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Three golden rules for internal communication in times of change

Communication in organisations should result in action. Yes it should be relevant, interesting and talk-worthy. But, what is that? These are measures of success that are so subjective that it is impossible to tie them down. A far easier task would be to nail jelly to the wall. So, beware of communicators who bandy around those words – relevant, insightful, intelligent and so on. Instead communication should be both measured and planned around what it is you need to see done.

 

Rule 1: All effective communication must be planned around and result in an action rather than inaction

Or, if what you’re saying isn’t making someone do something, what are you wasting your time for?

Kingfisher, the DIY group, recently embarked on a programme of communication to make employees aware of its purchasing policies in the light of the corporate responsibility policies it had adopted. It needed to influence managing directors who were keen to drive down costs, purchasing managers who were also interested at buying low and selling high, marketing managers who were incredibly keen to extol the virtues of the company, and sales staff, many of whom wouldn’t care too much if their garden furniture came from sustainable forests or otherwise: different audiences with different backgrounds and different concerns.

The common mistake would be to go to each audience with the corporate message: ’Kingfisher is adopting a corporate responsibility policy because it is what we believe in; it will satisfy NGOs, reduce our corporate risk and enhance our image. So we are only going to sell materials that are environmentally benign, that are made in conditions that are fair and sold in a way that is responsible’. All very admirable, but it says to the employee ’Where’s me in there?’

Instead Kingfisher asked the question, how do we get a purchasing manager who is measured by the margin between buying costs and selling costs, to look for the materials that may cost that little bit more and be that tiny bit harder to get to the shops? These are people motivated by financial targets. Their answer was to talk about career development and career protection. In short, the message was: ’a fast track to getting fired is purchasing anything that came with an element of corporate risk and that the corporate risk items were as follows…’. No mention was given to corporate responsibility. For the over-exuberant marketers the message was: ’This is how good messages can get twisted and damage our reputation so take heed.’

From the outset communication is driven by the required actions, that is, new buying behaviours and realistic marketing, rather than the subject of corporate responsibility.

Rule 2: Set out to influence rather than control

The Body Shop are a franchise organisation of retail outlets selling skin and hair care products – and an organisation with an environmental and social agenda. The Body Shop was as much a campaigning organisation as it was a producer and seller of shampoo.

What was interesting about The Body Shop was its relationship with its franchisees. Like Specsavers, Burger King, Subway and Kwik-Fit, The Body Shop grew through franchising its formula to independent businesswomen and men. Providing you were prepared to follow a formula and buy product from one provider, and providing you matched the values of the company then you too could own a shop.

Initially the franchise agreements were very loose. It is apt that the early agreements were called the ‘Careless’ agreements, named after the solicitor who put it together not realising the large-scale success the company would achieve. The ‘Careless’ agreements afforded the early franchisees lots of freedom from ways of doing things that in later years they would exploit. But hey, The Body Shop was born out of entrepreneurialism so it was always encouraged. The challenge for internal communicators like myself was to get the franchisees to market and promote their product in a consistent fashion. Some franchises like Burger King and Kwik-Fit can be far harder in enforcing their behaviours, but this was not either part of the ethos of The Body Shop or achievable under the ‘Careless’ agreement.

So influence was the order of the day. At the corporate centre we were successful by listening and observing very carefully what was going on in the markets. Where we saw success we would put the spotlight on it. We communicated case studies of successful campaigning and selling in the markets and attached the results to information on our next product promotion. Very soon franchisees realised that the role of the centre was to build and influence sales.

Rule 3: Some can do no wrong… until

At one time, The Body Shop could do no wrong. Like the Apple of today and companies like Innocent Drinks, a fruit smoothie marketing company, it was in ‘go go’ mode. Customers loved it; employees loved it; even the City loved it, but for The Body Shop as with others, those days do not last forever. At some point it appears you will find yourself in an M&S position.

What counts is pragmatism and focus. Say the message, say it again, and then say what you just said. As a communicator in change situations, if you feel you are communicating a message too much, then you are probably communicating it at just the right level. The trouble is that your average CEO’s level and your communicator’s level are wholly different. Listen to the communicator.

The BBC experienced the need for such focus and pragmatism during its recent Charter renewal process. Communication around the subject of Charter renewal was extremely limited, but communication on the behaviours and way of working required to secure the Charter and subsequent licence fee that would come with it were maximised. The focus was on audience research and insight and on the fact that no one owed the BBC a living; that it had to prove the value for money to the country.

This meant reducing the BBC’s values from six messages to ‘One BBC’ and of the BBC standing for creativity and audience focus. It meant the corporation communicating solidly on audience insights that would inform programme making. This may sound simple, but the communication messages for the BBC, no matter what area they came out of, all repeated these simple messages. These were the messages for survival. Corporation staff understood the inevitability of the messages ‘focus on the audience’, ‘give value for money’ and ‘work together as One BBC’ so much so that when the restructure came is was not destroyed at the grassroots, but accepted – albeit with passionate demand for considerations and compromises.

Compare that with companies like Innocent Drinks where business is booming and ideas are flowing. Communication in companies like this is a dream. There are a plethora of messages to send out and it doesn’t appear to matter which order they are played out in, they always fall on a welcome audience. This is a wonderful place to be in, and a dangerous one, for this dreamlike state can mean that you are ill-prepared for sudden turns of fortune.

The lessons learned in employee engagement have been that this is far from difficult, but we make it difficult. And yet, neither is it simple, but it is logical. It is about putting you into the shoes of the recipient; about you remaining focused on the objective of communication rather than the subject of your communication and about influencing action rather than enforcing it.