Alice Nagle
- More than 20 years experience working in corporate communications, including 10 years with AT&T, 12 years with Cisco, and, most recently, as a consultant advising senior executives in high tech, from startups to Fortune 100 companies.
- Areas of expertise include coaching senior leaders on brand and executive presence, communications strategy, strategic messaging, presentation development and public speaking.
- Experience in coaching and mentoring includes co-authoring a book with career advice for young women to be published Fall 2014.
- With a Master's degree in journalism from Northwestern University, emphasizes simple, clear communications to achieve greater impact.
- All 7 Best Practices
- Pre-Meeting Discovery Process
- One-on-One Call with Expert
- Meeting Summary Report
- Post-Meeting Engagement
Executive Communications - Strategies for Connecting Internally with your Employees
Key Trends
- Companies are embracing the idea of developing a company narrative.
Many companies are creating an umbrella story, known as a narrative, that guides communications and marketing messaging. The narrative is more of a general business story than technical story; it's relatable, interesting, and distinguishes a company from its competitors.
- "Storytelling" is becoming an emphasis in corporate communications.
- This is connected with the previous trend. Much of communications today is about about telling an interesting story and connecting it to everyday experiences to share with customers, vendors, employees and the public. It's not about saying, “We sell data centers,” or, “We're your phone company.” It's more about connecting the products and services your company delivers to the everyday experiences of how people live their lives.
- Executive communications is becoming a standardized role within corporate communications.
Executive communications didn't exist 15 years ago. It's a relatively new discipline. Typically, the role is a manager, senior manager or director dedicated to one or several executives (senior vice president and above) with responsibility for developing that executive's platform, internal and external communications strategy, and day-to-day communications activities. It's becoming more of a standardized communications role for companies, especially larger companies.
- The metrics for communications have become more varied and measurable.
Twenty-five years ago, communications metrics were fairly straightforward: budget and reach (for example, number of media impressions or number of newsletter readers). Today, communications metrics are much more robust. They include employee productivity, engagement and retention; operational efficiency; and global social media impact.
- Control has become an illusion.
- When I started at AT&T 20+ years ago, there was a sense that you had a fair amount of control over corporate communications It's was a one-way distribution model and you could control the message and the channel. In today's world, it's a multi-directional distribution model. With social media, employees, customers, partners, analysts, thought leaders and the competition can all be communicating about your company simultaneously 24/7. You have less control. You have to be an active listener, and both a passive and reactive communicator.
- Communications is becoming a key strategic asset.
Today, communications is perceived as a strategic asset in a company. The function:
- Influences the brand and corporate reputation.
- Manages communications to all stakeholders who have an impact on a company's success.
- Communicates the company vision, mission, priorities, goals and culture to employees and other audiences.
- Takes an influential role during a crisis.