Leverage curiosity for results

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We were all curious as children, weren’t we?

Think back to your early years and how many questions you asked. How interested you were in everything. If you are a parent reading this then you’ll know first-hand just HOW MANY questions kids ask on the daily.

It’s brilliant.

But as we get older we are told that we shouldn’t be too curious. We’re told that “curiosity killed the cat” and "stop being childish".

When we enter the corporate world, we quickly learn that some leaders don’t like being questioned and it’s easier to just do what they ask. We are afraid to ask questions in a meeting for fear of looking silly, right? How many times have you heard someone say “This is probably a stupid question but…”

But I think we need to reinvigorate our childlike curiosity at work.

Here’s my take: curiosity is a superpower, especially for anyone working in internal communication.

Internal comms professionals are here to deliver value for the business, and we can only do that if we really understand the purpose of each communication we create and how it aligns to the bigger picture of the organisation.

Get curious with stakeholders

One way you can make more impact as a communicator is by getting curious with your stakeholders. Ask questions. Good questions, lots of questions. And listen deeply to their answers.

Here are some questions I’ve found very useful over the years. Use these the next time Alan from HR or Susan from IT asks you to send out a communication or create a blog for the intranet.

What are you trying to achieve with this communication?

Don’t be surprised if this question baffles your stakeholder. They probably won’t know what their communications objective is or what they’re really trying to achieve. Get curious with them and help explore it and identify the objective together.

Who is the audience for this message?

Here’s what they’ll probably tell you: “It’s for all employees”. This is where your curiosity can help you. Ask more questions when you hear that line. “Does that include employees in Belfast? What about the frontline workers in the manufacturing plant? Does it need to go to people who work in all regions or just in HQ? Why would every employee in the business need this information?" You get the idea.

What would success look like?

Get the stakeholder to describe to you the desired future state. What would the future look like if this communication was successful? What would be different? This helps you identify their desired outcome and helps you assess whether that’s achievable or not.

What do you want employees to DO as a result of this communication?

Get curious about what the stakeholder wants the employee to actually do after they read/ watch the communication. Is there an action they need to take? Are they expected to change their behaviour or fill out a form or sign up for a training? Make this crystal clear from the start.

How would you know if this communication was a success?

Get curious about the measurements you can identify with your stakeholder to assess and evaluate the success of the communication. Did the behaviour change as expected? Did people sign up to the training? Get the stakeholder to identify the measurements that would indicate success and then use these to evaluate the communication afterwards.

What’s the number 1 thing you want people to know?

You might develop a set of key messages. But see if you can distill the core of the communication down to 1 key idea. You might ask them something like “If someone read this and then explained it to a colleague beside them, what would you want them to say?” This can help the stakeholder put their message in simple, conversational language.

Remember the power of your role. As an internal communicator, you’re not there to take everyone’s orders and spend all day creating stuff. You’re there to solve business problems through great communication and help the business deliver on its strategy. You can only do this by slowing down and getting curious with your stakeholders, so that you can deliver valuable, high-impact communications. Every time.

Thanks for reading and stay curious,

Joanna

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