One of the main occupational hazards for communications professionals is dealing with the frustrations of working with internal clients. The space between the communicator and the internal client is fraught with dangers, disconnects and delusional expectations. The first rule is this – do not accept the conditions that have you set up to fail. This […]
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Last week I presented a webinar on career planning to a national group of communications professionals. The topic seemed to strike a chord, and with good reason – after all, we’re in the midst of the largest disruption to the work world since the Industrial Revolution, and the balance of power is shifting from employers […]
One of the most frustrating things about being a communicator is that some of the areas in which we add the most value are often invisible. Here are some aspects of “invisible value” you may consider in evaluating your communications activities and reporting on the impact you deliver: Risk avoidance: If you’re in the business […]
Over the last year, we’ve been working on something new, and we’re excited to share it with our community of supporters, partners and clients. As many of you know, our story began in 2001 as a boutique firm working in the niche area of strategic communications planning. The practice grew in to Ingenium Communications, offering […]
The key to successful change is sustained, visible and meaningful consultation and engagement. The goal is that you want employees and stakeholders to be producers, not just passive consumers of change. The Building a Consultation Plan Worksheet from the Change Agent’s Toolkit is a resource to help you plan out consultations at the front-end of […]
One of the principles I’ve always tried to follow as a consultant is the Hippocratic Oath – first, do no harm. While it’s been rare, there have been situations where what the client wants strikes me as being against their best interest. In such cases, I’ve felt the only ethical and logical thing to do […]
We all know that organizational change is difficult. Of all the forms of transformation, the most challenging is unquestionably culture change. According to research from the Wharton School of Business, the failure rate of culture change initiatives hovers around 80% (as defined by change projects that don’t achieve the stated goals of transformation). One of […]
This is a guest blog written by Beverly Doraty, Communications Consultant & Project Manager at Ingenium. Last week I celebrated 11 years of working at Ingenium. 11 years of working for an entrepreneur. 11 years on a team that while small in size, could rival the biggest company in ability, creativity and camaraderie. 11 years […]
If you’re a communications professional, I’m willing to bet that you’ve come up against what I call the “Goldilocks effect”. That is, working with internal or external clients who can’t or won’t articulate what they want, but rather will only share what they don’t want. You know the drill: This one’s too hot. This one’s too cold. This is […]
“Successful organizations need to be managed as complex adaptive systems rather than as intricate controlled machines” This wisdom is part of Amy Edmondson’s excellent work Teaming: How Organizations Learn, Innovate and Compete in the Knowledge Economy. Edmondson provides a refreshing update on management theory and connects those principles to the realities of leading organizational performance […]
As a communications strategist, one of the cold hard facts that I face is that most communications strategies fail – that is, that they never get implemented. And yet, my experience is that a solid communications strategy (particularly one developed through a robust consultative process) can have a transformative impact on an organization`s results. This […]
I have been a consultant for my entire career – first, as an internal consultant providing communications advice to the organizations I served as an employee, and for the last 14 years, as a professional consultant in communications and change management. Looking back on my experience as both an internal and external consultant, what strikes […]
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