To deliver business results, leaders must engage employees and promote collaboration across functional silos. We help clients develop the strategy and implement the processes and tools to make these things happen.
Our internal communication consulting practice offers counsel in four areas:
- Strategic Alignment and Change →
- Elevating the Internal Communication Function →
- Counsel to Leaders →
- Alignment and Effectiveness Research →
Strategic Alignment and Change
- Strategy alignment communication and messaging: Our proprietary Strategic Messaging Process fosters alignment by creating a high level of awareness, understanding, credibility, and engagement around corporate strategy.
- Communicating strategic initiatives: We help clients ensure the credible and successful communication of major strategic initiatives, including business process outsourcing, ERP implementations, and organizational restructurings.
- Communication strategy and execution for critical events: Around significant events or crises (such as leadership transitions or layoffs), we help leaders and their communication team develop and execute an appropriate internal communication strategy that balances traditional approaches and current best practices.
- Stakeholder engagement: In most organizations, earning and judiciously investing relational capital is necessary to getting things done. We help leaders and relationship managers implement a customized stakeholder engagement program that aligns support and produces results by engaging stakeholders in a purposeful, strategic, and continual manner.
Elevating the Internal Communication Function
- Transforming the internal communication function: Our signature service involves helping organizations elevate internal communication as a truly strategic business function that drives change and produces results. Our work equips clients with a strategic approach to internal communication and its practices, tools, and resources—guided by best practices while customized to our client’s specific needs.
- Building strategic internal communication infrastructure for shared services organizations: We help shared services organizations establish the ongoing communication strategy and infrastructure they need to effectively inform, influence, and align key stakeholders and other audiences inside the larger enterprise.
- Coaching and training for internal communication strategists: Our approach to coaching and training for internal communication strategists equips them with the practices, perspective, and presence they need to become trusted advisors and secure a seat at the leadership table.
- Command performance coaching: We help teams prepare to present to CEOs and Boards and we help CEOs prepare to present to Boards, franchisees, and conferences. Whatever the “command performance,” we help clients craft a compelling message and deliver it in a credible fashion.
- Communicating during the “First 100 days”: We help senior leaders new to their role craft a strategic and deliberate approach to communicating to key constituents and stakeholders in the critical first three months of their tenure.
Alignment and Effectiveness Research
- Communication effectiveness research: For too long, communication effectiveness research has focused on communication outputs rather than business outcomes. We measure communication effectiveness in a way that leaders actually care about: by measuring the leadership team’s “strategic agenda” — those things leaders need internal audiences to believe, know, do, and feel if they are to deliver business outcomes.
- Communication audits: We offer two approaches to communication audits (which clients can employ individually or in parallel). The more traditional, quantitative approach measures channels, products, and messages from the employees’ perspective. The results pinpoint content priorities, sources of information overload, and the relative value of internal communication channels and products. A second, more qualitative approach identifies critical communication outcomes (for example, incidents when employees felt respected, lied to, informed, or overloaded) — and then works backward to identify what works and what doesn’t in creating those outcomes.
In addition to helping internal communication clients, CRA promotes community and information sharing in the internal communication field. These efforts include:
- CommLog, a weblog devoted to the strategy and practice of internal communication
- The Minnesuing Group, an invitation-only think tank and peer group of 30 internal communication professionals from leading organizations
- Local internal communication peer groups, which bring internal communication professionals together for regular meetings in cities across the United States.
To learn more about CRA’s internal communication practice, please call Jennifer Landis at 610.644.5597 extension 209.