How has internal communication developed in your country in recent years?

 

According to Alvin Toffler, men don’t live in one single specific year but in many years at a time. For instance, today we’re living in 2017 but if we hop on a plane and visit a tribe lost in the middle of the Amazon rainforest, we may find out that they’re living in the 3rd century because of their lifestyle, food, architecture, the way they combat diseases, their science development or social organization.  Also, if we visit a campus in Silicon Valley we might feel that the people in that community are living ahead of our time, as if they were in 2030.

​

"All employees and leaders are internal communicators".

 

I believe that internal communication is also experiencing this coexistence of eras and that there isn’t a pure situation or a linear or homogeneous evolution.  And I’m not only talking about Argentina. Through our agency, I’ve had the chance to work with over 250 clients in 16 countries of Iberian America and there’s a coexistence of internal communication eras everywhere, which I classify as follows: 

​

1. The Dark Era: Companies which don’t know what internal communication is and which are not interested in it. Typical phrase: “We’ve come to be a great company without ever taking care of internal communication, so it can’t be that important”. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

2. The Awakening Era: Companies which don’t know exactly what it is but which believe that they should start taking care of it. Typical phrase: “I don’t know exactly what it is; however, I increasingly hear people talking about it and I’m interested in it”. mmmmmmmmmmm mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

3. The Fog Era: Companies which consider that internal communication is something like an internal communication agency and that its purpose is just to produce media and to send information. Typical phrase: “We make internal communication because we have an Internal Social Network". mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

4. The Enlightenment Era: Companies which understand that there’s more to internal communication than just making media and that it is actually an activity which involves all the organization.   Typical phrase: “Good media don’t guarantee good internal communication. In addition, internal communication is not owned by the IC department”.

 

Interestingly, these eras are intertwined even within organizations. Many times, when we drill a client’s ground we come across different geological layers which are not well squeezed together and as a result, they cause earthquakes. The leaders who live in the Dark Era usually start epic battles against the other departments of the organization.

​

What do you currently see as the greatest challenges for internal communication in your world?

​

The biggest challenge is how to explain that although a company may have an Internal Communication Director, all employees and leaders are internal communicators.

​

I think that the internal communication department should not have the only purpose of producing messages or making media, as if it were an internal news agency, but it should also take care of coordinating, training, advising and guiding all the members in the organization to be the main internal communicators. 

​

"I think that the internal communication department should not have

the only purpose of producing messages or making media, as if it were an internal news agency, but it should also take care of coordinating, training, advising and guiding all the members in the organization

to be the main internal communicators".

​

I call this Co-created Internal Communication and in fact, some years ago, I wrote the first book in Spanish on the subject ( English version here). In the book I already said that we were entering an era of shared and co-created internal communication which enriched the dynamics of conversations in a company.  

​

To sum up: The historical role of an internal communicator has always been to give messages, and today it is complemented by another role: to help other people become message givers. That is to say, we’re changing from being a mere fuel to also being a lubricant.

​

It’s a big challenge because the image you generally have from a communicator is someone who gives messages, who talks, who writes, who manages media. On the other hand, I always suggest to my clients that we should design internal communication departments where the main role is to facilitate the dialogues that already exist in the company, to reinforce the most relevant messages, to define policies, and empower people to manage their own internal communication.  

​

"The historical role of an internal communicator has always been

to give messages, and today it is complemented by another role: 

to help other people become message givers.

That is to say, we’re changing

from being a mere fuel to also being a lubricant".

​

 

What do you see as the biggest opportunities for internal communication to make a difference in the next year or two?

 

I believe that we have the chance to forever hack what it means to do internal communication and thus broaden our scope so as to become increasingly relevant. 

​

In my view, we can do that if we show the companies a very obvious thing:  that most of the messages given to their employees through classic communication media (house-organs, bulletin boards, Internal Social Networks, etc) may be delivered through other media or channels which have greater impact.