Building Your Relationship - Internal Communication Myths

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I am glad to see you again. Welcome. As promised, this is another special edition of my newsletter. Enjoy it and let me know your input or feedback.

This edition features advice on How to Dispel Myths in Internal Communication in your Firm from my dear friend and top #internalcommunication expert - Mike Klein. Mike was **one of my guests in an episode of SWITCH ON!, my weekly interview show with THE SWITCH, (see here the link to this respective interview).

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The Covid-19 pandemic has made it obvious that more than ever, professional firms need to communicate clearly and effectively with their employees.

There is a genuine shift from traditional internal communication within a professional firm to something different!

Traditionally,?internal communication has been focused on creating content...

...but communication is not simply a one-way channel!

The?pandemic?has shifted how?internal communications?function and operate.

More and more professional firms are taking an employee-centric focus which helps meet their needs.

Everybody understands that #intercomm should facilitate employees being able to communicate and engage with one another.

In a changing workplace, employees will need to be more informed, connected, and engaged than before.

BUT...There are so many common misconceptions about what internal communication within a professional practice includes and it is about time to dispel these myths!

When it comes to internal communication within professional firms, here is Mike’s advice:

“Professional services firms have some unique internal coms characteristics. You have a lot of peers who communicate with each other. You have certain hierarchies that are based on competence and experience as well as just simply cases where the senior leadership prefers to have certain individuals in the structure. So there are some particular communications and hierarchy dynamics in professional services firms.”

“But the biggest mistake in internal communication within professional firms is the excessive focus on control. The belief that you can control your messaging. Either control how it comes out or how it lands or what else is coming up along with it.”

“Many of today’s professional firms have grown up in the hierarchical top-down mindset. From a communication perspective, the focus has been largely on the centralization of significant decisions at the top, and the “cascading” of those decisions from senior leadership through many layers of management.”

“The problem with the top-down mindset is that while hierarchy remains important for distributing resources, money and power within professional firms, it has retained far less control over how messages and intent flow from one level to another, and particularly, of how ideas, messages and language are shared among employees and between employees and other key stakeholders: clients, partners and even the media.”

“Another common mistake that professional firms are making with regards to internal communication is hiring people who are too junior or too inexperienced. I mean there's this idea that everybody's a communicator so given that everybody's communicator let's just hire somebody who's well organized or let's just hire somebody who's smart or let's hire somebody who knows how a firm like this operates rather than somebody who's got specific skills training and orientation towards how internal communication works.”

“Driving messaging top down within professional firms, rather than identifying who the people with the actual influence are in the organization and getting the right messages to the right people either through the influence structure or through using the right kind of technology that allows you to target effectively and technology is becoming a lot more affordable.”

“Another myth is that getting your internal communication right within your professional firm is a big commitment. It is a big commitment but it's not necessarily a big budget commitment, a big process commitment and a hell of a lot of work.”

“It's a big shift in orientation. It implies a change in belief from the idea that you can just control everything you can just tell people what they will do and they will do it. Or you could just expect people to do stuff and it magically happens. It requires you to recognize that your organization is dynamic that you're not in control of and that there are other people with power and influence and reach that you need to connect with and you need to make sure that what you want is also what they want and vice versa.”

“ The biggest piece of advice that I can give is to ask open-ended questions. When you use open-ended questions it produces quotes from individuals that could be presented back to senior management that are much more difficult to dispute than just simply your opinion because if your opinion is against theirs, you lose!”

“If you've got the freedom to do it, you need to focus on keeping the noise down as opposed to just simply allowing the free flow of messages between and around people in the business. People need to know what's important, they need to know why it's important, and they need to know what their role is and driving the importance of that thing. So those are your key agenda items when it comes to internal communication within the professional firm.”

"The key to handling problems and conflict within an organization is to keep the channels of communication wide open." ~ Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop

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Until the next edition, SWITCH ON and keep STANDING OUT!

Warmly,

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Itzik is considered the global leading authority on business development, business networking, client relationships, and personal branding. He is a highly sought-after international speaker, trainer, business mentor, & attorney-at-law. He is also the bestselling author of “The Attention Switch” & Founder of THE SWITCH?? , the leading online training, education and done-for-you platform for professionals globally. Itzik teaches, trains, and mentors lawyers, other professionals, and professional firms to attract and win their ideal clients by becoming seen as authorities in their field, creating and maintaining successful and strategic relationships, and learning to SWITCH their relationships to referrals+revenue+results.

See more information: itzikamiel.com | THE SWITCH???or connect with Itzik via: [email protected]