A pause for reflection allows us so much room for growth. We get to celebrate wins, grieve the losses, and be intentional in our path forward.
It’s no secret that the past few years have wreaked havoc on both our personal and professional lives. We’ve had worldwide crises back to back, seen or experienced an onslaught of layoffs, and weathered our way through difficulties beyond our wildest imaginations. As internal communicators, we’re at the center of helping others find a way to balance sharing, impact, influence, guidance, and gratitude.
Internal comms pros live in the eye of the tornado, and it’s up to us to set the example for how to anchor through the turbulence. Leaders look to us to help direct priorities, timing, and strategy. As we head into a new year, setting some New Year’s resolutions helps us reflect and prepare for the seasons ahead.
Some people make New Year’s resolutions at this time of year that are visionary, aspirational, or that fulfill hopes and dreams. In IC, we’re a bit more practical. We want our resolutions to be actionable and measurable. What will your New Year’s resolutions be as IC professionals? Here’s a few of ours. They’re about taking care of ourselves so we can take care of others. They reflect our desire to understand where other people might be coming from so that we don’t judge their actions so quickly, and about challenging ourselves to build bridges to increase our sphere of influence and acceptance. Read on and see if these might make sense for you, too.
We will nourish each other and to also take care of ourselves
Nourishment provides what’s needed for someone or something to be healthy and to grow and develop. How do we nourish our organization?
When we sit down with our internal stakeholders to work on our yearly strategy, keep this question in mind: how do these conversations nourish and support our organization and our people? When you look at what you’re doing from this perspective, do your priorities change? Would you make changes to how or when you deliver a message or action?
How does the channel strategy nourish an employee’s day? Are you delivering the types of content they need? For example, do your employees engage with storytelling and like images and written blogs? Or, do they tend to engage with quick videos from leaders or each other? Consider what your campaign strategy looks like through the lens of employee experience.
Think about how your tools deliver nourishment. Do you utilize one tool to drive engagement on the other? For instance, do you use a messaging app to drive users to your intranet?
How do we nourish ourselves to be the communicators we can be? Burnout is real. We burned the candle and emptied our cups. And yet, there’s still more to do. We must resolve to prioritize taking care of ourselves so we can nourish our organization and our people.
Ask yourself, have I taken a moment to center myself? Have I taken a true day off in the past couple months? If the answer is no, take a pause and examine why. Ask yourself the hard questions. Taking care of ourselves in a very powerful way to be an example to others on the team. We can be examples to other employees by modeling healthy choices around taking time off and setting good boundaries.
We will presume positive intent
This little nugget of wisdom came from one of my previous CEOs. In the hustle and bustle of life and work, it’s easy to find ourselves quick to judge and frustrated with people for a lot of reasons. Maybe they didn’t respond how we hoped, or maybe they were short with us, felt personal, or maybe they really are out to get you. Communication is built on the foundation of storytelling and writing narratives. How often do we find ourselves in a conflict or frustration with a coworker and we follow that interaction by drumming up a false narrative about them or the situation? Release that story you tell yourself about what’s going on by presuming the other person has good intent. When you stop assuming that everyone else is kind of evil, you’ll be able to connect back to the humanity in each of us. We’re all flawed, we get stressed, we’re distracted, and sometimes we’re just overwhelmed. Internal comms folks can benefit greatly if we try and remember that most people have good intentions and a little grace can go a long way.
We will work to build the relationships at work that scare us the most
As humans, we tend to lean toward the things that feel easy or familiar. I love meeting and connecting with new people, but I also find myself shying away from the work relationships that feel like they’re hard. You know the ones, where the other person is hard to read, you can’t quite figure out how to connect with them, and there feels like there might be a power struggle in the space of accomplishing goals. These are the places where we can find the most growth. Taking a moment to reflect if there are any stakeholder or work relationships that you could spend some time on, may just be the expansion you need in 2023. Connection and relationships are such a vital part of the comms world.
As you reflect on this past year I encourage you to think about taking on these three New Year’s resolutions along with me. Be intentional about 2023. Nourishment, presuming good intent, and relationships could make your job a little easier, strengthen your teams, and pave the way for a strong and thoughtful strategy for comms and employee experience as you move forward into the new year.
