Each week in this newsletter I tackle a question from a reader. This week’s question comes from a Comms Business Partner in London. She read my newsletter last week about protecting your audiences' attention and saying no to sending out irrelevant content and she followed up with this thoughtful question:
“Thanks very much for your latest newsletter – great advice here! One thing I struggle with is something you touched on: ‘Every communication should have a clear purpose. We just want to keep people informed is not a clear objective, nor is We want to create awareness.’
Sometimes it’s difficult to get stakeholders to understand this and it becomes a back and forth of - ‘We want to put out comms to spread awareness’ ‘Ok, and what is your objective?’ ‘We want to spread awareness’ ‘How will you measure success?’ ‘If everyone is aware of xyz’ It becomes quite tricky to diplomatically say ‘that is not an objective’.
How do you help stakeholders understand in plain terms why we ask for an objective, why we need to understand measurement scope?”
This is a really good question. If you work in internal comms then you've probably had this exact conversation with a stakeholder at one point or another. I often hear about this kind of scenario from clients who are determined to operate more strategically but feel blocked by key stakeholders who insist "we need to create awareness" and aren't interested in setting a real objective.
It can feel like you're going around in circles and sometimes it's easier to give in, isn't it? Just send the damn thing out so they will leave you alone. That has happened to me plenty of times and I've often been kicking myself afterwards that I should have held my ground or tried harder.
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Alright let's talk about how to handle stakeholders who are deeply in love with the word "awareness".
Awareness is not an objective
Here’s the first thing I'd say and that I want you to remember: awareness is not an objective. It’s not an end goal. It doesn't deliver anything for the business by itself. And it’s certainly not something you can measure in any meaningful way.
And yet, so many stakeholders default to “awareness” as their go-to objective. Why is this?
Well maybe because it feels safe. It’s vague enough that they can’t really fail at it and it sounds important without requiring them to think too hard about what they actually want to achieve.
But “awareness” is a cop-out in my view. It’s lazy thinking. What does it really mean?
For example, if your stakeholder says “we want to create awareness about our new policy” what does that mean? Awareness of what? Awareness for what purpose? Why does this awareness need to exist - should it lead to action or behaviour change?
What's the point?!
In my experience, when someone says they want to create awareness, what they usually mean is one of these things:
- They want people to know something exists
- They want people to understand how something affects them
- They want people to change their behavior
- They want people to feel differently about something
- They’re not really sure what they want, but they know they should probably communicate
- They're trying to tick something off a list by saying they communicated it
The problem is, these are all very different objectives that require completely different approaches. You can’t create an effective communication if you don’t know which one you’re actually trying to achieve.
Why this matters so much
When you fall into the trap that I did and you give in to these stakeholders and send things out to create awareness only, several bad things can happen as a result.
You can't measure success because "awareness" is too vague. How do you know if you've achieved it? Do 50% of people need to know about it? 80%? And what exactly do they need to be aware of?
You can't choose the right tactics because the objective is unclear. An email might work for sharing information, but if you actually want behavior change you may need training, Q&A sessions, workshops and multiple communications in different formats.
You can't demonstrate value to the business because you have no way to show impact. "We achieved awareness" tells leadership absolutely nothing about whether the communication actually helped the business.
In times when I've given in to a stakeholder and done some begrudging awareness comms, I've often found that they would come back to me later asking why nothing changed, even though we “created awareness.” Because awareness without action is basically useless.
The diplomatic conversation
Okay so that's the scenario and now we understand (a) why this happens and (b) why we want to prevent this happening.
But how do you actually have this conversation with stakeholders without making them feel stupid or defensive? How do you stop the conversation going in circles?
Here’s an approach that has worked for me and it might work for you too. Let me show you what this looks like in practice with a real conversation:
Stakeholder: "We need to send out some comms to create awareness about the new flexible working policy."
Me: "I love that you want to communicate about this, thanks for coming to discuss it with me. Help me understand what success looks like for you. After people receive this communication, what would you want to be different?"
Stakeholder: "Well we want everyone to be aware of the new policy."
Me: "Right, okay. And after they're aware of it, is there something specific you want them to do?"
Stakeholder: "We just want them to know about it. You know, create awareness."
Me: "I understand. So if I went to an employee in three months and asked them about flexible working, what would you want them to be able to tell me?"
Stakeholder: "They should know that the policy has changed and what the new rules are."
Me: "That's helpful. And if someone wanted to use flexible working, what should they do next after reading our communication?"
Stakeholder: "Oh, well they'd need to talk to their manager and fill out the request form."
Me: "Perfect! So it sounds like what you really want is for people to understand the new policy rules and know how to request flexible working if they want it. Would you say that's right?"
Stakeholder: "Yes, exactly!"
Me: "Great, so our objective could be something like 'Ensure all employees know how to make a flexible working request.' Does that sound right to you?"
What works in this approach:
Notice how I used curiosity throughout this conversation. I kept asking questions to understand what they really needed and then helped them identify the objective once we unearthed it together. Stakeholders may often struggle to identify a communications objective, I mean they aren't comms professionals in fairness, and this is where you can add real value by helping them think beyond "awareness" and propose an objective to them.
The key was asking "what would you want them to be able to tell me?" and "what should they do next?" These questions forced the stakeholder to think about the practical outcomes and not just the vague concept of awareness.
By the end of this conversation, the stakeholder felt heard and understood and we arrived at a clear objective together. This helped to avoid going around in circles or giving in to sending out awareness comms.
A caveat - pick your battles
Now this approach will work most of the time, but not all of the time. Some stakeholders are stubborn and don't want to budge. And in this scenario, I would urge you to use your judgment and pick your battles carefully.
Sometimes you just have to send the "awareness" communication and use it as a learning opportunity. When it inevitably doesn't drive the results they wanted, you can revisit the conversation about objectives.
The key is being clear on why objectives are important whilst also maintaining a positive relationship - not an easy task really, is it! But listen, go easy on yourself. You don't need to die on every hill. Sometimes you won't win and that's ok, you just try again the next time. You can't force people to be strategic, but you can keep using curiosity as a tool and offering strategic guidance and advice. Not everyone will listen and that's okay!
The goal isn't to win every battle. The goal is to gradually shift your stakeholders toward more strategic thinking, one conversation at a time.
Thanks for reading and stay curious,
Joanna
PS I heard you loud and clear in your request for a course on how to run employee focus groups - it's under construction! Watch this space 👀
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