by Mike Klein

 

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Mike Klein is veteran internal communication consultant whose blog, CommsOffensive325, aims to ‘barbecue the sacred cows of the internal communication industry.’ Klein has worked in the US, UK and Continental Europe, and managed political campaigns for 10 years before receiving an MBA from London Business School.

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It is not the most visible topic in the discussions about internal communication, generally taking a back seat to things like tactics, technology, technical skill and measurement. But perspective may actually be the issue that has more to do with the success of internal communication—and of an aware internal communicator—than any of its more technical or transactional aspects.

 

Perspective impacts internal communication in a multi-dimensional way. The three core dimensions include the communicator’s perspective, the core client’s perspective, and the perspectives present in the audience. For the purpose of this discussion, perspective is defined as:

 

The values, biases, orientations and mindsets that govern an individual or group’s participation in the process of communication.

 

The Communicator: Common Perspectives

 

 

Given that this manual is geared towards an internal communicator, it makes sense to look first at the types of perspective communicators commonly hold — outlooks that guide the way they communicate, the ways they position themselves relative to their clients and audiences, and the ways they see their own role. Four main perspectives come to mind:

• Journalistic
• Marketing
• Facilitative
• Advocate

 

The Journalistic Perspective

 

The journalistic approach is prevalent in large swaths of the industry, partially because clients perceive formal communication as a journalistic activity, and perhaps more significantly because many if not most internal communicators are hired on the basis of their journalism experience and skills.

 

 

Its imprint is certainly felt in the continued reliance of publications and tools using journalistic formats and styles. But the most significant impact that the journalistic perspective--significantly, in the injection of the journalistic pretense of “objectivity” into organizational communication—has on its tone, impact and credibility..

 

 

The notion that organizational communication must represent—or look to represent—some kind of a neutral or normative position is one that some communicators adopt for a number of reasons:

 

 

• a belief that communications must be neutral to be credible

   

• a desire to have one’s internal communication look and sound like that provided by external media

   

• a reluctance on the part of communicators to actively take part in the pursuit of the organisation’s objectives

   

 

Pitfalls of the Journalistic Perspective

 

 

While the journalistic approach may produce a product that may ‘sound right’, embracing a journalistic philosophy can hold numerous pitfalls for a professional communicator:

 

• The value of merely informing staff about what is happening around them is very difficult to substantiate and justify commercially

   

• Adopting a position of ‘journalistic objectivity’ creates serious strategic and emotional distance between the communicator and the work of the organisation

   

• Maintaining the appearance of ‘objectivity’ can often prompt a communicator to take a more detached or even negative view than facts justify, and much less than organizational success requires.

   

• Maintaining high production values while opting out of real support for organizational initiatives makes the communicator and his/her function a visible target for cost cuts and second-guessing

   

 

The Marketing Perspective

 

 

For a number of years, the term ‘internal marketing’ nearly became synonymous with the intentional practice of internal communication, with a clear focus on selling messages and outcomes.

 

The marketing perspective approaches communication from the opposite end of the commitment spectrum from the journalistic approach. It has no pretense of objectivity—generally focusing on the positive impact of what is being discussed, and why the actions being discussed represent imperatives as opposed to options. It also treats staff as ‘customers’—parties to a transaction—rather than recognizing the richness and complexity of their ongoing internal relationships.

 

Because of its emphasis on selling, the marketing perspective can often drive very visual or media-centred approaches: posters, brief videos, glossy brochures. The selling emphasis also brings up a number of major pitfalls:

 

• Internal marketing often denies that staff have a choice about how they accept, reject, reinterpret or redirect organizational messages
• Such denial leads to the use of disempowering terminology—such as the use of the term “we” to imply collective agreement on a topic or action where no such agreement exists
• Internal marketing often adopts a tone that is “cheerleading” or unrealistically positive—where such statements contradict observable facts, the credibility of the organization becomes undermined.
• A focus on using ‘marketing’ to drive internal alignment can often be taken by managers as a signal that they can avoid taking their responsibility in the matter.

 

The marketing perspective remains popular because it offers the possibility of securing support/compliance for organizational initiatives without undue sacrifices or investment by senior and middle managers. And, for initiatives that require high awareness but relatively low commitment (protecting company property, following IT security procedures), this perspective still has something to offer.

 

The Facilitative Perspective

 

 

Facilitation collided with internal communication in the early 1990’s, both from an orientational standpoint (a belief that the right answer can be elicited from the real participants) and from a practical standpoint: that the communicator’s role was about elicit that answer and have the participants communicate it themselves.

 

Removing oneself from the development of solutions is at the philosophical core of facilitation as a perspective—with the facilitator giving far more emphasis to the process than to the product, and to emphasizing the responsibility of the “solution owners” for the onward delivery rather than driving it his/herself.

 

The facilitative approach requires a similar level of expressed neutrality to the journalistic perspective—but it requires a far higher degree of strategic engagement with managers and leaders as they are the ones charged with formulating the solution and, in many cases, delivering the message. Still, the facilitative perspective has its pitfalls as well:

• Facilitation depends on the good will of the managers and leaders engaged in the process
• It lends itself to top-down approaches, as many organizations consider multi-level facilitation unwieldy or politically unacceptable
• It transfers responsibility for communication initiatives away from professional communicators, often to managers who have little commitment, interest or skills

 

The Advocacy Perspective

 

A fourth perspective for an internal communicator which emerges is that of the advocate—that of the communicator who sees his/her role as creating a favorable environment for the outcomes of his/her clients. Essentially, the advocate role combines certain elements of the other perspectives: the partisanship of the marketer, the craft skill of the journalist, and the engagement of the leaders/owners of the facilitator. But the advocate role moves beyond those elements with a clear focus and (often self-given) accountability for the achievement of specific, tangible outcomes.

 

The advocate makes no pretense of objectivity. Nor does he/she allow the communication effort to substitute for the required participation of leaders and managers in achieving the tasks at hand. But the communicator-advocate is also uniquely positioned to define success, particularly at certain milestones (the world will look like XXX when YYY is completed on x date), and of the end state as a whole (we will have succeeded when X has happened.)

 

The advocacy perspective is not without its pitfalls:

 

• It is possible for the advocate’s zeal and sense of ownership to alienate influential members of the client organization—to the point where they resent or even sabotage the communication effort
• The advocate’s zeal may lead him/her to press the organization too hard to meet stated deadlines to maintain appearances
• While when working with a supportive client advocates can be very effective, their efficacy may be limited by the perspective of the client they work for—which ultimately determines the tone, intensity and purpose of communication.

 

Client Types

 

 

While one’s own perspective certainly determines where one stands vis a vis the hiring organization, the main overriding element of organizational communication is that it almost inevitably occurs with the participation and permission of at least one sponsor, or client. Because approval is critical, it is worthwhile also to look at some prevalent types of clients, and what may be required to align one’s own intent with that of the person signing the proverbial cheques:

 

The Defender

 

 

The defender is a client whose first interest is that of the part of the business in which he or she operates—whether it is the organization as a whole, the person’s location, division or the project he or she directs. What is important to remember is that the defender will approach communication from the standpoint of whether it minimizes risks or exposes the defender’s agenda unnecessarily. Defenders tend to focus less on “winning” and much more on “not losing”, and communicators working with such clients can often benefit from acknowledging that element of the agenda without allowing it to subvert their own objectives.

 

The Boss

 

 

An entirely different type of client is someone called “The Boss”, more of an authoritarian figure who sees his or her role as being the person in the organization who makes his subordinates do what needs to be done. Whatever one’s own view of power relationships within an organization, the extent to which the boss believes he/she drives power and performance will be the operative perspective here. Leveraging communication with such a client may involve a look at the processes that work and the successes that have previously occurred in that organization—balancing the client’s perspective with the organisation’s own sense of reality.

 

The Leader

 

 

Another type of client is focused most on the achievement of the task at hand, and less about dictating the process or protecting it (or his/her own) reputation—a client referred to here as “The Leader”. An astute leader will often give a communications professional a relatively free hand—in terms of tone, vehicles, messages and strategic intent. At the same time, such a client may either have his/her own driving vision which may be less resonant to the other participants than to himself. Alternatively, a leader with a big picture focus may not have secured sufficient commitment from other key players to allow communications efforts to do what’s required. However, if both the communicator and the leader are aligned on intent and approach, the possibility of client resistance is highly diminished.

 

 

Audience Perspectives

 

 

Communication in organizations has little value if it makes no connection to the range of people involved in achieving organizational purposes. While populations can be diverse, four basic kinds of audiences emerge with distinct perspectives of their own:

 

Recipient

 

 

“Recipients” are seen by many as “the masses”—the large numbers of employees who are either apathetic, or whose interest in a topic of organizational importance is considered nice but not critical. Communication that treats audience members as “recipients” tends to be informative but not particularly engaging. And in some organizations, there are members who are indeed recipients—individuals for whom the message has limited relevance and equally limited resonance—who don’t necessarily want to be asked to may more attention or make some accommodations for an initiative of peripheral interest. Assuming that audience members are mere recipients, however, entails substantial risks—particularly if there are individuals or constituencies who can help achieve outcomes, or whose resistance can derail them.

Participant

 

 

Conversely, another audience element is that of “participants”—people who do their jobs willingly, and want to understand as much as possible about what they can, cannot, and must do at any point in time. Participants are aware of the extent that they have discretionary abilities to support or resist organizational initiatives, and effective participant communications generally show considerable respect to that ability to choose.

 

Rebel

 

 

A small, but potentially corrosive element in the audience population are members called “rebels”—staff members whose own views put them in active conflict with organizational objectives. While few rebels will reveal themselves openly, they are often wont to reinterpret organizational messages in cynical or hostile ways, and usually without direct traceability. Although there is little a communicator can do to remove the rebels from the mix, the resistance they put into the environment can be distinguished, openly discussed, and erroneous arguments corrected.

Champion

 

 

Another small group—and one with considerable utility to the internal communicator—are those called “champions”—committed supporters of the agenda who make tangible positive contributions. Communicators can not only use champions as examples of people who are making a positive difference and making the organisation’s objectives achievable, they can also be identified and networked to communicate and share ideas with each other, and to engage participants, recipients, and rebels about the relevance of the initiatives in their respective local areas.

 

Drivers

 

 

Among clients, communicators and audiences alike, there are a number of loyalties or drivers which lie at the core of their behavior. These drivers tend to be of paramount concern to each player—despite protestations they may proffer to the contrary.

Job

 

 

If a player in this world believes his/her job is vulnerable and wishes to protect it, that will be the framework that drives the person’s proactive behavior (to demonstrate his/her value) and reactive behavior (not to cooperate with initiatives that could put the job at risk).

 

Turf

 

 

The issue of organizational jurisdiction or “turf” is of paramount importance in terms of where a communicator sits in the organization. A communicator sitting in HR will generally have to focus on the HR agenda, one working in corporate communications may have to defer to external messaging, and one sitting in the program office of the company’s number 2 initiative may be asked to attempt to help reposition the initiative so that it is seen as Numero Uno.

 

Business

 

 

Some communicators, particularly when seeing certain dysfunctionalities or discrepancies between what people do to protect their jobs and defend their turf and what the organization claims to be about, may opt to embrace the business’ agenda and the values and principles espoused by the business. A communicator with strong senior sponsorship may be able to do so successfully—but without such sponsorship, seeking higher moral ground than one’s client occupies may be a career limiting move.

 

Putting Perspective into Perspective

 

 

Organizations are different, situations are different and cultures are different. But organizational communication and organizational life have enough common dynamics—across industries, disciplines and borders—to merit looking at where one stands in relationship to what may be happening around oneself, and about where one stands about how to proceed in a way that is effective. In some cases, using the perspective frameworks offered here will allow for quick recognition of one’s situation and help start the process of adapting to it. In others, this recognition will allow a communicator to challenge people coming from these perspectives and in so doing, fundamentally change the situation in a way that helps achieve success.

 

 

 

 

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