Less Chatter, More Matter: The Communications Podcast

#121 How to navigate misalignment with stakeholders as a comms pro

• Season 1 • Episode 121

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In this episode of the Less Chatter, More Matter podcast, we dive into one of the trickiest parts of being a communicator: managing challenging relationships with stakeholders who just don’t get it. 

Whether it's clashing with HR, navigating gatekeeping internal comms teams, dealing with leaders who think they know best, or trying to manage change in a project where everyone expects comms to do all the heavy lifting—we address it all, and we share all the practical, tried-and-tested techniques to help you shift from frustration to influence.

Tune in if you're tired of battling egos, getting overlooked, or being undervalued as a comms pro, this episode is packed with strategies that will help you reframe the conversation and earn your seat at the table.

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We all know that working with others is rarely all rainbows and lollipops, especially when people are feeling a bit under pressure and nothing creates more pressure than change, especially when that change isn't going to according to plant or when people have competing agendas or simply don't see the value in the work of others. And other times the issue is somewhat ironically, communication that's causing the issue with communicators. So if you are in a situation where you are trying to be the best communicator you can be, but you're really struggling to influence others or get them to see your value, what can you do? That's what today's episode is all about. Hi friend, and welcome back to another fresh episode of Less Chatter, More Matter, the communications podcast. I'm your host, Mel Loy, and I'm recording this on the lands of the Yuggera and Turrbal people here in Meanjin,, also known as Brisbane. And today's episode is a bit of a hot topic because I know many of us have been in situations where it feels like our work would be much easier if it weren't, for people. Here's a few common scenarios that I've experienced myself or I've seen play out. Firstly, Internal comms versus HR. So maybe you're an internal comms specialist who is going head to head with HR. Been there, done that. I mean no disrespect. I've worked with some exceptional HR people, but I've also worked with others who treat communications professionals very poorly, much like a master servant relationship. And you end up doing a lot of fluffy work that's not strategic or meaningful, or having the comms that you've created completely ripped to shreds without HR understanding why you've made the decisions you have when you've created your work. It's especially bad when internal comms is put into a HR function where there's a HR lead who just doesn't get comms; and that's instead of you working with external comms and directly with the CEO, but that's a rant for another day. I won't go down that rabbit hole today. Then there's the project comms specialists versus the internal comms team. You both have objectives to meet, but it can feel like the internal comms team are being overly stringent gatekeepers on group wide channels, or that the project communication specialists don't understand that their project is not relevant to everyone. Then there's communicators versus leaders. Not all leaders. I'm talking about the ones who take advice from nobody; who think anyone can do comms and who take communication into their own hands at their own detriment. And finally, there's the project comms specialist versus the rest of the project team. And sometimes the broader project stakeholders, especially on change projects, there seems to be this idea that comms is the most important or the only lever you can pull to drive change. There's a real lack of understanding of all the other elements that drive change, such as leadership, super important, stakeholder engagement, et cetera, and they just want you to be pumping out emails and PowerPoint packs without taking any responsibility for the other elements, which are often more powerful and effective. Or the project stakeholders, like the sponsor, the subject matter expert, work stream leads, whoever - are not aligned on what they need to achieve and or how to get there. One more I will mention, I know I said finally for the last one, but it just reminded me of one other potential little piece of conflict that we often find is comms versus legal and risk. Especially in a crisis situation. Where, you know they're doing their jobs, they want to make sure that whatever we write and put out there isn't going to, uh, put the organisation at any further risk, but that's often at the expense of clarity and simplicity of the message. Now if any of these resonated with you, fear not dear listener, for you are not alone, and there are definitely ways that you can address these issues effectively. It doesn't have to all end in drama. So today I'm going to share some of those techniques with you that you can try. It's not a one size fits all solution, but techniques you can experiment with and see what works, what doesn't. The final technique I'll mention today is the most important of all. So make sure you stay tuned for that. All right. The first one of four is the co-creation workshop. Now, this technique is especially helpful for situations where the project comms team and the group internal comms team are not seeing eye to eye. If you've ever been on a change project and struggled to get your messages out through group wide channels, this one is for you. I've been on both sides here as both the project comms specialist and the internal comms manager. From the internal comms perspective, we are constantly bombarded with requests for content to go in the CEO's email or on the intranet in the next town hall, et cetera, et cetera. You do need to keep strict governance on these group wide channels because otherwise it's just chaos and they become a catchall for everything. They basically, they lose their purpose, and when that happens, you lose your audience's attention. Also, sorry, project people, but sometimes your project just isn't as important as you think it is and isn't relevant to the whole business. Remember that employees are being bombarded with comms all the time, so unless it's actually relevant, it's not necessary to share. If you are trying to get a message out to a group wide channel, just prove your project is doing something that's not good enough. On the flip side, sometimes as a project comm specialist, you know your message needs to get out to the whole organisation, especially if it is a group wide change. These can be great stories that demonstrate the organisation is achieving its strategic goals, or maybe people need to get ready to take action, but you can be frustrated by the overly complex internal comms request processes, poor response times, or even no response in some cases, just basically constantly being told no. And then underlying a lot of this often is ego. Neither side wants to feel like the other is telling them to suck eggs or to feel like the other person doesn't value their knowledge and skills. So this is where the co-design workshop can help. This kind of workshop is best at the very start of the project, but there's nothing to say. You can't hold one throughout of various checkpoints throughout the project, and it's where you get all the comms people together in one room. So internal comms and the project comms people, and you co-design the project strategy. It's a really great way to make sure everyone feels like they've contributed their opinions and their expertise that they've been heard, and it's a really good way also to start building a really good cooperative relationship. So how do you design this workshop? Well, as the co project comms person, I would start with developing a one to two page maximum briefing document for the internal comms team, and that would provide an overview of the change that's coming, the why behind the change, the key audiences impacts key dates, et cetera. I would also show your early thinking on the strategic approach and tactics, but label this as to discuss. Send this document before the workshop so the internal comms team has time to read through it and digest it. For some internal comms teams, especially those who are super short staffed, this document actually might be enough for them. They might just want to feel comfort that you've thought this through, and they might just respond with some suggestions, or you could request just a brief call, introduce yourself, ask about the channels they have, how to use them, et cetera. For others, they will welcome that opportunity to have eyes on the comms. So in this workshop, start with what you need to achieve together. It's probably things like understanding the purpose of each group wide channel, when and how the project can use those channels, and also importantly, what measurement is available. You can get intel from the internal comms team, especially if you're new to the organisation or a contractor. This is vital. So you can find out much more about your audiences, what this team has seen work or what hasn't worked, the culture of the change in the organisation, all those good things. Start to map out the plan together, explain what you need to achieve and when. Your early ideas and test them out, and importantly, ask how they want to work together moving forward. Do they want regular check-ins or are they just happy for you to give them a heads up when stuff is coming down the pipeline? This kind of approach is not only great for informing your comm strategy, but building a really trusted partnership that's going to be so helpful moving forward. All right, technique number two, working together to get clarity. This technique is useful for situations where the project comms specialist is having challenges with the rest of the project team. I've experienced this myself. It's not that the relationship is toxic or anything, it's just that the project team, like the project manager, the program owner, or other work stream leads, think that comms is the most important and the only driver of change other than some training when it's ready. But there's a lot of challenges with change project comms. Firstly, If the project isn't clear on what they're doing and why, then it's really hard to create messaging that positions the change for different audiences. Secondly, if there's no project plan, there's no point doing a change Comms plan, a good comms plan relies on a good project plan and a good change plan. We need to know who is impacted, what that impact looks like, when those impacts will happen, and so on. If we don't have that information, then we can't communicate effectively. In those instances, project teams are just expecting to broadcast information. When there's often no information to broadcast or it's not tailored to different audience segments, so it's just white noise. Thirdly, if decisions on the project keep changing, then we're not going to communicate because it's too risky. Unfortunately, I've been in positions where the project has been heading in one direction or a decision has been made. We've communicated about it only for that to be reversed or altered completely, and then you have to do a follow up comms to explain, and if that keeps happening, you erode trust in the project. And finally, instead of doing their jobs and engaging with their stakeholders, project work stream leads, or the sponsor or other key people, expect you to just keep on sending out emails or get stuff on the internet. Again, there is nothing effective in a communication that is designed for one size fits all. These people, should be getting out there and talking to their stakeholders, engaging with them, listening to their concerns and potential roadblocks, and making the change meaningful for them. In particular, it's the old WIIFM effect. What's in it for me? So in these situations, what can you do? One thing I found really useful recently is to work together as a project team on developing a workshop for key leaders to give them a deep dive into the change, what it means for them and their role to play. Now, why does this work? Because when you start to plan out this workshop, you have to meet regularly with this team, sometimes daily to map out the structure, the content practice, give advice on how best to present ideas and so on. And when this is happening, you begin to build your reputation as a trusted advisor. And importantly, it forces. All the work stream leads to get really clear on their work because it's going to be presented to others and it is going to be interrogated. So through this process, you also get clarity on the change, which helps you design your change comm strategy. It's also a great way to reiterate to everybody that comms is not the only lever you can pull. You could create the greatest key messages in the history of key messages, but if those leaders aren't out there leading the change, making it meaningful for their teams and providing feedback, and if the work stream leads aren't engaging with their stakeholders and doing the same. Then your key messages are pointless. The bonus of this, of course, is that people participating in the workshop will now have a deep understanding of the change, and you'll have tons of content you can repurpose. So that's technique number three. Design a workshop about the change for key leaders that all of you can work on. Technique number three is focusing on the common goal. This technique is useful for those of you working with a HR function that doesn't value your expertise or leaders who aren't taking your advice. It's about bringing alignment to what you need to achieve and how you will get there. Everything we do as professional communicators, whether in-house or agency roles should start with business goals. Our role is to help the business achieve its strategic objectives by using effective communication strategies, knowledge and skills. It is not to drive awareness of fluffy wellbeing tactics, like a wellness campaign with no measurable impacts. If you're also stuck in a position where you report to HR and that particular HR person has no comms experience and they're reviewing your work, this technique can help too. So how do we do it? Firstly, it's about having those business goals, conversations from day one, user a conversation and visuals to help other people or teams understand how your work links back to organisational strategy, and therefore, how your work as a communicator helps to support that. Then it's about reminding your stakeholders of those business goals every single time you need to communicate. When you do this, you demonstrate that you are more than a copywriter or a PowerPoint designer, and if you're at a point where you're arguing with somebody around why you've decided a certain strategy is going to be more effective, then take the conversation back to those common goals. It could be like by using phrases like, I think we both both want to achieve the same thing here, which is X, Y, Z. Would you agree? I want to help you achieve that business goal, which is why I've used these things and from research or from my experience in similar situations, I know this is more likely to work. You could even use it as a bit of a trial, like if they're really resistant to say, look, let's just try this with a small subset of the audience and see what happens. Sometimes it's also just a gentle reminder about your audience that does the trick, especially when someone is saying you should add more words or jargon to an email, or that you should just put something on the intranet. That's when the conversation can be along the lines of something like this. Let's put our employee hat on for a second. If I gave you two emails to read, one short and clear, one long, and with extra jargon, which one do you think you'd be more likely to read and remember? I've used this technique a few times myself. So for example, a few years ago when working on a crisis comms with a client, they wanted to hold back on telling staff, but a journalist had already been tipped off that this crisis was happening in the business. The people in that room were so risk averse that they were going to wait and see what, if anything, the journalist published. I just asked the people in the room who were from legal and HR mostly. To put their audience hats on, and I asked them, if you were a team member, would you rather hear something, anything at all today from your CEO about the issue? Or would you rather read about it for the first time in the newspaper tomorrow? And they all agreed, they'd rather hear from the CEO first, thankfully, which then turned the conversation and our tactics completely. Another technique in these conversations is to focus on the other person's goals, not your work. So for example, say something like, I want to get the best result for your message. And we know that these techniques work best because of the research. Part of this is also staying curious, so if people are pushing back, there may well be a reason for it. You aren't a mind reader and neither are they. So ask questions to seek to understand before realigning to common goals. Also, consider these conversations as opportunities to educate your colleagues too. They are teachable moments. Remember, they're not comms professionals. You are. So it can be a great opportunity to build more communication capability in the organisation. Okay, the fourth and final technique is demonstrating value through measurement. This technique is the most important and applies to all situations. And it's called building trust in you as the strategic comms professional. When people know, like, and trust you, you will have a much easier time of getting your work valued and your voice listened to. Of course building trust doesn't happen automatically, and it certainly doesn't come hand in hand with a role title. But as a comms pro, these are the ways that you can build trust. Number one, measure your impact, not tactics. So this means showing how your work is helping to achieve project and business goals. It doesn't mean counting how many emails you've sent out or email open rates. Measuring impact shows the evidence that backs up your work. Speaking of which, number two is your on evidence. A great communicator is a lifelong learner who stays on top of trends and research in the sector and uses it to inform their work. Be prepared to use that evidence to explain to others why you've done what you've done. Number three, listen to understand, not to respond In all relationships, it can be an easy but poor habit to just jump in and respond to something or jump straight to solutions without actually listening. But when we listen to understand, we get clearer on the other person's point of view, which helps us understand why they want something done in a particular way. And when you do this paraphrase and repeat it back to them to make sure you've understood correctly, and so they feel heard. Then you can either accept their choice or say, I hear you and I think I'd still like to go with this option. And this is why. The fourth part of this is keeping your commitments be reliable. Show up when you say you will, complete your work in time with deadlines. Do the things that you say you're going to do. There is such a thing as the say, do gap where what we do is different to what we say. And the wider that gap, the more obvious it is and the more people start to distrust you and discount you as professional communicator. And the fifth part of this is push back respectfully. If you are a complete pushover and always accept what others say or just wait for something to be handed to you, you'll always be considered ineffective. There will be times and places where you need to push back, but do it respectfully. That's what's important. And when you do these things, you'll build a reputation where people respect your expertise, your skills and experience, and therefore respect your ways of working. Okay, it is time for your episode recap. So today I shared four techniques that you can try in order to help work with perhaps tricky coworkers, whether it's in a project or further out in the business. And technique number one was the co-creation workshop. So if you are on a project, particularly a change project. Get the internal comms team involved to co-create the comms strategy means they've got skin in the game, they felt heard, and you'll start to build a really good relationship. Technique number two was working together to get clarity. So this is where I suggested using a workshop for leaders around the change project, where the whole project team has to work together to develop the content for that. The great part is everybody has to be clear on what they're presenting and how they're doing that. But it also helps you to build a relationship with that team and to help reinforce the fact that comms is just one lever in change. Technique number three is focusing on the common goal, whether that's a business goal, a project goal, whatever it might be, but bringing the conversation back to that common goal and reminding people that that's what we're here to achieve. Remember that sometimes the common goal is actually doing what's best for the employees or best for your audience. And that can be a good way to nudge people. But stay curious if people are pushing back question why? Because there may be a good reason for it. And technique number four is about demonstrating your value and measuring your impact. This is how we build trust by measuring impact, not tactics, using evidence, staying on top of trends, listening to understand, not to respond, keeping your commitments and pushing back respectfully where required. All right, team Well, I hope you found some of those techniques useful, and please do let me know if you are going to try some of those or if you've got other techniques that you've found have worked really well as well. I'd love to hear about them. In the meantime, keep doing amazing things and bye for now.