00:06:21: They spend their time walking around and interacting with people.

00:06:26: They've got their ear

00:06:27: to the ground in understanding what's happening in the business.

00:06:30: If the shift is too sudden, people feel like all of a sudden

00:06:34: they've lost access to somebody, and now everything is off of a script.

00:06:37: And you can lose people just as easily that way as if you don't communicate

00:06:42: at all.

00:06:43: So, the really important thing is that you make step changes

00:06:47: and that you're true to that leader's communication style in doing that.

00:06:50: So you don't want to go from a very down-to-earth, one-on-one tone

00:06:54: to all of a sudden sounding very corporate and a lot of buzzwords

00:06:57: and a lot of business terms that maybe people don't understand what that means.

00:07:02: So keep it simple to start.

00:07:04: Begin with one or maybe two communications that are in that one-to-many format

00:07:09: and explain what you're doing as you're doing it.

00:07:11: So, it is fine to say,

00:07:13: "We're going to shift the way we communicate and here's why.

00:07:16: We're growing.

00:07:16: There's a lot of things to share.

00:07:18: We want to make sure that all of you

00:07:19: understand where we're going and how you play a role in our success.

00:07:23: For us to do that effectively,

00:07:25: we need to change how we communicate." And it's fine to do that.

00:07:27: And it's, in fact, really effective to do that.

00:07:30: People appreciate saying why we're making a change.

00:07:33: And so,

00:07:34: you want to pick those simple things that you can do and let people acclimate.

00:07:38: Get feedback on how it's going.

00:07:41: Does it land well? Do they understand?

00:07:44: And then make adjustments as you go because if people see their feedback

00:07:47: being incorporated, then that just lends credibility to

00:07:51: this new process of communicating.

00:07:53: And the other thing that I always make sure people understand

00:07:56: is don't lose that one-on-one communication while you're doing this.

00:08:01: You can still do the one-to-one communication.

00:08:04: It just shifts how you spend your time.

00:08:05: So if you're disseminating this information to everybody

00:08:09: all at once, and people can understand the direction and the strategy,

00:08:12: now you can spend your one-on-one time with people

00:08:15: asking questions and hearing how that lands and getting their feedback,

00:08:18: so that you can incorporate that feedback that's

00:08:21: so valuable both in your communication and in the plans for the business.

00:08:26: I love that because you said something very early on in your answer

00:08:29: about losing access to those leaders and those communicators.

00:08:34: And I think we kind of ended on: You haven't lost access.

00:08:37: Maybe not as frequently, but it is important to,

00:08:41: as the leader, still give people a forum of sorts,

00:08:45: whether it's one-on-one and AMA-type, anonymous style.

00:08:49: But you, as that communicator, that especially came from

00:08:54: the common man role, in your example, specifically working as an engineer,

00:08:59: and everyone is on the floor working, and all of a sudden, you become

00:09:03: that person who still has access when maybe everybody doesn't.

00:09:08: Do you feel a lot of pressure that people are coming to you,

00:09:10: "Well, tell the boss this,"

00:09:12: "Oh, I didn't like how this happened," that they maybe wouldn't tell leadership,

00:09:16: but they tell you because you're more of that buddy, you've got your ear on the ground?

00:09:22: That certainly does happen,

00:09:24: and I think that can be also a really effective method of feedback.

00:09:28: You know, you have to make sure that it stays constructive,

00:09:30: but if people are giving you that feedback and saying, "I like this" or

00:09:34: "I don't like that," or "I wish they would tell us this or that," or

00:09:38: "I don't know if I believe that," if there's some skepticism,

00:09:42: not only can you be a part of that conversation,

00:09:45: but you also can use that as context as you're making adjustments

00:09:48: in how you coach these leaders.

00:09:50: And whether that is changing

00:09:52: the kind of information that you share or helping them adapt their delivery

00:09:56: or incorporating some additional two-way communication opportunities.

00:10:01: Having that feedback yourself in addition to them giving it to the leader, really

00:10:05: can make the whole thing come together a lot more quickly and gel in a way

00:10:11: that moves it forward in a lot more constructive fashion.

00:10:14: Yeah, and, I mean you're naming a bunch of things that everyone's heard

00:10:18: of before, the meetings, the submissions, AMAs, the word of mouth, but specifically

00:10:24: in your experience, what structures and practices have worked best?

00:10:28: Especially when you're scaling like this, what's a good transition form, whether

00:10:33: it is an AMA or a town hall video update?

00:10:36: Just in your personal experience, what's the best of those?

00:10:40: I think there are lots of different things that you can do,

00:10:43: and I don't know that any one is best overall.

00:10:46: The most important thing that you have to do is to match

00:10:49: the type of communication with the audience and with the situation,

00:10:54: and make sure you're using the right kind of forum.

00:10:57: Town halls can be really great for high-level messages, or rolling out

00:11:01: something like a new strategic plan, or following up on a big announcement,

00:11:05: but they're not the place to go through lots of detailed information

00:11:09: because it just becomes slide after slide, and pretty soon you've lost everybody.

00:11:13: If you need to disseminate a detailed business update,

00:11:16: then an email might be an effective way to do that.

00:11:19: Email's not in vogue in the way that it used to be,

00:11:22: but it can be a really effective way to send a significant amount

00:11:25: of information that people can process on their own timeline.

00:11:29: They can process it when they get to it.

00:11:30: They can come back to it when they need it.

00:11:32: Really, the important thing is dialing in who is the audience

00:11:36: and what is the message, and then matching the tool to that

00:11:39: so that you make the most of it.

00:11:42: Yeah, and

00:11:42: that's something we talk a lot about, in especially frontline comms,

00:11:45: when that email works so well, maybe for corporate or even shift leaders.

00:11:49: And people on the ground,

00:11:51: the frontline employees, do retain information differently,

00:11:55: but the goal is ultimately making sure everyone has the same information

00:11:58: and translates it in their minds the same way.

00:12:01: So, sometimes when you're taking the same message

00:12:03: and releasing it in a few different formats,

00:12:07: how do you maintain an authentic and unified voice of CEOs, other

00:12:12: top leaders, as the channels separate,

00:12:16: as the company grows, just making sure

00:12:19: nothing's inconsistent there?

00:12:21: Yeah.

00:12:22: Well, there are a couple of things.

00:12:23: One is

00:12:25: you'd spend all the time coaching the leader on the message,

00:12:28: and the easiest thing to forget is to give the next-level managers

00:12:32: the same tools to deliver the message because they really are so important

00:12:36: in making sure that everybody has the same information and that,

00:12:40: for perhaps your frontline team, who may receive information differently,

00:12:45: they may be a key vehicle

00:12:46: in getting the information to those teams, or at the very least,

00:12:50: they're key in helping to explain and reinforce that message.

00:12:54: You know, so, one thing that's really important is making sure that you don't

00:12:57: forget to prepare those next-level leaders to help deliver that message.

00:13:02: And sometimes that is an indicator of, you talked about

00:13:06: what are the most effective mechanisms for communicating, something I've seen

00:13:09: work really well are roundtables for that manager-level team.

00:13:13: We used to bring people together when we would have a specific message

00:13:17: that we wanted to deliver, and we expected managers to be a part of that message.

00:13:21: We would bring them into a roundtable, deliver the message to them,

00:13:25: tell them how we expected them to participate,

00:13:29: let them ask questions so that they felt equipped both

00:13:32: in what the message was, and then also how they were expected to deliver that.

00:13:38: And so, that can be a really effective

00:13:41: intermediate step in communicating that information.

00:13:45: So, those kinds of things are really important.

00:13:47: Making sure

00:13:48: that everybody has the information they need to participate in that,

00:13:51: and then just making sure, again, that you have that two-way feedback

00:13:54: so that as people have questions or feel like they need support,

00:13:57: they have a way to get that.

00:14:00: Yeah, absolutely.

00:14:01: People mention it all the time, providing these leaders toolkits,

00:14:04: but I love the idea of a roundtable because I know what that is.

00:14:08: The toolkit, I'm like, what are you giving them, a folder with some messaging?

00:14:13: How are you differentiating the toolkits?

00:14:15: So, being able to open it to a more specific question and answer

00:14:19: type style that's amazing.

00:14:22: Managers in one area, again,

00:14:25: may not communicate the same way in another area,

00:14:27: especially on a global scale, where tone shifts, timing of these messaging.

00:14:33: Every country is going through something different at different times.

00:14:36: It's never the perfect time to lay bad news on everybody at once.

00:14:40: But how are you balancing global consistency

00:14:43: with local relevance and world events in leadership messaging?

00:14:49: Just like we talked about, having the right tool

00:14:51: for the right situation,

00:14:53: the right messenger for the right situation is really important as well.

00:14:56: So, the starting point for me is typically for far-reaching, broadly

00:15:02: applicable messages, high-level messages to come from those high-level leaders.

00:15:08: And then, as you get into specific functions

00:15:11: or different geographies or things like that,

00:15:15: making sure that you are equipping the leader in that area

00:15:19: with the tools that they need to either deliver that message or reinforce

00:15:23: that message.

00:15:24: So, everybody hears the top-level message from the top-level leader,

00:15:28: and then as you get

00:15:29: into those specific areas, those managers have the tools that they need to help

00:15:33: put context around how that message applies in their particular situation.

00:15:39: And I think that that's one of the most effective things that you can do.

00:15:41: So, it doesn't take that high-level leader

00:15:44: away as a messenger for those different geographies or those different functions,

00:15:48: but it keeps them messaging at the level of the organization

00:15:51: where they're operating, and it keeps the people

00:15:53: that are closer to the street-level messaging at that level

00:15:57: because they're going to have the best context to do that.

00:16:01: Yeah, I got it.

00:16:03: You don't want to take away the leadership level, but let's just

00:16:06: take something away for a minute.

00:16:08: Kind of going off script here, a fun question is if we could just

00:16:11: ditch something or someone, go wild, in comms: a trend,

00:16:17: a theme, a role, anything really that this is not working.

00:16:21: Let's leave it in the past, it's outdated, something like that,

00:16:25: what would you leave behind?

00:16:26: I know you said let's not take anyone out of the equation, let's do it for fun.

00:16:31: You know, it's funny that you asked that question

00:16:33: because if I think of one thing I wish we would reconsider, it's

00:16:38: looking to those top-level leaders to be the messenger for everything.

00:16:42: I think one of the things I've seen as you shift to this more structured

00:16:46: communication, and now we've got, we know that this leader does

00:16:49: a quarterly town hall and a monthly newsletter,

00:16:53: is that I would have people come to me and say, "Can the leader

00:16:56: reinforce this message or endorse this project or say that

00:16:59: this thing is really important?"

00:17:01: And two things come from that.

00:17:03: One, you clutter up their message

00:17:05: and really take away their ability to paint that high-level picture.

00:17:10: And then the second thing is you place that same level of importance

00:17:12: on everything, and then people have a hard time prioritizing what belongs where.

00:17:16: And so, you know, I think as it's gotten easier for leaders

00:17:20: to be out and about and messaging in lots of different ways, it's easier

00:17:23: to ask them to participate in more conversations.

00:17:27: But I wish that we would really think hard about when we ask

00:17:30: those leaders to be the messenger because it isn't always appropriate.

00:17:34: No. It's like putting urgent in the subject line of every email.

00:17:37: Like, this isn't urgent, you're cold-calling me.

00:17:40: Calm down.

00:17:42: Exactly.

00:17:44: There is also that

00:17:47: in film school or marketing school, anyone's heard it,

00:17:50: you've got to see something 20 times to remember it, whatever that saying is.

00:17:54: I might be way off.

00:17:55: But especially with so much change, whether it's growth,

00:17:59: whether it's a merger, or literally

00:18:01: anything that needs to be communicated that's that big,

00:18:04: you're constantly repeating yourself.

00:18:07: And you get in that messy middle where most people got it,

00:18:11: not everyone's got it, especially around when you're changing your whole

00:18:15: comms strategy, no one really knows where to get it.

00:18:19: How do you keep up the momentum and avoid that comms fatigue

00:18:24: during a full communication strategy shift?

00:18:28: One thing that I've found to be really effective

00:18:30: is in just parsing out the message as you go.

00:18:34: So, it's really tempting to give people a complete download,

00:18:38: full information, what you know, and then stop.

00:18:42: And then there's this long period of silence.

00:18:45: And there are a few problems with that.

00:18:46: One, people can't process that information all at once.

00:18:50: And so, it's much more effective to start with the very top level, what's changing,

00:18:55: why now, and what's the risk if we don't, frankly,

00:18:59: so that people understand, look, here's what needs to happen and here's why

00:19:02: it's important right now.

00:19:04: And then, as you go, building on that message and adding information.

00:19:08: So, if you are adding information as you go, that gives you two things.

00:19:12: It gives people information in digestible pieces.

00:19:16: And it also gives you the opportunity to repeat those high-level messages

00:19:20: because every time you come back with some additional detail,

00:19:23: you should be reinforcing those messages of why,

00:19:26: why now, what's changing, where do you fit,

00:19:29: why does it matter to you, and then adding on a little bit.

00:19:32: And to your point, I think it's seven times people have to hear something

00:19:36: before they will decide to take action or decide to make a decision.

00:19:39: What I always tell

00:19:40: people is just about the time you think you can't say it one more time,

00:19:43: oh my gosh, I can't repeat myself one more time,

00:19:45: that's about the time that the message is probably starting to get in.

00:19:48: So, keep going.

00:19:50: I think it feels a little less repetitive to the messenger when you build slowly,

00:19:54: and it also is more digestible on the receiving end if you do that.

00:19:57: And then it gives you

00:19:58: something like you feel like you have something to add

00:19:59: as you work through that messy middle that sometimes can just be a silent period.

00:20:04: And that's when people really start to lose momentum and focus and wonder

00:20:07: if we're still doing the thing or not.

00:20:10: Yes. I don't want to put you

00:20:13: under the interrogation light, but

00:20:16: have you ever, just to humanize you here, have you ever experienced that?

00:20:20: Have you had a moment in the messy middle where

00:20:23: you weren't quite sure where to go from there?

00:20:26: Or you could tell me you're flawless, but is there any stories of a time

00:20:30: to personalize that example of how to get through or something like that?

00:20:35: I think everybody has been through those periods of time.

00:20:38: And whether you're on the receiving end or whether you're the communicator.

00:20:42: I think if you look at any large change initiative, and a specific one for me

00:20:47: is not necessarily coming to mind, but I've seen multiple times

00:20:51: where we make the announcement, we send the teams off on their way.

00:20:54: The teams know what's going on because they're in the thick of it,

00:20:58: but the rest of the organization doesn't hear anything, and so they assume that

00:21:02: whatever we were talking about just stopped.

00:21:05: And they don't know if we're doing that thing anymore

00:21:07: or if we're being successful at doing that particular thing.

00:21:12: And what I have seen the consequence of that being is

00:21:16: I started to hear people say, we would make an announcement

00:21:18: about a new project and they'd say, "Oh, this is just the flavor of the day.

00:21:21: We're not serious about this." Because we didn't finish that last thing.

00:21:24: And what they didn't realize is that we did finish the last thing.

00:21:27: We just forgot to keep talking about it.

00:21:29: And so, that's where I've seen that really play out

00:21:33: is that people think that we said we were going to do something and didn't.

00:21:36: And what we really didn't do is come back and tell people how it was going

00:21:41: and what the impact had been, or point to a change that maybe they're aware of,

00:21:44: and they just didn't tie back to that thing.

00:21:47: You're making me feel like

00:21:48: such a bad employee because

00:21:51: I'm always like, "How's this going?

00:21:53: What's that doing?

00:21:54: What are they doing?"

00:21:55: And, you know, not just in my role here, but in my entire life.

00:21:59: You made a good point a couple minutes ago about avoiding

00:22:02: comms fatigue by spreading out the message.

00:22:05: I am the first to hear one bit of the message and raise my hand

00:22:10: with a million questions, and they'll say more to come next week.

00:22:14: No, I want it now.

00:22:15: But you're right.

00:22:16: I'm not taking it all in.

00:22:19: I'm just going a million miles an hour in my head

00:22:22: and making a lot of noise

00:22:23: with my hands that I was told not to do while I'm recording.

00:22:27: But now I'm on the listening end

00:22:30: of it, understanding that, yes, I am walking away

00:22:33: long-term with more understanding than I do usually on day one.

00:22:37: And that's amazing.

00:22:38: And that's partly because we've got some great communications

00:22:42: teams and leaders in jobs I've had in the past, but

00:22:46: for really

00:22:48: dispersed organizations geographically

00:22:52: and in-person versus remote,

00:22:55: you've got your local, your onsite communications people typically.

00:22:58: And those are the ones at the roundtable you mentioned.

00:23:00: Those are the ones you can go to with the questions.

00:23:03: And then there's that overarching global comms team working for leadership.

00:23:09: What are some best practices there to keep

00:23:13: everyone aligned without stifling that

00:23:16: local voice, whether it be the tone of the office,

00:23:20: the location, the country you're working in, the tone of the sassy employee

00:23:25: just coming at you with questions and not trying to make them feel bad?

00:23:28: How do we keep all of that consistent but also local?

00:23:33: It's really tricky.

00:23:34: It's tricky in every organization.

00:23:35: I think we tend

00:23:36: to look at our organizations and say, "Oh, the way we do this is so difficult.

00:23:40: We make things really hard on ourselves." But it's just hard everywhere.

00:23:44: You know, it's sort of human nature in a way, I think.

00:23:47: You're probably going to laugh when I say this, but

00:23:49: communicating with each other as communicators is first and foremost.

00:23:53: It's really easy to feel like that's just going to happen

00:23:55: because these are the people that do the communication,

00:23:58: but it's really easy for us to forget to do that for ourselves.

00:24:03: The first thing is just

00:24:04: that coordination and understanding, okay, what are the needs in this area?

00:24:08: What are the needs in this area?

00:24:09: And one thing I always felt was my role was to be able to take my

00:24:16: business-specific hat off

00:24:19: and put my company-level hat on and understand, okay,

00:24:23: as a broader organization, what are we trying to accomplish here?

00:24:27: And really, just take that in without bias,

00:24:29: and then put my business lens back on and say, okay, now,

00:24:34: what does the business need to get out of this, you know,

00:24:37: this particular piece of the business, and how can we work toward that together?

00:24:42: And to really represent

00:24:45: the piece of the business I was in to the larger organization,

00:24:49: but to also represent the needs of the larger organization

00:24:51: within the business, as the business was saying, "Well, but we need this, or but

00:24:55: this isn't exactly how we would want that to go."

00:24:58: That coordination and that deliberate focus on collaboration

00:25:02: and thinking big picture is really important to making that work.

00:25:06: And a lot of times, that really has to come

00:25:08: from the communicators in those different areas,

00:25:11: working together to figure that out, and then standing in the middle

00:25:15: between the pieces of the organization and making it fit the pieces together.

00:25:20: Yes. And how are we also getting that same message across

00:25:24: for the organization and the company, what's best for them,

00:25:28: for more of the blue-collar frontline employees,

00:25:31: where maybe that's not front of mind, it's

00:25:34: clock in, clock out? Not saying all of that . . .

00:25:36: Anyone can think that way,

00:25:38: but those are the ones who are missing a lot of the emails and a lot of the why,

00:25:41: and they are getting that trickle down, this is what's happening,

00:25:45: and are sometimes missing that core root of

00:25:49: this is what's happening because XYZ for the company.

00:25:52: So, how do you ensure that they feel communicated to,

00:25:56: heard, get that why, so that they don't have as many questions?

00:26:01: You know, I think it's really important as you're planning communications

00:26:04: for those pieces of the business to look at what are the one or two

00:26:09: most important pieces of context that we really want people to have

00:26:14: and making sure that those are upfront in every communication that you do, both

00:26:19: when you launch it, when you reinforce it, it's that repetition.

00:26:22: But what you really need to make sure is that you pick the couple things

00:26:25: that most matter to that audience

00:26:27: and that you really put it in very plain language.

00:26:29: And we should be doing that for all of our audiences, frankly,

00:26:32: is to put it in very plain language.

00:26:33: You know, the simpler, the better, because even if you can understand

00:26:37: the complicated language of one part of the business,

00:26:40: the simpler you make it, the less room there is for misinterpretation

00:26:43: or different interpretations of that information.

00:26:46: So, I'm a big fan of saying, what's the simplest thing we can say

00:26:46: So, I'm a big fan of saying, what's the simplest thing we can say

00:26:50: that will tell people what they need to know, and starting

00:26:53: with that for everybody in every communication,

00:26:56: but understanding that different people look through a different lens

00:27:00: and making sure that if it's going to land really differently in some part

00:27:03: of the business, that we may need to add some little piece of context, but not

00:27:07: to the exclusion of those

00:27:09: pieces that just set the stage for everybody.

00:27:13: Yeah, absolutely.

00:27:14: And you said something interesting.

00:27:15: What's the simplest way we could word this?

00:27:18: I feel like I'm constantly typing that into ChatGPT.

00:27:21: I'll write a super long email and be like, "Oh my gosh, I think too fast.

00:27:25: Simplify this." So the question of the hour,

00:27:28: the question of the year, really, for internal comms is,

00:27:32: where do you see AI

00:27:34: fitting into internal comms in general?

00:27:40: I think AI is a great tool for internal comms.

00:27:43: It's a great tool for a lot of things, but it's just that it's a tool.

00:27:46: And so, I've had a number of people ask me the question

00:27:51: that everybody's asking is AI coming for this job, that job?

00:27:56: Will AI replace communicators?

00:27:59: I certainly think it's going to change the way that we work, but the reason

00:28:02: I don't think that it will replace us as communicators is that human element.

00:28:08: And a lot of the leaders that I work with now,

00:28:11: I work with mid-sized companies, mid-market companies,

00:28:14: and they're shifting from that one-to-one to one-to-many mode of communication.

00:28:19: And one of their primary concerns, most of the time

00:28:22: in doing that, is losing that personal connection.

00:28:26: And so the last thing that they want to do is skip right from one-to-one to

00:28:30: having AI write their communications

00:28:33: because they're already concerned about losing that personal touch.

00:28:36: And so, that is, I think,

00:28:39: where the humanity is really important,

00:28:42: is in that crafting those communications and helping

00:28:47: them feel like that leader to those people they don't want to lose touch with.

00:28:50: Where I've seen it really show up for those leaders, though,

00:28:52: is that they will sometimes come to me and say, "This is what's on my mind.

00:28:56: I put it in ChatGPT," or into whatever AI tool they like,

00:29:00: and this is what it gave me, and this is how I feel about it.

00:29:04: I like this, I don't like that.

00:29:06: And so it gives us a really good starting point.

00:29:08: And so, we can get through that, getting your thoughts down on paper,

00:29:12: that ugly first draft period, really fast,

00:29:17: and get right on to the dialing it in to be an effective communication.

00:29:20: And so, I think that's where the tool really comes

00:29:23: in this employee communication, in this interpersonal communication,

00:29:27: is it gets you quickly to the work that only you can do

00:29:31: and skips those steps where we spend a lot of time, and it's really easy

00:29:35: for us to get stuck, and it's not where the most value comes from.

00:29:39: I love that answer.

00:29:40: The thing I hear the most is, is it coming for my job?

00:29:43: Because it can write, but how many of us have ever taken

00:29:46: something ChatGPT wrote and used that without making a single edit?

00:29:50: Because it does sound pretty robotic.

00:29:51: It's weird.

00:29:52: It doesn't have the tone of either

00:29:54: Jennifer or the CEO or whatever you're going for.

00:29:58: It'll get better over time, and how we use it as a tool will change over time.

00:30:03: I certainly think it's going to impact everybody's job,

00:30:06: but I think if we are looking at it as a tool and thinking about

00:30:09: how we can use it to be more productive and help us do the work only we can do,

00:30:13: then it'll continue to be a great addition to the toolbox that we have.

00:30:18: Exactly.

00:30:19: And this truly is a job only a human can do, and a human that really understands

00:30:24: the organization and the voice of not

00:30:27: just the leaders, but the people listening at the end of the day.

00:30:30: Yes, I agree.

00:30:32: And, I mean any parting words of wisdom?

00:30:36: AI was the big thing on my mind, but what do you want to leave us with, Jennifer?

00:30:42: You know, I think, when I think back about communication

00:30:45: and just how it's changed over the time that I've been doing it,

00:30:48: we've gone from doing everything via email, because there really weren't

00:30:52: a lot of other great tools,

00:30:53: to having all these different tools easily accessible by lots of people.

00:30:56: And it's so easy to just lose sight of that interpersonal connection.

00:31:01: And while we can spend all day thinking about how do we communicate

00:31:05: and writing communication, sometimes the best thing we can do

00:31:07: is to get out and connect with people individually.

00:31:10: And that can make all the difference

00:31:12: in understanding what's on their mind and helping them navigate a change.

00:31:16: Sometimes that communication is the most effective thing we can do.

00:31:19: So, I think it's really easy

00:31:20: to overthink it and overcomplicate it and do way more than is needed.

00:31:24: So, I guess my parting thoughts would be

00:31:25: I hope that we will save that for when it's really needed

00:31:29: and really stick to the basics because it's brought us a long way.

00:31:33: It really has.

00:31:34: And I mean, look at this video chat.

00:31:37: It was a thing, but I didn't do it that often before 2020.

00:31:40: So it's been great to connect with you, Jennifer.

00:31:42: And anyone that wants to connect with Jennifer Lentner on LinkedIn, please do.

00:31:47: I found out we're from very close to the same hometown.

00:31:50: So, LinkedIn is a great resource.

00:31:53: Connect with anyone from internal comms.

00:31:54: But it is really that one-to-one connection that

00:31:57: makes this a very fun industry to work in.

00:32:00: So, Jennifer, it has been lovely talking to you today.

00:32:04: And I hope everyone at home has a great rest of their day.

00:32:07: Yes, same here.

00:32:09: Bye, Jennifer.

00:32:10: Bye.