đ The Best Is Yet to Come
The authority on mixternal comms
đ¶ New year, same job?
Not if I can help it.
This Year Comms on Social Issues Will Take a Back Seat
Poppulo asked me for my 2023 comms prediction. Hereâs what I said:
In 2023 the shift in power dynamics will move from employees back to executives. One result will be fewer communications about social and political issuesâinternal and external. Comms pros will breathe a sigh of relief.
Why will this shift happen? To quote the American political strategist James Carville, âThe economy, stupid.â
A recession, sinking stocks, declining revenue, and, thus, the threat of layoffs will outweigh any concerns employees have about their company speaking out on social issues.
Employees will want their leaders to concentrate on keeping the ship afloat.
Executives will push back on activities that donât boost revenues, which means spending less energy on saying something about everything. Such moves started on the fringes at places like Coinbase and have moved to Big Tech mainstream, with Meta recently announcing, âgoing forward, as a company we will only make public statements on issues that are core to our business, meaning they are required in order to provide our service.â
Other companies will follow suit. A recent survey of 360 CEOs and high-ranking comms leaders shows that 85% agree that CEOs and other senior leaders should be careful not to leap ahead with public positions their organizations cannot take or back up.
75% say that CEOs and other senior leaders more often than not get in trouble for taking public positions or commenting on political and social issues.
A vocal minority of employees will be upset about these moves, but only a very tiny percentage of that group will leave an organization because of the change.
Besides, only 14% of Americans privately agree that CEOs should take public stances on controversial social issues. (And this is before the layoffs started.)
Managing the change might be a struggle for some comms teams, especially those who have to manage stakeholders who are used to leadership paying attention to their causes.
The struggle will be brief. Ultimately most comms prosâinternal and externalâwill be glad guidelines are put into place. Frantic and reactive messaging will recede so we can spend our time on the proactive strategic comms we were hired to do.
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Room for debate: Brilliant Inkâs Sara Forner Howland makes the opposite prediction: âAt the urging of employees,â she says, âcompanies will wade into even more political and social issues as the next presidential election looms in late 2024.â
Quick Hits
đ Shopify canceled all recurring meetings with more than two people in a massive automated âcalendar purge.â The CEO is also encouraging employees to decline invitations and to leave big internal chat groups. (Bloomberg)
â ~300 employees at Microsoftâs videogame unit ZeniMax voted to organize with the Communications Workers of America. (WSJ; subscription)
Wait. Thereâs a communications union out there? HmmmâŠđ
âïž A new research paper shows that purpose-driven organizations show greater trust among employees (plus other benefits). âEffective strategic communication is an essential element of purpose as it can empower employees to align their personal goals with organizational values, and thus identify with their organization.â (IPR)
Big in Sweden
The first six orders for my new mini-book, Communications As Craftmanship, came from: 1) India, 2) France, 3) The Netherlands, 4) U.S.A., 5) Sweden, and 6) Canada.
The global makeup of our community is a reminder that weâre all in this together.
âContent matters. Content is queen. Somewhere in the court is delivery.â
âAngela Duckworth talking about how you can be a better communicator on the No Stupid Questions podcast
Interesting Opportunities
Centene - Senior Comms Specialist (Texas)
Jet Aviation - Communications Manager, EMEA (Basel)
JLL - Global Internal Communications, Culture and Engagement Manager (Warsaw)
Related: An interview with the head of JLL Comms, Americas (The Switchboard)
The Mayo Clinic seeks an executive content manager to produce âinternal and external speeches and business communications on behalf of the executive leader, for audiences including the Board of Trustees.â
The Manager works directly with the organizationâs highest-level leaders and subject matter experts in close collaboration with the other Executive Content Managers.
Contact recruiter Lindsay Staats to hear more: lstaats@velocityresourcegroup.com.
Schneider Electric - Global Comms Manager (Boston; hybrid)
Want to advertise your open role to 2,650+ comms pros globally? Message editorshaun@gmail.com to get started.
Thoughts on Mister Editorial in 2022
đ 2022âs five most popular Mister Editorial articles were:
âInnovation Is a Loaded Word.â An Interview With Ellen Thornton of Cisco.
When Should We Say Something About Social Issues? A Way Forward.
What does that list say? A personal note topping the list tells me youâre interested in the man behind the scenes. Thatâs both flattering and humbling. đ„°
Iâd be remiss not to have a meta moment here and point out that authentic storytelling about the humans in your organization always resonates.
What else?
Stories 2 and 4 are reactive-in-the-moment dispatches for comms-rades who might have been unprepared for two calamities and needed help putting together last-minute comms. Hopefully readers are better prepared to handle the unexpected when it happens again. (Because it will.)
Story 3 is a peek at how comms is done by supreme talent at a winning company. Who doesnât want such insider-y tips and tricks? (Not to mention screenshots!)
Story 5 is related to 4 but also speaks to the broader issue that weâre burned out on saying something about everything. (Do you hope Iâm right about my 2023 prediction above?)
đ€ Conor Ludden, Sia Papageorgiou, and Kari Mclean became Mister Editorialâs first guest writers.
Want to share insights with your peers? Hit reply!
Iâm also proud of the following work:
Innovation in Internal Communications: How Internal Comms Professionals Can Overcome the Innovatorâs Dilemma - a nine-part series that became Mister Editorialâs first mini-book.
Communications As Craftsmanship: How Communications Professionals Can Overcome Banality - an eight-part series that became the second mini-book.
A guest lecture at Columbia University, a few webinar appearances, and a couple of guest blog contributions on other platforms.
As of this writing there are 2,659 Mister Editorial readers from around the world. Readership grew by 50% in 2022! You represent Fortune 100 firms and firms of just 100 people. Several of you are your own boss.
ClichĂ© as it is, I couldnât do this without you. Thank you.
Help Me Help You
I actually couldnât do it without Mister Editorialâs paid members.
Why? Mister Editorial takes many hours each week to put togetherâthis is on top of my full-time job.
I regularly scour at least 52 resources for helpful and insightful materialâsome of which require paid subscriptionsâa number that will certainly increase this year. (52 is not a made-up number.)
Not to mention the many books I devour, the ad hoc information that finds its way into my inbox and LinkedIn DMs, as well as numerous serendipitous encounters.
In short, Mister Editorial takes work, time, and money to do.
Paid members literally keep me going.
đ My 2023 goal is to lift my readers and our profession to another level.
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Disclaimer: Besides running Mister Editorial, I am the editor-in-chief of Digital Publications at Lam Research. The views in this newsletter are my own.