Chapter 31: Food for thought

Even a subdued indicator wink, as might be heard in a six-figure limousine, can sound uncomfortably loud when that car is plunged into a strained silence.? Terry was starting to feel a prickly self-consciousness at the taciturnity of Unicorp’s CEO.? She’d said not a word since stepping into the back of the car nearly quarter of an hour ago.? The more he snuck glances at her in his mirror, the less he could imagine what lay behind this uncharacteristic Trappist Monkery.?

He was not to know she’d spent the previous 90 minutes with Janelle Petrescu and Darren Michelson, where her career’s-worth of assumptions about Internal Communication had been comprehensively trashed.? Not that she minded; quite the reverse.? She could now make sense of so much that had never sat right with her, nor, she suspected, with the bulk of Unicorp’s employees.?

But such was the tsunami of new paradigms with which she’d been assailed that it was a lot to assimilate – even for her – because the ideas she’d been listening to went far beyond IC itself.? As Graham Chambers had also realised, they could revolutionise so many aspects of Unicorp’s approach to business management.

Even so, much as she was enthralled by this new horizon, it hadn’t been uniformly comfortable to have so many sets of blinkers ripped away, and blind-spots exposed, in one sitting.? But her discomfort had been cushioned by the prospect – still nebulous at present – of how she could use these Internal Communication insights to increase Unicorp’s global standing and profitability.?

Against that possibility, though, was the question of whether these concepts could be turned into anything tangible she could announce at the AGM.? Given IC's new-found potential (in her eyes) for serious competitive edge, how much could she even divulge, and how much should she keep under wraps?? There were only a couple of things about which she was already clear.?

Breaking so much new ground meant she could almost certainly kiss goodbye to that two-month deadline she’d given Janelle.? And she would absolutely have to hold on to those two IC Specialists.? They needed new contracts, job titles, bonuses, salaries, whatever.? She made a mental note to talk to her HR Director first thing tomorrow.

Coming out of this protracted reverie, she caught her driver glancing in the mirror for the umpteenth time, and noticed the concern in his gaze.

“So sorry, Terry.? Miles away.”

“You seemed lost in thought.”

“Oh, I don’t know about lost, so much as…”? On the point of drifting off again, she dragged herself back.

“The thing is, Terry, I’ve just been given so much food for thought, that I feel my brain’s in danger of becoming obese.”

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