Picking up where we left off at the last Comms Counsel, the session kicked off with strategy and growth, as we also delved into the honest truth that comms teams are almost always stretched thin. 

So how do you get across strategy when you’re already at working at maximum capacity?  

Keep that laser-sharp focus on outcomes. With a defined outcome, the path to action can become more clear, you can even work backwards from a desired outcome, mapping out everything efficiently.  

It can also signal comms’ value. Take a new strategy rollout, for comms it’s not just about awareness, it’s about building genuine belief in your people. This will ensure that new strategy doesn’t just slide like water off a duck’s back. It sticks and gains traction. 

This raises the age-old question – how can you actually measure that? 

Proof points

Surveys came up, naturally. Quite a good tip was to tag a short quiz onto every Town Hall or All Hands rather than waiting for the quarterly sweep. This gives you real-time feedback and real insight into what’s landing. 

Even better? Work cross-organisationally. One attendee shared how their team partnered with IT after pushing comms about AI training. Instead of tracking article readership, they measured actual uptake of the training resources. There was a correlation between the uptick in usage and the comms output. Concrete, credible and compelling. 

The metrics are out there, you just have to think outside the box and find them. 

Speaking their language

In law firms especially, partners are business owners first. So show them the business case for comms. Help other functions communicate better, unlock collaboration, and be the lead on surfacing connections that didn’t exist before. 

One standout example was from one firm where they partnered with L&D to understand how comms tools were actually affecting day-to-day work to drive improvement.  

There was strong consensus that L&D targeted at managers is an essential. They’re the bridge between the leaders or partners and those on the ground. They are responsible for cascading some of the most important information and need help with this.  

How to do this? Education, workshops and more. But how do you get managers to dedicate their precious time to improving their communication?  

Well, there was one clever reframe worth stealing. One attendee stopped pitching comms workshops as ‘getting better at communicating’ and started selling them as workshops for ‘becoming a better leader.’ Popularity shot up. 

Operationalising comms

Whether you’re global or smaller, making comms stick organisation-wide is a challenge. A few practical tips that came up: 

• Listen to feedback constantly and adjust 

• Adapt for cultural nuance and different audiences 

• Write strategy language directly into performance goals 

• Add a ‘why are we telling you this?’ line to comms that ties back to the bigger strategic picture 

They’re small things, but they serve to reaffirm, and compound impact. 

Leadership and video comms

And… action! Next, we bounced around some ideas as to how to make video comms more exciting.  

Camera-shy partners? C-suite who won’t play ball? Invest in B-roll. It can transform even the most static vanilla video. Simple additions like images, stats overlays, or cutting to two people in conversation can make a real difference too. 

The best insight here was to give leaders the space to be creative. One senior partner set up a camera and filmed themselves doodling key facts, creating a lo-fi, personal, and different piece of comms. Another firm sends ‘handwritten’ postcard emails from partners featuring holiday snaps at the end of summer. It’s simple but instantly humanises those at the top– just giving that space for leaders to show their personality and lives can build trust and show colleagues that they are people just like them, they are peers.  

Humour got a big nod as well. One team worked with their head of IT to rework a cyber security video around ‘No Click-ety’ (to the tune of No Diggety). This brought a catchy, memorable feel to something that otherwise may be dry. Another firm runs April Fools content. Not everything has to be serious! 

On Town Halls now. Hybrid formats, watch parties, in-person – what works varies hugely by culture. A strong recommendation to help navigate this: The Culture Map by Erin Meyer. It’s certainly now on our ‘to-read’ list. 

AI in practice 

It wouldn’t be an event without an AI segment. Here’s how people in the room are actually using it: 

• Socratic prompting — rather than asking AI to do something outright, interrogate the context first. This gives better, more objective outputs.  

• Personalising comms — Antony Cousins on LinkedIn is worth following for practical tips here.  

• Sentiment analysis — pulling key stats, quotes and themes from surveys.  

• Bots — useful for streamlining, though duplication risks are real.  

The governance question loomed large too. For example, when AI is pulling from your intranet, how do you stop it surfacing outdated or incorrect information that your people then lean or act on? It’s never too early to do a spring clean! (And make sure to do one often!)  

And, just to leave you with open question to sit with: how do you build AI skills and creativity whilst putting in guidelines which could kill both? Just one to mull over. 

Thanks to everyone who joined – and if you missed this one, we’ll see you at the next.