How to gauge where comms can best add value
Effective internal communication starts with having the right conversations to understand business needs. Use Sue Dewhurst's ARROW framework to identify where and how communicators can most add value in order to reach a desired business outcome.
by Sue Dewhurst, managing director, The SD Group
Recently, I’ve been hearing from a number of internal communicators who are feeling misunderstood and undervalued in their work. They're tired of being brought into conversations too late, or being asked to produce endless emails and newsletters, however much they try to persuade their internal "customers" they won’t make much difference.
For many of our customers, though, our job titles suggest we’re there to "produce communications" – i.e., to "write stuff" or "send things out".
I’m willing to bet you have friends and relatives who have some very strange ideas about what you do at work! So it stands to reason that our internal customers, too, need guidance to help them understand where we can add our best value.
Difference between what customers "want" and what they "need"
Sometimes, we're so focused on delivering what customers want that we don’t spend enough time understanding what they need. Those two things can be very different. They may want a newsletter, but need people to buy in to an unpopular change program and start doing some things differently. A newsletter won’t achieve those things for them.
What we need to identify is the business outcomes they need to achieve.
The first step in developing an effective communication plan starts with taking the time to dig beneath what the customer is asking for to understand what they really need help with.
They may well ask for outputs – communication collateral. But what we need to identify is the business outcomes they need to achieve.
Introducing the ARROW framework
The key to building this understanding is to ask the right questions. I put together a model called the ARROW framework – designed to identify "What's the point?" behind the communication we're asked to help with.
The idea is to choose questions based around five areas:
A is for AIM
First, ask questions to understand what success will look like for your customer. Try to identify what they want employees to think, feel and do differently and any business results they want to influence.
If they started by asking you to deliver something specific, you might want to build on this with your first question.
For example, "I understand you'd like a weekly newsletter. Let's fast-forward 6 months and imagine this newsletter has achieved everything you want it to. What would I see people doing differently?"
R is for REALITY
Now, take a step back and understand how things are today. If that's what your customer wants people to do in the future, what are they doing now?
Check whether there's any evidence available about the current position, such as business results, or employee survey feedback. Once you've established the "aim" and the "reality", you can see the gap your communication plan needs to help close.
R is for ROADBLOCKS
Next, ask questions to understand what might stop the aim being achieved. What could get in the way, that you might be able to help avoid through communication?
A simple question here might be "What could go wrong?" or "What could stop people doing those things differently?"
What could get in the way, that you might be able to help avoid through communication?
O is for OPPORTUNITIES
Ask about the things that would really speed things forward towards achieving the aim.
Ask specific questions, such as "If there were just one thing we could get people to do that would give us the biggest chance of success, what would it be?"
W is for WHO and WHEN
Make sure you've understood which groups of employees need to know, feel or do something differently to achieve the business aim, and establish if there are specific timescales within which things need to be achieved.
Use the information you’ve gathered to form the basis of your communication plan. Set out first the business aims, then the communication objectives – clear statements that set out how communication can contribute towards those aims. Then, finally, you can identify the tactics that will help achieve them.
Have your say
Have you found this type of approach useful in your organization? What would you adjust or do differently to the ARROW model, and why? And if you're, like Sue says, "feeling misunderstood and undervalued in your work", how do you propose to change your situation? Perhaps you have some advice for others in this situation? Share your thoughts with us below.
Sue Dewhurst is managing director of the SD Group communication consultancy. She's also a member of the Hub's editorial board and a tutor for Melcrum's Black Belt training course. Sue has 15 years' experience in internal communications, 13 of which she spent leading in-house teams at Royal Mail, Barclays and NTL.
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