Board Briefing: Purposeful internal communications
Becoming a highly-effective agency requires well-designed internal communications to achieve alignment.
Many agencies leave it to chance that the right information will be shared, but the most effective are very purposeful in what, how and when they communicate.
Objectives
In this session the board will review how the agency communicates at three key levels with its staff and other contributors in order to achieve alignment.
They will then identify areas to explore improvements.
Pre-reading
Because the agency business model is more about people and their actions than any other kind of business, it is even more important to ensure alignment.
When everyone within the agency (whether staff or other contributors such as freelancers) is aligned it allows the agency to build momentum. The business runs smoothly at a highly-effective and sustainable pace.
If there is any mis-alignment it leads to friction, frustration, demotivation, sluggishness, resistance and other issues. The agency becomes clogged up by mistakes, disputes, confusion and wasted time — and loses momentum.
Therefore it is vital that the executive leadership team focus a lot of thought, time and energy on putting in place a carefully designed programme of purposeful internal communication.
There are three levels that internal communications needs to happen at:
- Anchoring
- Briefing
- Connecting