Chapter 22: Showing the workings out

They sat eating in silence for a minute: Darren’s chocolate mint cheesecake inviting his mind to wander down a dozen tangential avenues until he found inspiration in the unlikeliest of places.

“Brexit!” he blurted out.

It wasn’t what either of them had expected the next word of their conversation would be.? Tobi felt it would be wise to question her companion’s train of thought.

“We seem to have drifted off-topic.”

Darren beamed back at her.? “Oh no we haven’t.? Listen.? Do you remember when the Brexit debate was at its height back in 2017 and 18?”

“I tried to ignore most of it.? I felt it best for my sanity.”

“OK, well there were months when the debates in Parliament were going on late into the night.? And all the television stations had set up temporary studios on the green over the other side of the road.”

“Oh, yeah.? I remember that.? And in every news bulletin they’d get MPs in front of the cameras, talking about the latest twists and turns.? It seemed like it was never going to end.? But what’s this got to do with anything?”

“Ah, I’m coming to that.? I noticed a common theme starting to emerge.? You know how much animosity there was on both sides.”

“Of course.? That’s why I gave up on it.”

“Yeah, but weirdly, there was something everyone seemed to agree on.”

“No there wasn’t.? That was the whole problem.”?

“As far as Brexit itself was concerned, yes.? But as the arguments and proposals became ever more tangled and tortuous, and people on both sides were becoming increasingly exasperated with the situation, I noticed more and more of them using the same phrase.? No matter how vehemently opposed they were to each other’s views on Brexit, everyone seemed to agree that the system itself was ‘unfit for purpose’.? In the end, I was watching just to find out which of them would be first to use that phrase.? I almost wished I’d started a score card to find out whether the Leavers used it more than the Remainers.”

“And this relates to Internal Communication how, exactly?”

“It relates because, well, I’d never really taken an interest in politics before.? So I didn’t know what this apparent ‘purpose’ was, for which the system was unfit.? And no one ever stated what it was.? And none of the interviewers ever asked.”

Tobi nodded appreciatively.

“Aha!? So you never got to find out if the Leavers and Remainers were agreed on the purpose of the system that was failing everyone.”

“Exactly!? And it’s occurred to me to ask: what if we were to think about IC in the same way as engineering?? Needless to say we can’t rely on the laws of physics, or legal regulations or ISO Standards.? But that doesn’t mean there can’t be evidence-based practice standards which could be shown to be fit for purpose.”

“Of course it doesn’t.”

“But the thing is, it’ll only work if everyone’s agreed on what that purpose is.? And by everyone, I really mean all the different trade bodies.? Then their qualifications will actually stand a chance of being meaningful to everybody – not only to people affiliated to the same Association.”

If he was expecting an enthusiastic response to his proposal, he was disappointed.? Tobi had closed her eyes; she was evidently engaging in some tense thinking.? Darren finished his cheesecake.

His friend pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes and finally opened them; an inscrutable expression on her face,

“I think you’re going to need something else.” She declared at last.

“Not sure I could manage it at the moment.? That cheesecake was quite filling.”

“Not more food, you dopey Deidre.? I mean more than evidence-based, fit-for-purpose practices.”

“Are you kidding?? That would be huge!”

“Oh, no question.? You absolutely need them.? Humankind absolutely needs them.? But they won’t be enough on their own.”

Darren’s bounce, never far from the surface, began to assert itself.? He again dropped into detective mode.? “Would you care to elucidate, my dear?? What makes you think fit for purpose practices won’t be enough?”

“Yes Minister.”

It meant nothing to Darren.? “OK, who’s being obscure now?”

“Ah, c’mon, you started it with all your talk of Brexit and politicians.? Have you never watched Yes Minister?”

“Never heard of it.”

“Seriously?? It was a hit BBC sitcom in the 1980s, all about a Minister in the British government, and his battles with the civil service.? Won loads of awards.? My brother got me into it.? It’s very clever.”

“And...?”

“In the first episode, the Minister wants to introduce a policy which would allow for greater public scrutiny of what the government is up to.? And his top civil servant is doing his best to block it.? There’s a scene in which this Whitehall mandarin is explaining to one of his juniors about the need to stop it happening.? The junior guy doesn’t get it, and starts protesting: ‘But we called the white paper Open Government’.? And this was where his boss gave a masterly response: ‘Of course we did, Bernard.? Dispose of the difficult bit in the title; it does less harm there than in the text’.”

“And your point is?”

“Oh, come on Darren.? Haven’t you ever heard anyone use the word ‘purpose’ or ‘strategy’ and then come out with something that isn’t a purpose, or remotely strategic?”

“Of course.? All the time.? I often sit down with clients and ask them ‘What’s the purpose of this communication?’? And they’ll say something like: ‘The purpose of this communication is to inform the employees about the product launch’.”

Tobi smiled.

“There you go, you see?? They disposed of the difficult bit in the title. But what’s the purpose of informing the employees?? What’s the purpose of their purpose?”

“Exactly!”

“And that’s why you need to add a little something to the fitness for purpose of your IC practices.? You’ll need to be sure that that purpose – or those purposes – is or are valid.”

Once again Tobi had managed to make Darren feel like Homer Simpson.? “Oh for crying out loud!? Of course.? I get it now.? The purposes need to be evidence-based, as well as the practices which are going to fulfil them.”

“Spot on.”

But even now Darren remained hesitant.? His FOBFO filling his mind with images of being dismissed by people more senior than himself.

“But why would they believe those purposes are valid just because we say they are?”

“Who mentioned anything about just saying they’re valid?? Remember when we did maths at school?? You got most of your marks for showing your workings out, didn’t you.? So, when it comes to the purpose of Internal Communication, what’s to stop you letting people see your workings out?”

“But no one’s going to be interested.”

“Doesn’t matter.? What does matter is that you’ve done your due diligence, and that it’s available for anyone to see, if they want to argue with you.? It’s a bit like when people challenge Greta Thunberg, and say: ‘Why should we listen to you?’? How does she respond?”

“You don’t need to listen to me; you need to listen to the science.”

“Exactly.? In my business, people can argue ‘til the cows come home with their architects.? They can pull all that ‘I’m paying the bills, so I make the decisions’ stuff.? But they can’t try that on with us engineers, because that would mean arguing with the science.? As long as you get them right, your workings out will be ‘the science’.? That way it’ll never matter again how much more senior than you your clients may be.? They won’t have any choice but to follow your lead – because it won’t really be your lead; it’ll be the science’s lead.”

Her friend needed a moment to let this sink in.?

“Oh, boy, you make it sound so simple,” he breathed.? “Coz it is.? We could do that.? I’m sure of it.”? His bounce was back.? “And not just for what makes the purpose valid, but what makes our way of doing things fit for that purpose.”

The value of this insight was so huge that, for Darren, this wasn’t so much the penny dropping.? It was more like the UK’s entire gold reserve.?

“Yesssss!? Tobi, this is what I’ve been looking for all this time.? Now I really do want to snog your face off.? I mean, I won’t obviously, but, you know.”? He made do with grabbing her hands and squeezing them.? “Thank you soooo much!”?

“You are most welcome, mister.”?

She was delighted to see such joy in his eyes.? Even so, she knew there was still much to work out, and sought to bring their informal meeting to order.?

“So, if we can calm down for a moment, it sounds like you need to be working towards Internal Communication practices which would be...? ...oh hang on, how can we sum it up?”

They sat for a moment before both speaking at the same time.

“Transparently Fit for Valid Purposes!”

As those words sank in, they looked at one another in a pensive silence, knowing they'd just articulated something which would be so much better than 'best practice'.

About the author

We are Russell+Olivia Brooklands (ROB) - and we've been working in the field of Internal Communication for over 25 years.?Through our consultancy work and training programmes we've helped IC Specialists to up their game on four continents, in blue chip companies like GSK and Airbus, and major national and international bodies, including the European Central Bank and the UN. We were one of the founding Directors of the Institute of Internal Communication.?And we're leading the IC Practice Governance initiative, to help IC Teams better support line managers in becoming increasingly effective communicators.

You can find out more about our work, and how we can help you to easily make your working life easier, more full of confidence, and more fulfilling, at commgame.co.uk