Effective business communication in organisations 4th Edition

This cartoon made me smile – and grimace – because it shows how much IC has changed. The role of internal communications once was simply pushing a message top-down through an organization – and assuming it had been understood, no matter who (or what type) leader was sending it. Today, the leader – ranging from senior management to team managers – is responsible for ensuring they have effectively communicated to either their entire workforce, business unit or team. Poorly communicated information hinders employee engagement. It’s almost worse than not communicating at all!

To prevent any barriers in effective communications, Internal Communicators must now ensure structures are in place that enable consistency of the message sent to a distributed workforce spanning business units, skill levels, languages, regions and cultures. The modern IC professional enables and empowers organisational leaders to communicate effectively – whether it’s good or bad news.

Here are seven essential elements that Internal Communicatons professionals need to review as part of fostering effective leader internal communications.

1. Have a clear vision, strategy and goalsThis almost goes without saying, but let’s say it. If you can’t explain your own internal communications strategy simply and effectively to others – you are part of the problem. You need to be able to communicate with and engage your lead communicators so they in turn have a clear understanding of the company direction and goals and can effectively communicate it to others in the organisation.