Gaps, Guidance & Getting Communication Right

Chuck: Welcome to Frequency, I’m Chuck Gose.

Jenni: And I’m Jenni Field.

Chuck: Frequency is your go-to for real talk about comms, culture, and employee experience, beyond the buzzwords and straight to what matters. Jenni, I want to share a couple of things that matter to me — this is really bad audio but good video, I guess, for people watching on YouTube. I’ve made a change to my shelf behind me. For anyone who hasn’t seen me on camera, it’s a bit chaotic back there, but everything has a story — there’s a reason for the Savannah Bananas pennant, a reason for the stuffed gallbladder — but I’ve decided the shelf over my left shoulder is now my “friends’ shelf.” Everything on it is something a friend of mine has created — mostly books. If it’s a hardback, it stands up; if it’s paperback, it lies flat because it doesn’t stand up well. Your book’s right there, Jenni.

Jenni: I like it. I don’t have that — I have lots of shelves behind me, mainly books, but on the other side I’ve got photos of some of my best friends, some stuffed hippos, and a strange collection of things I’ve been given over the years, and I think that’s nice.

Chuck: I notice you don’t have Nobody Believes You behind you though, Jenni.

Jenni: I don’t! I need to get that.

Chuck: Anyway — on a previous episode we talked about your sham of a LinkedIn poll on change fatigue versus strategy fatigue, and I was excited earlier this week that it landed exactly 50-50. Then somebody votes for change fatigue and ruins my fun — it’s now 52% change fatigue, 48% strategy fatigue. You’re the one who thought this up, so I’ll give you a couple of seconds to explain yourself.

Jenni: After the episode where we discussed whether it’s change fatigue or strategy fatigue that organizations are actually going through, I wanted to see whether people were aware of the difference. In the comments, there was some good discussion about strategy fatigue leading to change fatigue, with some people recognizing they’re different and others saying one leads to the other. But it started the conversation, which is really what I wanted — making sure we’re not getting sucked into the latest buzzword of “it’s change fatigue” when it’s actually a bigger strategy challenge that needs more attention from leadership than just saying “we’re changing too much.” So I’m okay with an almost 50-50 split, because the conversation was the goal more than the result.

Chuck: I was a little surprised — I thought strategy would come out ahead. But I’m also excited that given I was “Change Spice” and you were “Strategy Spice,” Change Spice won, marginally. A win’s a win, Jenni. Before we started recording — we record on Thursdays — I had the glorious opportunity to spend time at the BMV. Some of you in the US might call it the DMV. Does that make any sense to you whatsoever, Jenni?

Jenni: No. DMV sounds familiar, but I don’t know why.

Chuck: The BMV or DMV, depending on your state, is the Bureau or Department of Motor Vehicles — where you renew your license, register your car, get plates. I find it funny that everybody complains about the BMV differently than they complain about the post office. Being the Midwestern dad that I am, the place opens at 8am, I got in line at 7:30 to be first — pole position — and was out by 8:08. Eight minutes, done. People just like to complain about it. So before you make a flippant comment — what do you call the BMV or DMV over there?

Jenni: We don’t have to go anywhere, everything’s online over here.

Chuck: Even when you buy a new car, you don’t have to take registration paperwork anywhere?

Jenni: All done through the mail.

Chuck: When you take your driving test, where do kids go for that?

Jenni: You go to a test center for the driving test, and then I don’t know what happens after — my niece turns 17 tomorrow, actually, so she’ll be having her first driving lesson soon, and eventually her test, so I can report back on that, since it’s been a while since I did mine.

Chuck: Interesting — I guess you don’t have to actually go anywhere for it.

Jenni: No, it’s mostly electronic — though my flippant comment is that you said you were done in eight minutes, but you got there at 7:30. So I don’t think the “eight minutes” claim is quite fair — that’s just how much time it took once the clock started at eight o’clock.

Chuck: The clock starts at eight o’clock! Jenni, one of my observations as we record episode four is that we use the word “interesting” a lot. I think it’s really good, but I wonder if we’re using it too much. So here’s my challenge for this episode: can we get through the rest of it without using the word “interesting”? Over to you and your articles.

Jenni: Okay — my caveat is that if I’m quoting somebody who says “interesting,” that’s fair.

Chuck: That’s a loophole, but I hear you, absolutely.

Jenni: The first article I looked at this week was a video clip of Marriott’s CEO talking about DEI — the headline was that the next day he had 40,000 emails from his associates. Watching the clip, what struck me was what he actually said: “The day the executive order came out, I sat with our senior leadership team and said, given the industry-leading position we have, we ought to make sure we’re aligned — not just philosophically, which is the easy part, but on the words and language we use, and we should talk to the board a bit. Let’s take the weekend, and get together in a week or so.” Then he went to a big industry conference in Los Angeles, did a CEO panel, and one of the first questions was about the executive order and DEI. He said: “I thought about what I’d heard from Bill Marriott all those decades, and what I said in response is that we’ve been around for almost a century. Political winds blow in all different directions, particularly when you operate in almost 150 countries. But there are some fundamental truths about this company that have guided us for 98 years: we welcome all to our hotels, and we create opportunity for all. Fundamentally, those will never change — the words might change, but that’s who we are as a company.” I loved this, because it speaks to everything we always talk about. But we’ve seen so many organizations respond differently — some big brands have closed programs, made big stances in the opposite direction from Marriott. So my question is: do you think that’s because they don’t know their values and purpose, or is it something else — following the political winds, as it were?

Chuck: “Political winds” is the perfect phrase — as soon as the first gust blows in, they cower in that direction. I think it’s a sign of weak leadership. I was excited to see that video, and I say that as a loyal Hilton Honors member. This is important because the executive order you’re referencing is the Trump administration trying to blame everything negative happening in the world on diversity, equity, and inclusion — which we all know is nonsense. There was an article I shared in ICology recently showing 82% of Americans are supportive of DEI — eight in ten. So it doesn’t reflect how people actually feel when the administration takes one stance and leaders follow it instead of listening to their employees. But of that 82%, only half think other people actually believe in DEI — so we underestimate even our own side. About the “40,000 emails” — do we know it was really 40,000? Rough number, sure, and he didn’t read them all, I guarantee it, so we don’t actually know where those emails stood. But whatever he said elicited a response, and that’s a positive sign — when you take a stance on something, it gets a response; if you’re wishy-washy, people ignore you. He wasn’t ignored. I think it’s a great leadership comms moment — it represents employees with strong, compassionate, thoughtful leadership. Compare that to a report we’ll get to later today, where half of all CEOs say they may scale back DEI efforts — which to me is also weak, because they’re not even taking a stance, just “we’ll see.” And from a US standpoint, look at Costco versus Target: Target made sweeping DEI changes and its stock took a hit; Costco held its position and its stock took off. Correlation or causation, debate all day, but people do care about this. My challenge to the comms world: stop using the acronym, start saying the words — diversity, equity, inclusion — and ask, do you not want your company to be diverse? Do you not want it to be inclusive? Do you not want equality for everyone? I loved Marriott’s CEO pointing back to foundational values — “we welcome all, we create opportunity for all” — that felt strong, whereas “well, kind of, whatever you call it” would have felt weak. Now there’s this murky area where leaders are publicly removing this language from websites while privately saying it’s still important — they’re just not telling everyone. I love the stance, I love the passion, I love that he talked about this publicly. My hope is it encourages other leaders to build a backbone and stand up for what they believe in for their employees. And I’ve got to say, TikTok is now a new source for me — I saw this video there first.

Jenni: You’re right about the ending — that this is what we stand for, and the words might change over time, which got me thinking about how we can get bored of our own language or messaging, when actually those two fundamental things for Marriott don’t need to change at all — they can just stay the same. I think that need for something new and different sometimes lets us down. I’m with you — it’s great to see leaders making decisions based on their values and purpose, and I loved that he involved the whole leadership team, said “let’s take some time to go away and think about this,” rather than reacting instantly. Not everybody can or wants to move quickly, and it’s important to pause, reflect, discuss, and get diverse perspectives around the table before moving forward. Also — I love that TikTok is a new source for you. I had to reply that I don’t have TikTok, so I went and found it on YouTube instead.

Chuck: The other angle worth thinking about is the consumer side, not just the employee side — people traveling for work or vacation now know where Marriott stands, and they have choices. I think it was a savvy move for him to represent the brand that way — “we welcome all, we create opportunity for all” is going to stick in my head every time I’m at a Marriott.

Jenni: Yeah, 100%. So the next article isn’t really an article — it’s a report from a company called Axios HQ. They surveyed more than 450 leaders across the US and more than 800 knowledge workers, across different industries, organizational sizes, and roles, to find gaps in alignment between executives and employees and how that affects operations. They looked at three things: areas of investment over the last 18 months and how they impact performance, employee perspectives on what would help them feel set up for success in a tough year, and gaps in alignment. The report frames two key questions for the year — why is hybrid leadership still so hard, and what are successful organizations doing right — and highlights four areas where communication teams can help: stronger alignment, stronger engagement, stronger performance, stronger growth. The alignment piece is what struck me most — there’s a huge disconnect between what leaders think and what employees think about communication. The question asked was whether communication from leaders is helpful and relevant, clear and engaging, timely and reliable, easy to give feedback on, and easy to find when needed. Leaders rated it between 72% and 80% — they think they’re smashing it. Employees rated the same thing 46% to 53%. So leaders think under a third aren’t having a good experience with communication; employees are saying it’s closer to half. This isn’t necessarily new, but the gap feels bigger than ever. Where does the responsibility for this lie? I know the report is aimed at communication professionals, but I’d love to know what you think — why the gap is so big, and whose responsibility it is to close it.

Chuck: When a report like this comes out, do you know the first place I go? The back — immediately. It’s important to see the size of the companies interviewed. Quick math: a little under half were from organizations smaller than 500 people, and 61% of the leaders surveyed were from that same group of 500 or fewer. Comms looks very different in an organization of 500 or fewer versus thousands or tens of thousands — it’s still important, but very different. The reason this matters is you’d typically expect smaller companies to have an easier time closing that gap, since it’s easier to reach fewer people. So I think the underlying problem is worse than even these numbers suggest, because we’re not really talking about enterprise-scale, tens-of-thousands companies here — there may have been a few, but statistically probably insignificant. A lot of companies that size — some were even 11 to 99 employees — don’t have dedicated comms professionals; someone else is doing the job alongside their own. That might explain part of the gap. What I’d pay attention to if I were in comms is the investment data — leaders who invest in comms see it pay off, not in softer measures like engagement, but in market share, reputation, customer retention, business revenue. That’s the data point to bring to leadership. On the alignment point — even leaders believe only about a quarter of teams are fully aligned with the business; employees think it’s closer to 10%. Whether you use the 75% or the 90% misaligned figure, neither is good. There’s a story I want to share — I worked with a company years ago and asked what their top three goals were for the year. They rattled off an acronym: “we need to increase [acronym] by 5%.” I said, great, that’s measurable — what does the acronym mean? They didn’t know. What does 5% mean in context? They didn’t know that either. That doesn’t mean anything to an employee — not only do they not know where to find their goals, they might not even know what they mean. That’s where comms can step in and lead, not just as a communication issue but almost an education issue — does this mean I use less paper at the printer? I don’t know what I’m supposed to do to help hit this goal. The other data point was that half of employees admit they’re doing the bare minimum — is that because they don’t feel leadership cares about them, or because there’s no point going above and beyond? That’s basically the definition of engagement — going above and beyond — and no company feels great about half its employees just doing enough to get by. Again, that’s a leadership issue, not a comms issue. And I love blaming leaders for these problems, I get real joy from it — leaders said their biggest obstruction to communication is making time to communicate. Fingers pointing right back at you — you’ve laid out how important it is, all the great things that happen when you communicate well, and then say you don’t have the time? That’s on you. Make the time. Everybody has the same amount of time; you’re choosing how to spend it.

Jenni: It’s really interesting hearing your take on this — I don’t love blaming leaders quite as much as you do, but I do think this report has the wrong name. It’s not really about how communicators can help businesses succeed — fundamentally, this is a leadership issue, and it needs skills, investment, development, and time spent on leaders’ own communication skills, because so many of the things you’ve highlighted aren’t things a communication team alone can fix. This is the challenge for internal comms this year, and honestly for the last 18 months or so — anything going wrong in the organization gets lobbed at the internal comms team, because all roads lead to relationships and communication, which I’ve always believed, but communication teams can’t fix these problems alone. There’s so much they’re being told they can fix that they can’t. When I looked at industry trend predictions at the start of this year, there were over 40 different “trends,” which is ridiculous — because it’s become everything. Going back to the report’s title, it was “four ways communications can radically strengthen your business” — so it’s not necessarily aimed at communication professionals, it’s more “here’s how improved communication in your organization can help,” not “here’s how the communication team can fix this.” And on your point about organizations of 500 or fewer — I always say anything over 150 people is your tipping point for needing dedicated internal comms, but I’ve worked with organizations of seven employees and organizations of 90,000, and there’s no difference in outcome when leadership communication skills aren’t good enough. Even with seven people, the leader has to be a genuinely good communicator for that to work. It doesn’t matter how many people you’ve got — that’s the bit to focus on.

Chuck: There’s a lot of good insight in this report, which we’ll link in the show notes — we could do a page-by-page review of it. Axios, if you’re listening, sponsor us and we’ll do a special episode breaking down what this data means for communicators versus leaders.

Jenni: We’ll do a special! And the thing I’m really passionate about is any data that looks at a leader’s perspective, an employee’s perspective, and a communicator’s perspective together, bringing business outcomes into that conversation — that’s fundamentally what it’s about, and I think we’ve ignored that angle in industry reports for too long, so it’s refreshing to see more of it. I’ve got two more things I want to talk about. One is the pressure of personal brand online — somebody posted on LinkedIn about the pressure to constantly post and build a brand, and how exhausting that can be. We’ve joked that we probably spend too much time on LinkedIn ourselves, but that’s in part because we’re both building communities. But I wonder where the line is for people inside organizations, and why there’s so much pressure now for anyone in any role to be visible on social media. I was chatting with a group of six friends I’ve known since school — a mix of mothers and non-mothers, teachers, assistants, managing directors, creatives — and it’s almost 50-50 between people who use social media a lot and people who aren’t on it at all. I said, as we were chatting, that I’m not sure I’d post as much if I didn’t have this business, my brand, and the speaking work — so is the pressure real, that everyone needs to be visible to get a job or get promoted, or have we just been sold that idea by marketing and society at large, when actually we don’t have to at all?

Chuck: There’s no commandment that says thou shalt be on LinkedIn — it’s a choice. What struck me about that post is the idea that comparison is the thief of joy. I’d argue I don’t spend too much time on LinkedIn — I spend the amount of time needed to accomplish what I want to accomplish there. I have a Facebook account I never use, because I get no value from it; I might have a Pinterest account too. It’s about where you get value. If LinkedIn isn’t your place, don’t spend time there. If you see other people doing lots of things on LinkedIn, that’s because they’re choosing to — it doesn’t mean you need to make the same choice. There’s a bit of a vanity check and a creativity test in it too — there’s a lot of bland, boring content on LinkedIn, and I try to at least be a bit more creative. It’s about your own priorities. I compare it to a gym membership — if you see people who look really fit and spend a lot of time at the gym, but you don’t want to spend time at the gym, you can’t be critical of them for choosing to spend their time that way. If that’s what you want, you’ll find a way to do it; if it’s not, good for them, you be you. That post read a little like “all these people are doing all these great things and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with it” — and my take is, maybe you’re not supposed to do anything with it.

Jenni: I suppose I don’t like people feeling pressured — I don’t enjoy the feeling of “I have to,” and I don’t know where that comes from. Maybe because we’re social animals, we want to belong, and if everyone else is doing it, we feel we should too. But it made me feel a bit sad — I don’t want people to feel like they have to. I talk to a lot of people in career coaching who feel real pressure to build a personal brand, and I tell them I know plenty of consultants and people inside organizations doing phenomenal, successful work who don’t post consistently on social media, because their relationships are built elsewhere. So I don’t think we should feel like we have to, and sometimes that pressure can be a bit unnecessary.

Chuck: For me that comes down to self-confidence and self-awareness. I had a conversation recently where someone mentioned a consultant I hadn’t seen post in years, and someone else said, well, she’s got clients she’s wrapped up and she’s just doing her thing quietly, doesn’t need to announce it. And I thought — good for her, that’s not what works for me, but it clearly works for her. It’s about finding what works for you and what you enjoy. Now, LinkedIn has become a pillar of career growth and job search — if you search someone’s name, it rises to the top of results, so if that kind of visibility matters to you, LinkedIn is a great place for it. It’s not the only place, but it’s a good one. The trap I fall into is looking upward at all the amazing content other people are creating and thinking, how are they doing that? And the answer is usually: they have a team of people doing it. I’m a team of one, so I have to reset my expectations about what I can realistically aspire to without that kind of support. There’s always a bit of self-regulation that has to come into play.

Jenni: Yeah, 100%. The final article I wanted to talk about was in Harvard Business Review — I got very excited last week when my HBR print magazine arrived, and even more excited when a second one arrived, since I’d only just resubscribed. The most recent issue has an article on what people got wrong about psychological safety. This term has gained huge traction with leaders, HR, and comms professionals over the years, but in the last six months or so, I’ve had a few HR professionals tell me they don’t like the term and don’t want to use it — without really being able to articulate why. So when this article showed up, I wanted to read more. We won’t cover the whole thing — it’s behind a paywall, we’ll link it in the show notes — but I’m happy to share the key points. There are six misconceptions the article identifies. First, that it means being nice — if someone tells me their organization “doesn’t argue” or is “like a family,” that’s always a red flag for me; it was a red flag with a leadership team I worked with back in 2018. Second, that it means getting your own way — your view shouldn’t automatically prevail. Third, that it means job security — some people have said they shouldn’t be laid off because that wouldn’t be psychologically safe, which conflates two different things. Fourth, that it requires a trade-off with performance — somehow it’s become either psychologically safe or accountable, when they can work together. Fifth, that it’s a policy — there’s an example in the article of a US state attempting to legislate psychological safety, but you can’t mandate it any more than you can mandate trust or motivation. Sixth, that it requires a top-down approach — whereas actually everyone can help create it; you can model behavior yourself without waiting for it to be handed down from the top. There’s a quote I really liked about kindness: “psychological safety is entirely consistent with kindness, but let’s distinguish between being nice and being kind — nice is the easy way out of a difficult conversation; kind is being respectful, caring, and honest.” It reminded me of Brené Brown’s line that “clear is kind.” If you’re describing your culture as “really nice,” it might be time to shift that toward “kind” instead. What’s your take, and how is this landing with people you’re talking to?

Chuck: I think it’s become more prevalent given the current political climate here, and everything happening with the job market and layoffs. The “nice” point is interesting to me — in a message to ICology members recently, I talked about how we tend to think of right and wrong as opposites, and easy and hard as opposites, when actually right and easy are often the real opposites. There’s always an easy way to do something and a right way to do it — nice is the easy way, kind is the right way. My question for you, Jenni: do you enjoy rollercoasters?

Jenni: No.

Chuck: I love rollercoasters, grew up riding them — Kings Island in Cincinnati was basically my babysitter growing up. To me, that’s what psychological safety is. If you got on a rollercoaster and the lap belt or harness didn’t quite work, you’d flag somebody down and say you’re not comfortable. A rollercoaster doesn’t sound very safe when you describe it, but it is, because it’s been tested and has safety mechanisms — you still get the thrill, but you know you’re protected. That’s psychological safety: people can be candid and be themselves, and still be protected. When people say their culture is “nice,” what that often really means is people are getting talked about behind their backs — that might look nice on the surface, but it’s not kind. It was surprising to see a state attempting to legislate psychological safety, though I could get behind it if it meant a clear shared definition, rather than everyone’s own interpretation, the way we’re seeing happen with DEI. Maybe that’s their response to the term being thrown around in lawsuits and layoffs without a clear definition. It’s coming up more, and it’s important both at work and outside it — there’s physical safety, too. Given my size, I’m not usually worried about my own physical safety, but I recognize for a lot of people that’s a constant, daily concern in the back of their mind, and I try to hold that in perspective alongside psychological safety — can I be myself, can I say this, can I dress this way. If you’re somewhere psychologically safe, whether at work or at home, you can breathe out and be yourself. If you’re not, you’re always a little on edge, never quite your best self.

Jenni: I can see why there’s frustration with the term being used without the meaning behind it — I feel like it could go the way of “employee engagement,” where it becomes a phrase nobody’s really unpacking. So the timing on this article felt right. It’s co-written by Amy Edmondson, who wrote The Fearless Organization, and is a huge expert in this space. Making sure people are clear on what it actually means matters, because it’s an easy phrase to latch onto — a bit like when people tell me “we’ve got a culture problem” and it turns out they’ve actually got a leadership credibility problem. It’s the same pattern here: people come to me saying “we’ve got a psychological safety problem,” and I say, no, you’ve got a leadership problem. All roads lead there. But the challenge is—

Chuck: You really do like pointing the finger at leadership, don’t you, Jenni?

Jenni: I like to highlight the areas of opportunity and then help fix them — I don’t want to just ring a shame bell at people, which I think you’d get quite a lot of joy out of. Should I try that sometime?

Chuck: It might get the right result. You should give it a go. What can we learn from Game of Thrones about psychological safety?

Jenni: That’s a segue. It’s a good article, we’ll put the links in the show notes for anyone with a subscription. That brings us to the end of our article review — now for what we’re each freq-ing out about this week. What’s yours?

Chuck: It hit me this week that within about a four-week period I’ll have three separate trips to Canada this summer — a Blink event in Calgary, IABC World Conference in Vancouver, and, fingers crossed, Comms Reboot in Toronto at the end of June. I started wondering whether three Canada trips in about a month is going to look suspicious given how US-Canada relations are right now, and joked it’d be nice if I could just email Canadian customs in advance with my itinerary. It’s got me thinking about how international travel has changed under the new administration, and how you think differently now about visiting even a country as close as Canada, given it’s the longest peaceful, unmarked border in the world.

Jenni: I’ll join you on that freak-out about travel — I’m coming to Toronto for Comms Reboot on the 25th of June, and I’ve got some plans to be in the US later in the year too, not confirmed yet, but exciting. People have been sending me articles about getting stopped at the US border and having your phone checked — if you’ve said something critical of the administration, they might not let you in and could go through your phone. I’ve never had to think about that before — I’ve got my passport, my visa, I’ve done everything right — and suddenly there are these articles that are a little frightening, which makes me aware of my own privilege in never having had to think about this before. It’s a bit unnerving, and it makes my hands go a bit clammy, honestly.

Chuck: I’ll admit, even having never done anything wrong, you feel guilty at every customs desk. The one time I went through Heathrow, they asked if I had anything to declare, I said no, and then “when was the last time you were here?” and I’m like, I don’t know, it’s all right there on my passport. Even little things like “how long are you here” — days, nights, does today count, is the departure date included — it’s already a stressful situation, and now there’s an added layer of stress on top. I’m seeing this with companies too — employees in Canada who’d normally visit US offices are increasingly saying it’s not worth the hassle. I’m curious what impact that has on business, where people who never thought twice about crossing a border now think, not worth it.

Jenni: Yeah, it’ll be interesting to see. Fingers crossed we both have safe travels and get to everywhere we need to go this year, and the same for everyone else. That’s it for this week — thank you for joining us. All the articles that inspired this conversation are in the show notes, so do check those out, and don’t forget to rate and review after you’ve listened. Subscribe so you don’t miss another episode, and pass this along to someone you think would enjoy listening or watching, because you can now find Frequency on YouTube. Thank you to Poet Ali for contributing the music to the show. We’ll be back next week with more news, insights, and opinions about everything comms and leadership in the workplace today. Keep tuning in and keep turning up.

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