There has been a lot written this month about internal communications on this very blog.
Some of it written by my team and others by guest bloggers who specialize in the topic.
We’ve read everything from how we communicate very first thing each morning with a daily email from Clay Morgan to how engaged my team is (yay!) with one another and their work.
We’ve talked about the tools we use to stay connected with one another and how Laura Petrolino conjures up some fake scenario every time I ask if she has a couple of minutes to Skype (which makes me want to make her wait as long as possible before calling her).
What we haven’t talked much about is how important transparency is in internal communications.
I come from a very traditional background.
At a large agency, revealing financials or explaining how your billable hours help build an organization or being honest about the dire straights are not discussed.
It seems silly that a global communications firm wasn’t very good at internal communications, but that seems to be the norm (shoemaker’s children and all).
About five years into the growth of Arment Dietrich, an advisor asked me if I share where we are against goals with the rest of my team.
I was appalled. Why would I do that?
From my perspective, it wasn’t something you shared. I was the owner and it was my responsibility, alone.
And then the economy tanked and we lost more than half of our clients in less than a month.
When I called an all-hands on deck meeting to explain what had happened—and I was brutally honest—people came up to me afterwards and thanked me for laying it all out there.
I remember thinking, “But it’s so bad and it’s my job to protect you!”
As it turns out, it’s not my job to protect the adults who work here from the ugly truth.
The best part about it, though?
They all pulled together and were a huge support to me.
Less than a week later, one of our junior professionals had pulled together an expense-reducing committee and came to me with a list of things they could do without.
On that list were some pretty serious perks: Free breakfast every morning, El passes, weekly lunches, and free booze on Fridays.
They were willing to part with some of the things I never imagined they’d want to do without.
So we cut those things…and a lot of other wasteful things (we even stopped printing things to save money on paper and toner ink, not to mention what it did to reduce our carbon footprint).
In the end, we still had to lay off more than half of the staff, but they felt like they were all involved in the decision versus waking up one day and being surprised.
It changed the way I approach internal communications. It also changed the way I think about having conflict conversations.
Today I don’t believe in waiting for annual reviews to provide feedback. I believe in constant feedback that helps a person grow.
I know I’ve told this story before, but as a young professional, one of the things that was on my review every year was “needs to be more strategic.”
But NO ONE took the time to explain to me what that meant or to teach me how to do it.
And yet it was on every review until I moved to Chicago to work for the ad agency.
What I’ve learned, of course, is strategy comes with experience. Playing chess or Scrabble also helps, which I tend to suggest to our young professionals when they need to work on strategy.
Because of that experience, I make a concerted effort to always let people know where they stand…the good, the bad, and the ugly…and provide tips, tools, and resources to help them move to the next level.
Here is how I handle internal communications to be sure they are transparent:
While I spend about 10 hours of every week in meetings (and sometimes want to cry UNCLE!), this structure has created internal communications that are open, honest, collaborative, and transparent…even on those days when I have to say, “Listen to hear, not to respond.”
Gini Dietrich is the founder, CEO, and author of Spin Sucks, host of the Spin Sucks podcast, and author of Spin Sucks (the book). She is the creator of the PESO Model and has crafted a certification for it in partnership with Syracuse University. She has run and grown an agency for the past 15 years. She is co-author of Marketing in the Round, co-host of Inside PR, and co-host of The Agency Leadership podcast.