Improve your internal communications content with this simple mind shift

Internal communications is widely accepted as an important piece of the effectiveness puzzle. But doing internal comms and doing it well are two vastly different things. Have a think about your internal comms right now – do you read it with the enthusiasm you read your favourite newspaper or magazine? If you’re not doing it well you won’t be making those efficiency and effectiveness gains you’re after.

“The PR of HR,” internal comms bridges the chasm between Marketing and HR functions – and this influences how it is seen by the business, how communicators see themselves, and the way in which they tell stories. This is at the core of why so many internal comms are uninspiring, unengaging, and doing nothing to improve team outcomes.

Internal comms isn’t PR. It’s not HR. It’s not even Marketing.

Internal comms is Journalism.

It’s choosing the right stories to be told. It’s getting up from the desk and talking to people. It’s telling their story in an interesting and engaging way.

We are all media consumers, and we all love a good story. Internal Comms should be fighting for the newsworthy angle (hint – people!) and spending time crafting the story in the most engaging way possible.

But it’s a risk. A good story needs drama, tension, conflict – and this scares business leaders who often just want the ‘softly softly’ approach.

But you can’t have solutions without problems.

If business leaders are serious about improving people outcomes then they will at least give internal comms people – the experts – the opportunity to try this approach and see what happens.

And it’s communicators’ responsibility to fight for it.