As an internal communicator how can you ignite change in your organisation without burning the house down and creating lots of resistance to it? This starts by adopting a particular mindset in how you think about change, before you try to communicate anything about it.
Urban dictionary: ‘A culture vulture is a person who adopts something from a different community and makes it their own.’ Is internal communication becoming a culture vulture?
There is a midlife crisis in workplaces everywhere. There are millions of over 50s who are economically inactive and are unwilling to return because they are not understood or supported at work. Are internal communicators unwittingly colluding with other organisational functions to create and promote workplace cultures which are toxic for the over 50s, because we don't make the effort to properly understand them?
How can leaders whose lived experience is so different from those they are appointed to lead ever be ‘in touch’ with what those people think and feel? The answer lies in the competence of the people they surround themselves with and the quality of the advice those people dispense. The equation is simple to understand. No good advice = poor leadership.
Some might perceive the servant leader as being an example of a weak and ineffectual management style, and a risk to the organisation achieving its objectives and success, particularly in workplaces where command and control has historically dominated the culture. But, done well, servant leadership is anything but this.
We have barely begun our period of mourning and our grief is raw. There is some comfort to be had.
It’s surprising what some people working in the internal communications profession, and organisational stakeholders, think we should have responsibility for. We should be careful what we claim ownership of, willingly or through coercion.
When you are presented with a task or challenge of elephantine proportions, that at first seems insurmountable, how can you tackle it and what lessons can be learnt from the experience?
Senior leaders who stick around after they have said they are leaving are rarely an asset for an organisation or institution. And, they are the cause of a real headache for any internal communicator trying to establish a new strategic narrative if they do.
Communication can’t fix every problem. Internal communicators need to be realistic about what we can achieve, and if communication isn’t a remedy for a problem or issue then we should back off.
The IC Citizen 