The comms blog

Aligning communication with overall direction

2020, as we are all painfully aware, is a year like no other. Many business strategies and plans written in January have long since been abandoned or postponed. The ongoing uncertainty of where we are headed means many organisations are re-evaluating what they can realistically achieve in the short-term and what might need to change … Read more

Guest post: Communication is the real work of leadership

My guest this month, leadership comms manager Shalini Gupta, shares her top tips for being our leaders’ trusted partners and supporting them to communicate well. She also describes us as unofficial ‘key workers’. Wouldn’t it be easy if our leaders could just push a button and say the right thing in the right tone and … Read more

10 quick and practical tips for communication that works

For this week’s blog I asked on my Twitter and LinkedIn pages for practical tips for communicators in a hurry. The results cover a wide range of areas, from planning and strategy to intranet and message suggestions. I particularly like the ideas in relation to sign-off, an area that can easily slow us down as … Read more

Guest post: Building a communication strategy

This month I’m really pleased to be able to share with you a guest blog from Jesse Appiah, a business support intern for Holy Brook Associates (HBA), a bookkeeping, financial services and business support company. He has written this post detailing his experience of using the Browning York communication strategy template. To be honest, before … Read more

How to frame messages that work

Sometimes it seems as though messages are the part of communication that gets forgotten. There is often much focus on format – whether to use video or text, how to make an Insta-ready image, the best time of day to send the e-newsletter etc. But I rarely hear as much deliberation about the actual messages. … Read more

Guest post: Join up internally – one team, one mission

This month I am delighted to welcome Adeela Warley, CEO of CharityComms, as my guest blogger. She shares her thoughts on charities that are responding to the global pandemic by communicating and collaborating internally in new ways. This joined up approach helps them work together as one team. From reaction to reflection We’ve all dealt … Read more

Take time to understand your colleagues

If you are making assumptions about your colleagues’ meanings and motivations, either consciously or not, chances are that the communication between you is not working very well. And while this isn’t great in any situation, it can be particularly problematic during a global pandemic (or any other time of pressure and uncertainty). Listen up A … Read more