How Steve Jobs Broke Down The Wall Between Internal and External Communications

Steve Jobs was a master of leveraging outside momentum to rally the internal troops.

Like him, the effective communicator of 2018 must be well-rounded and employ strategies, channels and audiences across both sides to build a company’s or brand’s reputation.

A couple of years ago I wrote a LinkedIn piece titled “PR Career Rule #1: Thou Shalt Not Do Internal Communications” examining the perceived divide between internal and external communicators. It was based on my personal experience of many years in external communications at companies like Apple then switching to full-time employee communications roles at PayPal and Visa.

The article received a lot of comments from both sides but largely confirmed my experience that such a divide exists. The majority of communicators choose to do internal communications or external communications roles but not both. And communicators rarely switch course in their careers.

Some said the internal/external wall was coming down. It was just a question of when and how.

Flash forward to 2018 and trust in media, government, business and NGOs is at an all time low. According to the most recent Edelman TRUST BAROMETER, CEO credibility dropped 12 points globally to an all-time low of 37 percent, plummeting in every country studied.

The wall between internal and external audiences has not just come down, it has imploded. 

It’s also clear that yesterday’s approach of high profile and better funded external communications teams and separate less resourced internal teams will not work. The successful communicator of 2018 must be well-rounded and employ strategies, channels and audiences across both sides to build a company’s or brand’s reputation.

Outside In Approach

I’ve worked for several companies going through hard times. For some, the industry they were in was in transition. For others, perhaps poor decisions or leadership had got them into a bad situation. First sales soften, then revenue suffers, share prices drop and employee morale sinks.

During these times occasionally a small spark of external validation is needed before employees can start to believe again.

For example, I worked at Apple for 10 years during its turnaround period in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Steve Jobs was a master of leveraging outside momentum to rally the internal troops. This was a hard task considering Apple’s stock was tanking, the future was unstable and employees could earn more at a competitor down the road.

Despite this, there were signs of sparks. In 1997, Apple unveiled its visionary “Think Different” advertising campaign which was applauded by critics and credited with restoring the company’s reputation.

But the biggest impact Think Different had and the story never gets told about it is what it did inside Apple.

After the campaign launched, Steve invited some Apple employees to his home in Palo Alto, CA. He showed them the commercial, some of them had probably already seen while some of them had not. But in the intimacy of that setting, he traded air -- 46 seconds of black-and-white film -- for belief in Apple's future.

That was the real brilliance of the campaign.

Yes, it launched Apple back to pop-culture relevance. It built anticipation for what was to come. But more than that, over those 46 seconds he brought us -- the people inside -- back to Apple’s best days. The people in Steve’s house were the people who were going to give up days, nights, and weekends and work real freaking hard for years to come. These were the people Steve needed. As smart as he was, he couldn't rebuild Apple on his own.

He did this at a point when Apple still didn’t have any hit products or any signs of improved financial health. Theoretically he was trading air to buy the hearts and minds of employees but it worked.

I joined Apple in 1999 and can confirm that for the next few years, Jobs would repeat this outside-in approach at many all-hands meetings, in internal memos and through other channels. When Apple’s new products started getting good critical reviews or when the analysts said something favorable, Jobs would make sure employees knew about it.

Inside Out Approach

In December 2016, Apple faced growing criticism from the media that it wasn’t committed to its Mac desktop computer line. Reports said it was focusing its efforts on portables and tablets at the expense of desktop development.

Apple’s response: CEO Tim Cook addressed the reports on the company’s internal intranet saying, “Some folks in the media have raised the question about whether we’re committed to desktops...let me be very clear: we have great desktops in our roadmap. Nobody should worry about that.”

The comments were promptly leaked to TechCrunch and picked up by multiple sources. Did Cook or Apple’s communications team write the comments knowing they were going to be leaked to media? Did Apple’s communications team leak the comments themselves? We’ll never know for sure.

My best guess is that at a minimum Apple’s PR team reviewed this memo with the likelihood it would be leaked to press in mind. Let’s face it, in 2018 transparency is key. Anyone who believes you can keep information shared on intranets or internal memos from getting out is deluding themselves.

As another case in point, search Google and it’s not too hard to find internal communications videos that Walmart uses to communicate with associates; the Coca Cola Ambassador iPhone app that gives employees and field sales teams a cocktail party conversation guide on how to message sugared water or an internal video my team worked on at PayPal: PayPal in 90 Seconds. These channels don’t appear by mistake. The companies know they portray a positive view of their culture and their “insider” status makes them even more credible.

Growth of Employee Advocacy

When regular employees are 37% more trustworthy than CEOs per the EdelmanTrust Barometer, it’s no wonder that the field of employee advocacy has become crowded with experts, apps and “influencers” in recent years. These days I rarely eat at a restaurant without scanning Yelp or book a hotel room without glancing at TripAdvisor. Similarly, there’s no way I would accept a job without consulting Glassdoor and former and current employees in my network.

Even the B2B space is being influenced by these consumer trends. According to LinkedIn, leads developed through employee word-of-mouth marketing convert seven times more frequently than other leads. They say content shared by employees on social channels drives eight times more engagement than content directly from brand channels.

The key is to make your story resonate with employees. Every company has stories but not every company is telling them in compelling ways.

So there you have it. The wall between internal and external communications has come down. The world of PR people writing press releases and internal communications people writing memos is gone. We all have to work harder using multiple channels and strategies, internal and external to drive engagement for our companies and brands.

Cameron Craig is a communications professional with 20+ years experience working with Apple, Visa, PayPal, View Dynamic Glass and Yahoo! Formerly, he was a tour publicist for Johnny Cash. Follow him on Twitter @Cam_CommsGuy LinkedIn and https://www.asignaturestory.com