As communicators, we’re often presented with a message to communicate and a detailed plan of how it should be disseminated. I’m not sure about you, but it annoys me a bit.
Finding the right channel for messages is our bread and butter, and that’s the bit we’re good at.
So a powerful word we can often use when people tell us to communicate is quite simply “no“.
I’m not suggesting being obtuse or unwilling to help is the way to go – but as partners to the business it’s our job to remind people that we’re there to advise not just on which format to use, but also on the message itself given the context which is usually conflicting and demanding of consideration.
Our job then is to be able to see an entire business, considering all priorities and themes, and to be able to confidently say: “No, we can’t do that, because…”.
This is Internal Communications’ value-add. We help folks to communicate, but we also challenge them not to.