Less Chatter, More Matter: The Communications Podcast

#97 The inside scoop on internal communications (ft. Sia Papageorgiou)

• Season 1 • Episode 97

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In this episode, we interview Sia Papageorgiou, the managing partner of the Centre for Strategic Communication Excellence, to talk about the progress and ongoing challenges in the field of internal communication.

We also discuss a recent report by the Centre and Haiilo, which highlights the need for internal communication professionals to gain a strategic foothold and become more integrated into executive decision-making.

Sia shares her experiences, the importance of measurable objectives, professional development, and the potential of AI in transforming strategic communication. So, jump in this week to chat all things internal comms!

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There's no doubt that internal comms as a profession has come a long way over the past couple of decades. From being practically non existent in most organisations, through to now being considered an essential function, internal comms has risen through the ranks and is no longer considered the poor cousin of external comms, in most places at least. But a recent report from the Centre for Strategic Communication Excellence and HALO has found that while our confidence might have grown, there's still a long way to go, especially when it comes to having a seat at the executive decision making table. So in today's episode, I'm unpacking the report in more detail with its author, Sia Papageorgiou, to understand the key findings and what we can do to address them. Sia is the managing partner of the Centre for Strategic Communication Excellence and a multi award winner with national and international recognition. She is also a certified strategic communication management professional, a fellow of the Royal Society for Encouragement of Arts Manufacturers and Commerce, and past president of IABC Victoria. She is also a past board director at IABC Asia Pacific and past chair of the global communications. Certification Council. And honestly, that's just the highlights overall. What I love about Sia is her dogged focus on building the strategic mindset and skillset of communicators. So our profession becomes consistently valued by business leaders. We cover that topic in today's chat as we talk through some of the key findings of the Strategic Internal Comms Overcoming Challenges and Demonstrating Value report the CSCE undertook in partnership with HALO. And that report is linked in the show notes. I highly recommend you give it a read. And as you'll hear, there is so much all of us can learn from Sia. So let's get into it.

Mel:

Sia, welcome to the show.

Sia:

Thank you so much, Mel. Thanks for having me. It's great to be here.

Mel:

I'm very excited to have you on. I've been fangirling from afar for a while. Uh, but for those of our listeners who don't know you, can you tell us a little bit about who you are, what you do, and how you came to establish your expertise in that space?

Sia:

Sure. So I am a strategic communication consultant, trainer and coach. Uh, I've been working in communication for almost 30 years. I am the managing partner at the Centre for Strategic Communication Excellence. I am ferociously passionate about the value of strategic communication as a force for good in society. And I am on a mission. To elevate the value and visibility of communication professionals and help them become trusted strategic and in demand advisors, because I believe communication professionals have the best job in the world.

Mel:

Oh, I love it. Uh, and why is it the best job in the world?

Sia:

Because there is no other function in an organisation that has such an all access pass to the business. I think we're in a very privileged position. We have the ability to build relationships and network with everyone across the organisation. And as I said, I just don't think there is anyone else in such a privileged position. And I love what we do. We tell stories and we influence, we build understanding, we change behaviors. How many people can say they do that in their jobs?

Mel:

Yeah, I love it. And how did you get into communications in the first place?

Sia:

Well, I studied, uh, communication at university. I, uh, gained my bachelor's degree, uh, and then I started working in broadcast journalism. I did that for about six years and then I did what a lot of, um, uh, Aussies do - pack up and move to London. Yeah, I did that for a couple of years and I worked in public relations. Um, I really liked that. And then I came home. I found myself without a job, uh, and did some temp work at the Australian Taxation Office, uh, which I never thought I'd, I'd use those two things in the same sentence. But anyway, I worked there for, uh, well, only supposed to be for two weeks. I stayed 12 and a half years and I had a wonderful career in internal communication there and fell in love with internal comms.

Mel:

Awesome. And it's one of the things I've talked about a bit on this podcast before and on LinkedIn is the evolution of internal comms as its own specialisation. Like when I first started out, there was actually no such thing as internal comms. Really. Uh, it was a lot of ex journos, uh, coming in, doing media relations and that sort of stuff, but, um, it's really become such an integral part of most businesses and it's, uh, It's used to also, I think, be seen as a bit of the poor cousin of external comms, but even that has changed significantly. So thanks to people like you, trailblazing. So tell us a bit about, uh, the CSCE. How was it formed?

Sia:

What's the purpose of it? Sure. So the Centre for Strategic Communication Excellence, or the CSCE as we call it, was established 10 years ago. Um, and we're a global professional development and insights organisation. And our mission is really to build strategic communication excellence in individuals, in organisations, and the global community. So we're all about strategic communication and the value of strategic communication to not only organisations, to individuals who work in the organisations including leadership, But to society as a whole, and we do, we help people, um, in three ways. We teach strategic communication skills. So we run training programs all over the world, uh, helping, um, build those capabilities, uh, in individuals, in leaders, uh, and across the organisation. We are also a membership organisation, so we have a range of memberships for individual practitioners, for executives, and for communication teams, and we provide them with a global access to experts around the world, um, thought leaders and other experienced professionals. And we help communication professionals thrive in their role. So we provide insights, toolkits, um, other resources to help them grow and learn in their, in their, um, in their roles and become more strategic about what it is that they do.

Mel:

And I love that one of the things you offer is that certification, because in so many other professions, we see that certification is a part of what makes you credible as professional as well. How do you think that's going and getting that message across?

Sia:

Look, um, slowly but surely, uh, it is a little bit of an uphill battle sometimes because there's still very much a view of, well, what's the value of a certification? What's it going to do for me? I'm already really good at my job, but here's the thing, Mel, and I know that you think the same way. If we don't respect our profession, why should anybody else? And a certification signals to. Anybody who's not a communication professional, that what we do matters. That what we do is a serious, we're in a serious business. It's not just a matter of anybody can do communication. We are skilled in what we do. We are strategic about it. We are purposeful in our approach. We have a global body of knowledge. We have ethics. We have a strong purpose. That's what certification signals and so I'm a very passionate advocate of certification and um, as you know, we have recently teamed up with the Global Certification, Global Communication Certification Council, uh, which I'm the former chair, um, to provide exam prep training and resources to help communication professionals, um, gain their certification. So to any of your listeners who want or are interested in learning more about certification, please reach out. I'd love to help you get certified.

Mel:

And I can back that up. Sia's been wonderful help. And actually all the resources are there to really like, they're there to help you get your certification. It's really, really brilliant. So thank you for sharing that. Now, recently, uh, the CSCE teamed up with Halo to undertake some research into overcoming the challenges and demonstrating the value of strategic internal comms, which is really what I want to delve into in this conversation today. So how did this research topic come about?

Sia:

Um, well, I'm a bit of a natural born collaborator, uh, Mel, and I love to connect with like minded individuals and organisations. Um, and Halo actually, um, contacted me and, um, invited me to collaborate on a piece of research. And, given, you know, I am a bit of a research nerd and I live and breathe the W Edwards Deming quote that goes, "without data, you're just another person with an opinion." And so I love to do research. And I said, yeah, absolutely. Let's, let's collaborate on a piece of research. And they said to me, well, what topic do you think we should look into? And I said, Why don't we look into what's preventing internal communication professionals from being more strategic about what they do? And this is something that I, um, have a lot of conversations about in my training. Yeah,

Mel:

I agree. And, uh, it's definitely one of those things I'm still educating people on, on, you know, what's the difference between a strategy and a plan, for example, you know, that they're different things. So. What were some of the key positive highlights? Let's start with the good stuff that came out of that report.

Sia:

Well, um, so I can count the positives on one hand. Um, okay, let's start with confidence. So, so confidence in embracing a strategic approach to internal communication was high. And so, uh, I think it was just over 70 percent of respondents said they were either very or extremely confident in taking a strategic approach to their internal communication. Likewise, uh, their self assessment of their skill level, so their strategic internal communication skills, was also high. And two thirds of respondents said they had either excellent or very good skills. But here's my question. Why are we taking a strategic approach to our internal communication right from the beginning? Why do you have to have, you know, 10 years of experience between before you start to act strategic? This is the sort of things we should be teaching our, the next generation of communication professionals how to do right from the beginning. Um, now, it's good to be confident. That's a very, that's a good positive. And it's good to believe that you have the right skills. But clearly, that confidence and competence is not translating to results, given what we learned through the survey. So, you know, things around the barriers that, uh, that are preventing internal communication professionals from being strategic, um, you know, why aren't they demonstrating value? How do they get leadership buy in? So that, uh, that is obviously still a problem. The third sort of positive that I, I wanted to share was, um, are an understanding of the impact of strategic communication, internal communication on the, on the organisation. So there, there was, um, you know, some good insights around, uh, what, what's the value of strategic internal communication to the organisation? So things like, you know, contributing to a positive employee experience, um, contributing to key business outcomes, creating a culture of inclusion, um, trust and openness, that type of thing.

Mel:

Okay. So that's some good things, but I was reading through the report, obviously, before this interview, and it saddened me to read that only a small percentage of respondents said they felt their work in strategic internal comms was recognised and valued by top management. Why do you think this is still the case?

Sia:

Well, that was something that saddened me as well, I must admit. Um, and I think that's the case because we don't act like business people. We act like internal communication professionals. We act like comms people. Now, when it comes to leaders, I don't know about your experience, but I've never met a leader who doesn't understand the value of good communication. So in my view, every, any exec with a functioning brain knows that communication matters in an organisation. You are there to help the business succeed. So build your business acumen. You also need to demonstrate the value of what you do by measuring what matters. And it's not enough just to measure what matters. You also need to link that to a business benefit by quantifying that value. You know, how many internal communication professionals, when they are asked about the value of what they do, articulate it in business terms? We tend to focus on our activity. But I keep telling people, stop focusing on what you do, stop focusing on your communication activity, and start focusing on why you do what you do. Why are you there? Are you there to increase knowledge? Are you there to build understanding? Are you there to change perceptions? Are you there to change behaviours? That's the powerful stuff. That's the stuff that can help you then demonstrate a link back to the organisation's bottom line. And we don't do that enough. Um, you know, so articulating your, your value in those terms is really important. Um, and building relationships. We don't do enough relationship building. Communication is all around building relationships. You want to have influence? You need to build trust. Trust builds influence. Influence opens doors. So if you want the executive and other leaders and other business partners across the organisation to listen to what you're saying, saying, recommending, then you need to build trust with them.

Mel:

I love that. Yeah. So it's about understanding your contribution to the business goals. And I think that's a big thing. And business acumen is such a key skill that um, yeah, I think you're right people get wrapped up in the tactics and the engagement stats and all that sort of stuff, which is yeah, it has its place, but again, it doesn't demonstrate to the powers that be within a business that you've got a strategic mind that can help the business achieve its goals. And I think that's, it's such a huge thing. So I mean, that, that seems very, you know, it's a big needle to shift. Let's let's put it that way. Um, yeah.

Sia:

Through the survey, and you would have read this when you read the report. There seems to be a very limited view on what strategic internal communication actually is. So how, how are we acting strategically if we don't actually understand what it means to be strategic? Um, and so you would have read in the report that one of the things we asked people was to articulate in their own words what they thought strategic internal communication actually was. And it seems that the view is quite limited. There were, you know, around 30 percent of people who, who actually could articulate in, in their own words, what it means to be a strategic internal communication professional. So, uh, or rather what, what strategic internal communication was. Um, so if we don't actually understand it, how can we actually enact it in the organisation?

Mel:

Yeah. And, and absolutely right that relationships piece as well, you know, uh, even if you ever decide to go out on your own, like you and I have done, none of that's possible without having built really good relationships over the years. So it's not just about what, what it gets you in the short term, but what does that set you up for longterm as well as your own professional personal goals? Yeah. It's really hard to achieve that if you haven't built any relationships and maintain them and, and yeah. being able to demonstrate your value to people that they would recommend you and advocate for you within a business or external to the business as well. Um, what are some of the other challenges that the report highlighted and how do you think we should address them? So, for example, one of the things that came through is that most of the time is spent on tactical work, not strategic. Um, and very few are involved in decision making at that strategic level.

Sia:

Yeah, that was, um, that was a bit of an eye opener, that question around when our internal communication professionals engaged. And sadly, uh, you know, The results indicate that only nine, uh, 9 percent of internal communication professionals are engaged during the decision making process. So the majority are, you know, either engaged during the planning phase or during the development phase or right before implementation. So, you know, everybody's done all the important work. The rest of the business has done the important work and then they hand it over to communication and say, now it's your turn, go ahead and execute. Yeah, execute. So it's, it's, that was, um, that's an important eye opener. Um, the, the barriers, if you look at, you know, what people are struggling with the most, it's calculating ROI, it's measuring what matters, it's, uh, gaining, uh, leadership buy in, it's planning their measurement approach, all the things that we should be doing in order to become more strategic. And we tend to, you know, when we, when asked, well, what's preventing you from doing that? Time and resources. I'm going to be a little bit controversial here, Mel. I'm sorry, I don't buy that argument. I'm sorry. I have, I have myself many times been a team of one. I have always invested in building the right relationships. I have always started with a strategy. I have always gotten to work, finding out everything I can about the business and my audience. So, I'm the only person in comms is not an argument. You want to be strategic, you need to act it. Okay? You need to be disciplined and deliberate about your approach. So, you The calculating ROI one and the defining measurable objective, so it's all wrapped around measurement. So if you don't know how to measure, go out and find, get skilled, attend a course. You know, there is a ton of information out there that can help you become more strategic.

Mel:

Google it. It's actually, as I say, like, even learning itself doesn't have to be a formal paid thing. There's podcast episodes, there's books, there's online articles. There's so many people who you could just tap on the shoulder and have a chat to. And, I think part of it, as you say, is I don't know how to measure, but also people who are measuring, how do they then present that up to the C suite and show them the measures that make sense for them that actually influence them and actually demonstrate your value. So just putting up, you know, that 60 people read this intranet post, who cares? It didn't, how does that align with a business goal? So it's taking it that next step too, I think, and actually, okay, then what do you do with that measurement? A, to improve your own practices, but B, to influence the powers that be.

Sia:

Yes. And so what most people do is when they ask to, you know, share their results, provide senior leaders and other business partners with a, with a report card of their activity. So it's a laundry list of everything they've ever done. Instead of a dashboard of results. You know, senior leaders want results. What does that mean to the audience? What does that mean to the human receivers of your communication? Now, our employees, our leaders and by extension, you know, any other business partners and stakeholders that have a stake in that communication. That's the value of what you do. That's what you need to focus on. And then, as I said before, taking that a step further and saying, well, that work has then meant I saved the organisation this much time. I saved the organisation this much money, or I did this, whatever the case may be. That's the part that we're not getting right. Uh, and then complain that leaders don't value what we do. Well, I'm not surprised they don't value what you do. It's not focusing on the right things.

Mel:

That's it. What's the impact? Yeah. Not just what's the output. And that's a massive distinction. Were there any other sort of key takeaways for you in terms of the things that we could be really focusing on if we're going to keep evolving our profession and getting it to a more valued point?

Sia:

Um, look, look, most of the stuff we've already talked about. Um, I think we just need to be a little bit more disciplined about doing things like strategic planning, um, you know, strategic planning, strategic thinking around your internal communication. It's not a nice to have. It's absolutely essential. And here's the, here's, you know, the, the secret. It's going to save you time later. We tend to think, Oh, well, I don't have time to do that or measurement. If you are acting strategically, you are planning your measures upfront. So before you've communicated, you understand how you're going to measure your progress. But the problem is because we're so tactically focused and we go straight into solution mode when we're presented with a problem, we don't take stock of, you know, what it is that we could actually be doing here. And what's our objective here? What is, what is success look like from an internal communication perspective?

Mel:

Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah, exactly. Right. And I think too, you know, this all, as you say, ties into demonstrating your value as well. You know, then we go through a restructure and who's head is first on the chopping block and... you know, if you can't demonstrate that you can add value to an organisation, if they just see you as a nice to have, because you're pushing out pretty posts and doing that sort of stuff, well, of course you're not going to be, you know, low down the list, so to speak. So it's, you know, it's self preservation if nothing else.

Sia:

It is. And I think there are a lot of things and there's a... a couple of key recommendations, uh, I made in the report around doing things like focusing on your professional development. You have to be relentless about your professional development. The best communication professionals focus on continuous development. Nobody knows everything. We have to up our knowledge about the organisation, about its stakeholders, about its external operations. Just because you work internally doesn't mean that you can't build your business acumen about what happens outside the organisation, about your key stakeholders about your employees, about leaders in the organisation - about your own skill set! Things are changing; look at you know, artificial intelligence the way we're using artificial intelligence right now, which is another area we looked into in the report and there are a ton of other reports globally that are doing the same.

Mel:

Absolutely. And again, we come back to the sort of, you know, that list of tactics, you know, I put out six media releases or whatever did. Okay. So did that lead to an increase in sales or inquiries or something? So go that next step and figure out what the benefit was for the business of doing that activity. Not just, you know, you ticked a KPI box basically. Just on AI as you're saying that, um, Okay. I did notice in the report that about two thirds of respondents said they are using AI tools, which is really awesome, but I do notice it's mostly at the moment, and this could be a limitation of AI at the moment, they're mostly using it for content creation and automation. But what role do you think AI could play in strategic comms moving forward? I mean, it's a bit of a blue sky right now, but.

Sia:

Absolutely. It's a bit of a, let's see what happens because this is going to change. I'd be really interested to see how this changes over time. And as I said earlier, there are a ton of research reports and I know that USC Annenberg recently conducted a piece of research around communication and artificial intelligence. And there was actually a similar result. I was, I think it was exactly the same, 60%. Of communication professionals said they were using AI in some way, shape or form, um, which is great. Um, but what the data tells us is there is a lot of untapped potential, uh, when it comes to using AI to support, uh, internal communication professionals to become more strategic. So things like enhancing our data analysis, um, gaining deeper audience insights, helping us to segment our audiences. Optimising our communication strategies, helping us create frameworks for measurement, helping us define our, our objectives.. Um, look, there's a ton of things you can, you can use AI for. I mean, that's just a great start, but you know. It is a good tool to, to, you know, jog the, the, the creative juices and, and get you, get you running in that direction. But we need to be using it too, to help us create more strategic internal communication. And I think that's the key. Particularly for those people who, um, you know, may not have access to formal professional development and, or don't have a professional development budget, play around on AI. Ask it to help you define your, some measurable objectives for your next campaign and see what it comes out with. Um, you know, it can help you get into that strategic frame of thinking and give you a, a model and a framework for future communication strategies.

Mel:

Yeah, I love that. I mean, for me personally, I'm finding a lot of value in, as you say, getting those creative juices flowing. You know, if it's just, you know, I need to ask, I need to do a bunch of FAQs for this particular project. What are some of the things that leaders are likely to ask? That's not perfect, but it's a great start. Just, you know, especially if I'm just feeling a bit braindead at the end of, you know, the project. A lot of meetings, a long day, and there's just not a lot going on upstairs anymore. It does just help get that, those juices flowing. And I think for me personally too, the benefit has been because you can use AI to do a lot more of that tedious stuff. You spend less time on the tedious stuff. It frees up the time to spend on the thinking and the meeting with people and doing all those things. So I think there's so much in it. Like you, I'm excited to see. Um, what's going to happen because it's changing so quickly and it's never going to be this slow or this dumb again, so Lord knows where it's going to head next, but it could be scary. It could be great. It could be both. Yeah. One last question on this before, uh, I ask the, uh, the more interesting questions about you, but, uh, what do you think the next steps are for this research?

Sia:

Well, the next part of this is I want to talk to the organisation's leadership. So, looking, you know, we've talked to internal communication professionals around, uh, demonstrating value, what's preventing them from becoming more strategic and taking a strategic approach to their work. I want to talk to the organisation's business leaders and find out their views on the value of internal communication and their internal communication teams, um, so that will be probably a focus for next year.

Mel:

Yeah, perfect. Well, I'm excited to see the outcome of that. All right, so yeah, I'm going to ask you three questions I ask every guest on the podcast. Are you ready for those?

Sia:

Yep.

Mel:

So hit me. Let's go What's one of the best communication lessons you've ever learned and how did it change the way you approach communication?

Sia:

Okay, so At the start of my senior leadership journey, um, I was working in an organisation. I had a seat at the executive table, which I was very happy about, but I hadn't quite found my voice. Um, so, um, and I was, happened to find myself in a, in an executive meeting. I was sitting around the board, uh, table with the, uh, executive head and the other execs, and the executive head asked me a question. He asked me for my opinion, um, on, uh, a matter as it applied to communication. And while I knew the answer. I wasn't confident enough to articulate it in that moment because I was so focused on self preservation. What if I sound silly? What if they say no? What if they laugh at me? What if my, um, you know, there were a whole bunch of what ifs. Anyway, so I hadn't found my voice. And in that moment, in front of everybody, probably around, I don't know, 10, 12 people around the room, he said, I thought you could think on your feet, Sia. And in that moment, it was a good lesson. In that moment, I wanted the earth to open and swallow me whole. I bet. But from that day on, Mel, I vowed never to walk into a meeting without the confidence to articulate, uh, the reason I was there and, and my opinions, because it's really up to us to build that confidence and be confident in our role at the decision making table. And I was, you know, I should have reminded myself I was there for a reason. I was there for, because they trusted me. I knew I was good at my job. I knew how to be strategic. Uh, and I didn't believe in myself in that moment. So that was a huge lesson for me.

Mel:

Yeah, that's a very valuable lesson. Thank you for sharing that. What's one thing you wish people would do more of or less of when communicating?

Sia:

One thing I wish people would do more of when communicating is listening. I don't think we listen well. Um, we tend to make a lot of assumptions or jump to conclusions about what somebody needs or expects when it comes to communication. So, Particularly internally, uh, you know, one of our stakeholders might come to us with a problem and instead of asking them some questions, being a little bit more curious and finding out all we can about this particular issue, we tend to go into solution mode and already before they've even got the sentence out of their mouth, we think we know how to fix the problem through our communication activity. So it goes back to what I was saying earlier, stop focusing on your activity and start focusing on why you do what you do and who you do it for.

Mel:

Yeah. Love it. Audience Centreed communication is like my thing. Now, final question, who do you turn to for communication advice?

Sia:

I mean, there's not one individual, but it's a group of individuals, so That's about me building a really diverse network. So I have trusted advisors. I have colleagues. I have mentors who challenged my thinking, who, um, helped me see things from a different perspective. Um, that includes people on our global faculty, um, uh, our collaborators, my business partner, even my mother, who is the queen of, uh, Greek Proverbs and other wise sayings. So she's always a great, uh, great inspiration. Um, but you know, there's a great, we have such great peers and there's, we've got such a great community of communication professionals. Um, and I host a forum once a month, it's called the Spark Forum. Um, and it's just a great opportunity to be really curious and listen to one another. So there's a ton of people I turn to, uh, for communication advice.

Mel:

I love that. Yeah. And I. I believe for me personally, it's very similar. It's not one person that I'll, you know, there's a group of people and everybody has their own specialties too, right? And their own experiences and their own backgrounds that you can draw on at different times too. So thank you for sharing that. Now, Sia, it has been an absolute pleasure having you on Less Chatter, More Matter today. If people want to find out more about you, get in touch with you, what's the best way to do that?

Sia:

Uh, probably LinkedIn. LinkedIn is probably the best, and I'm open to connecting with everyone on LinkedIn. So if you send me a connection request, I will always accept it.

Mel:

Oh, lovely. We'll put the link in the show notes. We'll also put the link to the report in there so people can read that for themselves. And again, thank you so much for being on the show.

Sia:

Thank you so much, Mel. It's been great talking to you.