Dissolving Impostor Syndrome: Having all the budget you want and need

It used to be the case that IC was always the Cinderella discipline: the poor relation to Marketing and PR.?And although that’s less common than it used to be, the situation is by no means peachy in many organisations.?Even where IC budgets are substantial, they may not be all that’s needed.?This is not about being greedy, or wanting more budget just for the sake of it.?There are sound business reasons for getting business leaders to rethink their approach to investing in IC.

Whatever your current budget, even a whiff of Impostor Syndrome may compromise your ability to ask for everything you could and should have.?

An impostor-free alternative

So, how does this state of affairs look to you:

You always have enough budget to do the job as well as it needs doing

Surely it’s a no-brainer.?But what if you’re not there yet??Or what if you are, but who knows what could happen if there are changes in the boardroom or the economy??How can you safely secure this as your organisation’s default. (As with all these issues, it's often necessary to state the obvious out loud, just to be sure it's not being overlooked.)

Let’s begin with the reasons why your leadership team should be thinking along these lines.?What are the business consequences of them not doing so?

Likely impact of an inadequate budget…

…on you

When you don’t have enough budget:

1. You may not be able to employ enough people in your team to be on top of everything, so everyone’s working under more pressure, and they’re more likely to have to rush and produce lower quality work.
2. The quality of suppliers you’re able to call on, and equipment you’ll be working with, is likely to be lower, which will also have an impact on quality, and possibly speed (if your hardware or software are old and slow).
3. You won’t be able to invest as much as you might want in your professional development (training, trade-body memberships, conferences etc).

...on your organisation:

Lower quality communications, that may sometimes turn up late, can only compromise the performance of the people on the receiving end of them.?Any resultant employee apathy, misunderstandings or mistakes will inevitably increase operating costs and hurt brand value.

Is there anything you'd want to add to this list?

Likely causes

This issue likely has its roots in a lack of understanding, among the key decision makers, about the true?value?of Internal Communication.?Almost all senior people are happy to pay lip service to its importance.?But what happens if we scratch beneath the surface?

Try this thought experiment:

If you were to ask your leadership team: “Do you take Internal Communication seriously?” what do you think they’d say?

Now, suppose you were to ask: “Do you take Internal Communication seriously?enough?

Interesting, huh??But how are they to agree on what ‘seriously enough’ looks like??Seriously enough for?what??Can that even be defined – in a way no one can argue with?

In a word: Yup.

Seriously enough

We would suggest IC is being taken seriously enough when it’s consistently? TFVP: Transparently Fit for Valid Purposes. Why can no one argue with that??Think about it: what would be the alternatives??Unless they're?TFVP, your organisation must sometimes have IC practices and outputs which are Transparently:

• Unfit for Valid Purposes
• Fit only for Invalid Purposes, or
• Unfit for Invalid Purposes.

How can anyone credibly claim they’re taking IC seriously enough if it’s producing any of those other three results? Surely any sane leadership team would want to push for TFVP practice wherever they can make it happen - would they not??And that means giving IC a TFVP budget – for good.?

So why is 'seriously-enough-to-give-you-all-the-budget-you-need' not already their default setting?

Innocence and Trust

It seems to be partly a matter of innocence, and partly a matter of trust.?

1. Your leadership team may never have come across the concept of?TFVP.?(And, to be fair, we only came up with it in 2015, and haven’t made much of a song and dance about it yet.)?So they’re unlikely to have considered those three unhealthy alternatives – for IC or anything else.
2. Even if they were aware of it, they may not have agreed a Transparently Valid?Purpose?for IC, against which to evaluate how seriously (or not) they’re taking it.
3. They’re also unlikely to be aware of how they might be able to credibly measure the commercial impact of Unfit IC practices.?

Importantly, not all of that impact can be credibly measured, because IC is woven through every other business activity – and many of those could be being affected by other factors.?But it's certainly possible to measure a large chunk of it.

(Some people get a little daunted by this, but it’s remarkably simple when you know how.?If you’d like to know how easy it can be, leave a comment or send us a message.)

IC Investments v IC Costs

Importantly, you can credibly make a distinction between, on the one hand, IC investments – which are always necessary (your organisation can’t?not?make them):

1. Budget
2. Production and distribution time
3. Audience time…

…and on the other IC costs (which are always unnecessary).?There are nine of these:

Wasteful production and distribution costs

1. Wasted budget
2. Wasted production and distribution time
3. Wasted audience time

Communication failure costs

1. Repeat communications
2. Time spent correcting mistakes and misunderstandings
3. Missed opportunities
4. Employee disengagement
5. Brand reputation damage
6. Organisation/departmental purpose failure

Potential solutions

To succeed in securing all the budget you need, forever, you’ll have to tackle both the innocence and the trust issues.?

As far as your leadership team’s innocence is concerned, you can?credibly measure?the investments and the first five of costs.?And, in our experience, the costs:

• almost always outstrip the investments by a huge factor
• are almost bound to be inversely proportionate to the investments.?(In other words, the greater the under-investment in IC, the exponentially higher those unnecessary costs are likely to be.)

This can you can wake people up to the business cost of under-investing in IC.?But what about the trust side of the equation?

It’s all very well making people aware of the reasons why they should be investing more in IC.?But how can you convince them that any additional investment isn’t simply going to be money down the drain?

Showing your workings out

Again the answer lies in having?TFVP?practices – particularly the ‘Transparency’ part of the equation.?The beauty of?TFVP?practice is that anyone who doesn’t trust the process can ‘see your workings out’.?So if they have any doubts or reservations you can show them why:

• you’re doing everything in that way,
• it’s giving you and them the best possible chance of getting the results they need.

(If you’re unsure how to take these steps, get in touch.)

Where these solutions could take you

Being able to demonstrate:

1. the extraordinary untapped potential you’re sitting on, and
2. how any additional investment will realise that potential…

…you should be able to secure all the budget you need. In effect, these two will give you both a financial and a technical?mandate?to do the job the way you’ve always wanted.

Likely benefits…

…for you

With enough budget and the right?mandate, you and your team can develop and implement?TFVP?skills and practices. These can:

• save you time,
• give you justifiable confidence (ie eliminate any Impostor Syndrome)
• make your job about as fulfilling as it can possibly be.

…for your organisation

In the short term, having TFVP practices can help improve the quality of everything you do, and so enhance the performance and well-being of everyone on the receiving end of your work.

If you wanted to take it further you could share those practices through?IC Practice Governance.?This can significantly help your organisation to operate more efficiently and effectively, further enhancing employee experience and the well-being of your organisation's reputation and bottom line.

In conclusion

An inadequate budget can often be a casualty of Impostor Syndrome.?We hope we’ve demonstrated that it can - and should - be brought to an end. So who within your organisation needs to understand this? And what else would they need to know??

If this post has prompted any fresh ideas for you, please share them. That way everyone can benefit from that bigger picture. And, together, and we can all end these forever frustrations, for everyone's good.

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 life better, at commgame.co.uk