Journal of INTERNAL COMMUNICATION

Digital sample

Nick Green

How Internal Comms is BSkyBs Last Line of Defence Against Biz-Speak

One of your jobs in internal communication is preventing the tone defaulting to business speak. Heres how Nick Green does this at BSkyB. To develop the right tone for your organisation, you have to understand your DNA. Thats the key. What sort of business or organisation are you? How do you speak to your customers, and what tone was set during recruitment? BSkyB is an entertainment, news and communications business, so we need to create, deliver and inspire people with communications that are right for us. We need to speak to people in a way thats right for them. Get the tone wrong and we instantly see response rates dip and interest wane. On the odd occasion when something slips through, we instantly see comments posted on the message boards or just a plain lack of response. We see it on the intranet sometimes. When the tone drifts, x it fast We had an occasion recently when the tone was off, the story didnt tell the whole truth and it wasnt written in the right tone. We xed it 24 hours later. We knew wed got it wrong and the responses to the story told us wed got it wrong. More importantly, the approach wed taken in the rst instance

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undermined the trust weve built up. It reminded us how critical it is to keep getting the tone right. Our tone is direct, informal and light. Its taken time to develop and its been done steadily over time. We didnt over-work it. Having Internal Communications Tone Workshops for instance would have set the wrong tone. Our tone has evolved naturally, so its rarely challenged. It doesnt need to be - it just feels right. People default to business speak Unfortunately, in this day and age, going forward we suboptimally default to a style and tone which can best be described as business-speak. You wouldnt say going forward at the breakfast table, so why use it at work? Sub-optimal should be left in business school. I even heard someone recently saying they down-selected three suppliers from a list of 10. I assume he meant short-listed. Were the guardians of plain English in our organisations and we should never forget that responsibility. Its a critical ingredient of the tone we own. Tone is what were paid to get right. Just as the Marketing Director owns and guards the brand, you need to own and guard the internal communications tone. Its a war of attrition. Our role is to inuence others. Thats how its sustained. I know were starting to win when I hear people correct their own use of language. You need to taste, feel, hear and touch whether that tone is right in everything youre doing. When its wrong, it should jar. ! Nick Green is Director of Internal Communication at BSkyB

We should never forget that were the guardians of plain English

Drew McMillan

Why Ladbrokes Bets on an Internal Comms Tone of Truth

Should your internal communication deliver bad news as well as good news? Ladbrokes Drew McMillan is about to tell you the truth... Internal audiences have evolved as a species. Back in the day, when internal comms was a profession still in its infancy, audiences were relatively unsophisticated. They werent used to being given a forum to get involved in a debate. It was really just: Lets celebrate success! Lets give people all the good news! You could get away with quite a lot of lm-am. But now, audiences are very canny. They can spot im-am, partly because of 24-hour news, social media and the increasing sophistication of communication generally. They want a rolling news agenda, and they dont expect a rolling news agenda to be good news all the time life and business doesnt work that way. They want to be kept informed and that includes keeping them informed of the things that arent working so well. The benet of bad news At all the organisations that Ive worked and certainly directing internal comms here at Ladbrokes we take great care to balance our news agenda so that people are treated in an adult way. Thats the mantra that I have we are

The Journal of Internal Communication

having an adult-to-adult conversation and not a parent to child conversation. As adults, we convey bad news in a relevant and meaningful way usually with something about how we are going to resolve the situation. There is no point reporting: Prots are down! What are we actually doing to x it? Thats what audiences want. And I think thats the right way for a responsible professional communicator to be going about their business. Defending the truth If you adopt this approach, you will face challenges. Im quite lucky because I direct comms here, so the buck stops with me. Ive agreed its the best approach, so thats what we do! But there have been times when there has been some unpalatable news, and its been very tempting to hide that amongst some good stuff, like that old adage: A good day to bury bad news. And to be honest, in terms of a learning curve weve possibly tried to do that once or twice. We tried to mention some quite signicant things about people exiting the business or a business deal that hasnt quite worked almost as an aside. But actually, we dont need to do that. We are a very condent business, and we employ grown up people, so generally we will report openly on things that havent worked so well. And as it happens, we have got far more good than bad. Here at Ladbrokes, face to face is the primary channel as far as Im concerned, because thats the gold standard. But with 16,000 people internationally working for Ladbrokes, thats not always possible. Were just about the largest retailer in the UK by number of outlets, with 2,200

We are having an adult-toadult conversation

Drew McMillan

We cant expect people to trust the message if the message is always good

shops. Its very difficult to reach into those shops, so we rely much more heavily on intranet and magazine and phone broadcasting. I was looking at the intranet stats recently, and since September when our newsroom was upgraded we have published about 95 headline stories and of those no more than 10 are what you might term down-side information. Such-and-such isnt working, we failed such-and-such a strategic imperative. I think its very important. We can't expect people to trust the message if the message is always good. The tone of truth Telling the truth sets a tone. In some corporate cultures, you spoon-feed your audience and theres quite a lot of condescending language used. Its dressed up as plain English,

but actually I think sometimes its just condescending. Theres too much spin. PR guys get a very bad name for spin but they pale into insignicance compared to some of my peers in internal comms who, perhaps due to various pressures will try and put a spin on many many things. In every profession there are good communicators who have a good understanding of how people take on information, and there are others who are just giving it a bit of a go and think that things like intranets and newsletters are all about: Mavis has raised 1,000 for charity and arent we doing so well? Doesnt matter where you sit People ask whether you can deliver balanced communications when your function sits within HR. Actually, my blood runs cold when people have this

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conversation about where internal comms t. I couldnt care less get on with your work is all I have got to say to people! People agonise over: Where should we be? But you know what, if you do a really good job and you cut the mustard it doesnt matter youll get credibility, youll get buy-in and traction and youll be able to run your own show. What I will say is that, at this point in my career, I am greatly enjoying the responsibility and pressure of setting the comms agenda in response to business need. Condent communication The more condent you are as a communicator and the more mature your organisational culture, the easier it is to give a balanced news agenda. Im not so nave as to think there are people out there who dont want a balanced news agenda as communicators but they may themselves be constrained - even censored - by the business executives they are representing. I do have to remind colleagues about this. There might be difficult conversations, and we dont always get it right. There are times when we have to really consider: Do we tell people something or not? But often the dice lands in the favour of telling them. Not least because one of Ladbrokes values is Team, and in a team you tell it like it is. You are condent enough, you are together enough as a unit to be able to roll with the bad news as well as the good. ! Drew McMillan is Internal Communications director at Ladbrokes plc. He is active in various professional networks including LinkedIn's internal communications groups.

One of our values is Team, and in a team you tell it like it is

The Journal of Internal Communication

How We Reduced Email Overload By Launching an Email-Free Day

When consultant Gitte Rosholm was called in to tackle a clients email overload problem, she knew she had to communicate in new ways and with a different tone of voice to attract the organisations attention... My client had just been through a merger, and because of all the organisational changes the entire organisation was up to its neck in email. Everybody was cc'ing everybody. They weren't sure who needed the information, and felt they had to cover their backs just in case. Everybody was suffering from unnecessary stress and extra work. So, we came up with an email free day. There was no point making rules and trying to communicate them in an already over-communicated environment theyd just get drowned out in the noise. We had to draw attention to the fact that there are other means of communication, and we needed to add a bit of humour to the organisation at the same time. An email free day would be an event that everybody would notice. Simple and well designed We put most of our energy into creating a simple and well designed campaign. With a very low budget, we decided we had to make as much of a blast as we

Gitte Rosholm
could to make sure our message was noticed. We used the physical space in the subsidiaries, stuck up posters, and distributed postcards to everybodys desks the morning of the email free day. It wasnt actually forbidden to use email on that day. Instead, it was suggested that everybody try to use other means of communication on that day. The secret to making it work was the fact that wed built a group of ambassadors who had promised to show the way on the day, and contact others to remind them of the email free day. SIgn up ambassadors We knew it was important for somebody to display the behaviour for others to follow, and this way we ensured that somebody would take the lead. The ambassadors had been doing some 'viral marketing' in the weeks leading up to the event, preparing the soil for the event. Theyd stuck little stickers saying 'Stop email spamming' on their laptops, and they had added a line to their email signature saying: If you think this email was unnecessary for you to read, please let me know so I can stop spamming you in the future with the same little 'stop email' logo. Every communication product pointed toa set of internal communication channel guidelines that we published on the intranet on the same day. Also, on the intranet there were interviews with leaders and employees talking about how many emails they receive on average and how they are coping or trying to reduce the amount of emails. The event attracted a lot of attention. This was an entirely

Ambassadors stuck stop email spamming stickers on their laptops

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If you cant make people smile, they wont do what you want them to

new and much more effective way to communicate around a specic theme, and the group of ambassadors received positive reactions to the humorous tone of voice used in the campaign. No negative reactions As far as I know, there were no negative reactions. Im certain some people will have had really important business on that particular day, and will have been inconvenienced by this disruption. Maybe they even felt annoyed with this preposterous idea that every email they send isn't absolutely necessary. Indeed, it was out of respect for these people that the campaign didnt point ngers or ban the use of email outright. People ask me how they can make this a success in their organisation. I say to them, you need to use a wide, relevant and

novel range of channels to create the attention you need. (It helps if you dont already have a huge number of themed days and events.) And you need a group of leaders or ambassadors who are determined to do something about the problem both during and after the event. If you want to try this yourself, my key tip is not to underestimate the power of social psychology and creative execution. If you can't think of a way for your campaign to make people smile and want to be part of your movement, they won't feel positively inclined to do what you want them to do. ! Gitte Rosholm is director of Advice (www.adviceas.dk), which provides consultancy services in all aspects of communication and branding.

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