Hey Reader,

Alright I think it's about time for another free webinar, don't you? I'm teaming up with Workvivo for a super event on 5th March. I'll be spilling my secrets on how to manage a busy workload and giving you practical tips and advice on how to work smarter (not harder). I'll also give you a free template you can use to put the webinar into practice IMMEDIATELY. Because I'm all about taking action on learning, and moving from theory to practice quickly.

You can sign up here to get your place at the event.

Now onto today's newsletter. If you're new here, each week I answer a question from a reader. This week's question comes from an internal comms professional in Manchester who asks:

Hey good question. I'm kind of surprised we haven't tackled this one together yet. Because this comes up in nearly every organisation I work with and it's important to focus on this.

Simply put, an internal comms team can't operate effectively on its own. The best communication happens when we're deeply connected with other teams across the business, when we understand their challenges and when we work together to create a really strategic and employee-centric comms approach.

And this reliance on collaboration and relationships ultimately makes our work highly political, doesn't it? We need to be really intentional about how we collaborate with people, how we listen to people, how we build relationships with people. It's a LOT. But it's part of the work, it has to be done.

Because if we work in isolation we miss out on crucial context, risk sending mixed messages and ultimately can't be as effective as we should because we aren't invited to the right meetings or included early on. But when we build strong partnerships across the business? This is when things get unlocked and you can start to see the magic happen.

Now it sounds simple I know. Build relationships and work well with others. But like everything that's simple in life, it can be difficult to actually execute on. Building trusting partnerships across the business takes time and effort, which poses a challenge when you're already overworked and drowning in requests. But trust me, investing in these relationships now will save you countless headaches down the road.

Let's look at some practical advice to help you build stronger partnerships across your organisation.

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Start small

Alright, my first piece of advice is this: start small and be strategic. Don't try to build deep partnerships with every stakeholder or every department at once. This will wear you out and you'll spread yourself too thin to really make any impact. Instead, identify 1 or 2 key stakeholders or departments that have the biggest impact on your work. Maybe for you this is the Head of HR, or the Digital Strategy Lead or the COO or the Chief Marketing Officer. Start here: who would make the biggest different and impact if we were working better together?

Be brave: make the first move

Now you know who you want to partner up with, I highly suggest that you make the first move. This is not the time to be coy. Because these stakeholders are probably just as keen to work more closely with internal comms as you are with them, they just might not know how to start or know that you are willing. So take the initiative. This can be really simple stuff like inviting someone for a coffee, asking them about their work, using your curiosity to understand their perspective more and what work is truly important to them.

Build relationships before you need them

And please, don't leave this work until a crisis hits. Build relationships BEFORE you need them. The worst time to try to build a relationship is when you're in the middle of a crisis or major project, because emotions are often high and people are scrambling. It's a better approach to invest time in getting to know people when things are relatively calm. This gives you the space to more deeply understand their challenges, priorities and ways of working.

Indulge your curiosity

Let's talk about the curiosity bit more. Obviously my favourite topic of all time. One thing you can do very simply to build more of a relationship with a stakeholder is to show genuine interest in their work. This isn't about fake networking - it's about genuinely trying to understand what other departments do and what matters to them. Ask questions like:

• What are your biggest priorities right now?
• What challenges are you facing?
• How could better communications help you achieve your goals?
• What's working well in terms of how we work together?
• What would you like to change?

Show what's in it for them

Using your curiosity in this way will help you to show them what's in it for them when they partner up with you. Stop talking about what you need from other departments and start focusing on how you can make their lives easier. When you meet with HR, talk about how good internal comms can boost engagement in their initiatives. When you're with IT, discuss how strategic communications can increase adoption rates of new systems. Position communication as a enabler of business goals and help them see why they need you.

Keep the momentum going

All of this will help you to start build those key relationships around the business. Then it's up to you to keep the momentum going. Once you've started building these relationships, you need to nurture them and maintain them. (The work never ends, does it?) This might look like having monthly or quarterly catch ups in the diary, using shared planning documents or communication calendars and finding ways to ask for and act on feedback to keep your partnership working well in a way that creates wins for both sides.

So the good news is, this stuff isn't rocket science and it's pretty simple in theory. The bad news is, this stuff can be tiring. Building strong partnerships takes time and patience. You won't transform all your relationships overnight, and that's okay. Start small, be consistent and stick with it - it really is worth it.

Thanks for reading and stay curious,

Joanna

Find me on YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn and check out my book​

Want to work together?

• Join The Curious Tribe. This is my membership community for ambitious, curious communicators who want to achieve more in their roles and have fun at the same time. Membership allows you to work directly with me for 12 months, make deep connections with other communication pros who 'get it' and improve your skills through training and learning. More info here.
• Take a shortcut. I've developed a collection of tried-and-tested templates, checklists and how-to guides for the key processes you'll need in your role as an internal communicator. You can download my Internal Comms Cheat Sheets here.​
• Enroll in my course, "How to use ChatGPT as your personal assistant". This is a practical, on-demand course where I'll show you 38 specific ways to use ChatGPT to help you in your job as an internal communicator. You can enroll in the course here.

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