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Veteran communications leader Mark Dollins joins “On The Same Page” as co-host. Mark and Shel address the “voice” leadership applies internally, as opposed to (or consistent with) the voice they employ with external stakeholders. Should it be the same? How different? What considerations drive the inside-the-company voice? And why does it matter?
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Learn more about Mark at his LinkedIn profile and at the website of his consulting firm, Northstar Communications.
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Raw transcript:
Shel Holtz: So, Mark, an executive’s voice. I’m curious: In your experience, do you find that executives use the same voice with internal stakeholders as they do with external stakeholders?
Mark Dollins: I think in most cases, they do not, and that’s actually a great point for us to talk about—why that is. Because when an executive uses one voice on the outside and changes it on the inside, people know, and they want to know why. It sounds incongruous to them.
So I don’t think executives do it all the time. Sometimes it happens naturally, and sometimes I think it’s intentional, so we should talk about that.
Shel: When I’m talking to my wife, it’s a different tone of voice than when I’m talking to, say, my accountant. Is it inappropriate to talk differently to investors than to employees?
Mark: Is it inappropriate? Probably not. But you have to really think about the nuance of the tone, because people know when they’re being “messaged,” and internal stakeholders don’t want to feel like they’re being messaged. They also want it straight.
They’re going to hear a lot of the financial implications from the external stakeholder version of the story. What I find is that often those things aren’t included in the internal communication. There’s almost an assumption that internal stakeholders aren’t listening to or aware of what’s happening externally. That’s a problem.
Shel: Hi, everybody, and welcome to Episode 5 of On The Same Page. I am Shel Holtz. I’m Senior Director of Communications at Webcor. We’re a commercial general contractor operating in California and headquartered in San Francisco.
And I would like to introduce you all to the new co-host of On The Same Page, Mark Dollins. Mark, it is awesome to have you here.
Mark: Shel, thank you. I feel like there should be confetti and a marching band, but thank you for that introduction. I am honored to co-host this with you. I’m really excited about it.
Shel: I think we’re going to have a great time and cover a lot.
I want people to get to know you a bit before we jump into this topic of finding your leader’s voice—and, in fact, even your own voice—for internal stakeholders.
You and I met—I can’t remember how long ago this was—but it was in Chicago at what was then Quaker, which was owned by Pepsi. You were VP of internal communications at Pepsi. That’s where we got to know each other. It was through Sharon McIntosh, who brought me in at the time.
But tell people about yourself. What has been your career trajectory?
Mark: The big picture is that I started as a journalist. I worked for ABC News in Washington and then went to the Midwest as a newspaper reporter for a couple of years. I couldn’t make enough of a living to support myself, so that’s what brought me to the world of corporate communications.
I spent 10 years in gas and electric utilities—a lot of fires, gas explosions, power outages. After all that, it was a lot more fun talking about Cap’n Crunch and Rice-A-Roni, so that’s what brought me to the world of consumer packaged goods, with Quaker Oats Company in Chicago.
I loved working at Quaker. Quaker became part of PepsiCo in 2001, and I did a couple of stints back and forth. I ended up being their chief communication officer for food, so Frito-Lay in addition to all the Quaker and other food products in the portfolio. Then I was their chief communication officer for the beverage division as well.
From there, I began my consultancy. I got pulled back into the corporate world and ran executive and global employee communications for DuPont as it went through a $130 billion merger with Dow in 2017.
So there was a lot of change communication, which we’ll talk about at some point in this series. Then I went back to consulting. Now I’m doing work in employee and change communications, and employee engagement is really where I’ve found my sweet spot. I have a great love, passion, and expertise in this area, and there’s nobody better than you to partner with to talk about it.
Shel: It’s going to be great. You’ve also written a book that I really enjoyed.
Mark: You mean these?
Shel: Yeah, the ones on the wall behind you.
Mark: Yes. I partnered with John Stemmle at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. I’m an adjunct there as well these days and have been teaching a class based on this book, Engaging Employees Through Strategic Communication.
The first edition came out in 2021, and the second edition just came out a few months ago this year. I’m really excited to have added new case studies and a few new chapters, including one on artificial intelligence and how employee communicators are beginning to use it in lots of different ways, and another new chapter on crisis communication.
So there are lots of new things. It’s constantly evolving, and I think we’ll be doing a third edition before you know it.
Shel: And I know that you also do a survey on the use of AI for internal communications.
Mark: We’re about to release our fourth consecutive annual study on AI and communications, specifically looking at it through the lens of employee communicators: how we’re using it both for productivity and for more strategic applications, and what our attitudes are toward it.
There have been lots of changes in four years, as you might imagine, so I’m excited to talk a little bit about that at some point as well.
Shel: In fact, for listeners to this podcast who also listen to For Immediate Release, Mark is going to be talking about that survey on an FIR interview coming up in, I think, just a couple of weeks.
Mark: I think we’re recording it next week, Shel, so I can’t wait to talk about it.
Shel: I know Neville and I are both looking forward to that as well.
One more thing about you personally before we start talking business. In your personal life, I know that you’re into wrestling.
Mark: I am. They have Masters tennis and Masters swimming, and they actually have Masters wrestling as well. I’ve been active in that space for about the last 10 years or so. I wrestled in high school and college. I coach. I also just got my Gold Level certification from USA Wrestling.
It’s their highest level of coaching certification. I went with the Under-23 national team to the Pan American Championships a couple of months ago, and then helped run a development camp at the Olympic Training Center for under-18-year-olds.
So my coaching journey continues, as does my athletic and competition journey in wrestling. I love it. It’s a lot of fun.
Shel: Great. People should get to know you better as we carry on with this podcast over the months.
But let’s talk about this idea of voice. In my framework, I think it fits very nicely in a couple of places. One is consultation, as we work with executives to help them become better communicators. I also think it fits really well with the channels we use. If executives are a channel for communicating, they have to do that effectively, and we need to manage that channel.
Mark: And we need to help other communicators. If you work in executive communications, there are ways now to accelerate your drafting process and put content more into a comfortable voice that works both for you as the counselor and coach, and for your executive, who needs to find his or her voice and stick to it.
I’ve spent some time working with CEO types on how to do exactly that. Anything we can do to help our colleagues advance their productivity, become more efficient, and get better at supporting their executives—while still preserving their role as coach—I think would be helpful.
Shel: I went looking for examples of an executive employing a great voice with internal stakeholders and then an example of executives not doing it so well.
The positive example I found is Brian Chesky, the CEO of Airbnb. This is not an obscure example.
This was around a layoff in 2020. It was really awful news that he was delivering. They were eliminating nearly 2,000 jobs, about 25 percent of the company.
His May 5 employee message was very human. It didn’t sound like somebody had crafted it. He explained what the business circumstances were. He talked about the uncomfortable truths concerning the future of travel. This was just as COVID was sending people home.
He explained how the company decided which jobs they were going to eliminate. He laid out the principles that guided the cuts, and then he gave an extraordinary amount of detail about severance, equity, healthcare, and job assistance.
And he was willing to say that he felt real emotion—a real connection to the people with whom they were having to part ways.
That could have sounded mawkish in some other CEO’s remarks. But in the context of their culture and everything else in the message, it sounded like him. It was very authentic.
Authenticity, I think, matters a lot in how an executive talks to employees.
Mark: I agree, Shel. The thing is, a lot of executives don’t have that authenticity naturally when they’re communicating to large audiences.
If you’re talking to them one-on-one, they’re as authentic as they can be. But you put a couple more people in front of them, or they’re talking in front of thousands, and all of a sudden—if they’re shy or struggle to find a tone that fits the situation—it becomes more than apparent. You think, “Okay, this person is either not telling the truth, or they’re just a crappy communicator.”
That’s where the role of an executive communications coach comes in. We’re the ones helping them by saying, “Gosh, that feels a little stiff. Let’s use this technique to help you come across more naturally.”
There’s the tone—making sure it’s transparent—and then there’s the content, to your point. Are we actually moving the needle with content that’s believable and transparent?
Or are we sugarcoating it? Are we telling one thing to shareholders—“Hey, we’re taking a $130 million charge. We’re going to cut 13,000 jobs,” or whatever it’s going to be—and then the internal message is, “We’re going to try to save as many jobs as possible”?
It’s incongruous, and employees pick up on that very quickly. That’s not transparent. It’s just bad practice.
Shel: It’s funny. I met somebody who was in a room with Hillary Clinton—just a small group of three or four people and Hillary Clinton—and this person said she was absolutely shocked at what a great communicator she was, how warm she was, how conversational and authentic.
She said, “I’ve seen her speak so many times. I was expecting this distant, cold, on-message sort of person.” But that’s not what she was like in person.
So it is important to work with executives so that they can convey what they’re like in front of one person or a small group when they’re talking to hundreds or thousands.
Mark: Yes. And I’ll tell you someplace where I see this popping up more. There are examples where that authenticity and care for internal stakeholders are brought into an external environment.
You and I both know that employees today are getting information from their companies and their leaders on channels like LinkedIn as much as they are on their internal channels. They’re watching. They’re listening. They’re reading that kind of stuff.
A couple of examples: I’ve been working with Pittsburgh International Airport. Their CEO makes it a point, every time she’s talking about what’s happening at the airport, to acknowledge the hard work of her team members and internal teams. They just built and opened a beautiful $1.8 billion terminal there, but every time she’s out talking to stakeholders, she acknowledges the hard work her team members have done to make that happen.
Another example is Signet Jewelers. They own Jared, Kay, and Zales. Their CEO, J.K. Symancyk, when he’s doing quarterly earnings, talking to CNBC, or doing something on LinkedIn, invariably talks about the contributions of their team members.
That’s authentic. Our job in helping and coaching executives is to say, “Make sure you don’t forget that,” because in the heat of the moment—maybe it’s live broadcast TV—putting a little note or even a sticky note that says “team members” is a great way to help them bring that authentic voice forward so it doesn’t come across as scripted and unbelievable.
It sends a huge message of authenticity to internal stakeholders: “Yeah, you had a great quarter. Yay, shareholders. But don’t forget who actually made that happen. That’s us—the people behind the scenes doing the work.”
So I’m a big believer in not forgetting the channels that cross over, and in providing that kind of coaching to an executive leader to ensure his or her voice comes across as appreciative of the hard work of the company—but more importantly, the people behind it.
Shel: Do you remember Jacques Nasser by any chance?
He was with Ford Motor Company, and he would send an email to employees—I think it was monthly. I read about this in a Fortune magazine article. It had to be 20 or 25 years ago.
He would not let anybody review it. Not his communicators, not his lawyers, not HR. He said, “I want this to be me, unfiltered, straight to the employees. I don’t care if there are typos. I don’t care if I say something you don’t want me to say. I’m willing to risk that in order to be completely unfiltered and authentic.”
They told a story about one of these emails where he said, “I know there’s a lot going on in the company, and I should be talking about what’s happening at work. My daughter is graduating from high school this afternoon, and that’s all I can think about. So I want to tell you all about my daughter and everything she’s done in her school career.”
He got notes of congratulations from union shop stewards.
But I think he is an exception to the rule. I don’t think being unfiltered and being authentic are necessarily the same thing.
I think executive voice is disciplined authenticity.
Mark: I agree.
I’m going to jump a little bit to a different topic: how you find that voice.
I worked with the CEO of a major company in the last 12 months who couldn’t really describe his voice. I said, “Tell me what you think your voice is.”
I went through a lot of things that were publicly available, and I ran them through some reviews using what we’ll call artificial intelligence. It was able to help me identify things like tone, pacing, timbre, word choice, and things like that.
Then I was able to go back to the CEO and say, “Is this how you would describe your voice? Does that feel right?” And I had specific examples pulled forward.
“Yeah, that sounds like me. That sounds like me. That doesn’t really sound like me.”
So it was interesting to arrive at a definition of what that voice was.
The purpose was, first, to get alignment with him, but also to help the executive communications professionals working with him. They were having a really tough time getting him a first draft that was close to his voice.
The content was roughly okay, but the voice was all wrong.
So there are ways of doing this. It’s about helping executives recognize and reflect on what their voice is and what works for them. Then sometimes you have to say, “Yeah, it might work for you in some cases, but it’s not so great in others. You’re pretty stiff, so let’s come up with some agreements about how we can fix this.”
You still retain what works for them and their voice, but add some nuances that let you polish it and make it work for other stakeholders.
Shel: One of the problems is that we tend to try to label an executive’s voice with adjectives, right?
“You’re approachable. You’re conversational.”
I think you need to get more detailed than that. You need to ask questions like: Does this executive explain why before saying what? Do they use stories or evidence? Do they acknowledge uncertainty? Are they funny or self-deprecating? How do they sound when they’re taking responsibility for things?
Mark: How often do they say “team”?
Shel: Exactly. What would they never say?
Then you bring all of that together and ask, “Is this your voice?”
If you’re going to use AI to help with this, those are the kinds of things you have to feed it. These are words they use all the time. These are words they never use. These are the approaches they take to supporting a point they’re making.
Mark: And the world is changing constantly.
It could be a new CEO who comes from outside the company. It could be a very senior-level person who has moved into a CEO role and needs to refine that voice because maybe what worked in the previous role doesn’t work as a CEO.
We have to keep those things in mind as we provide that counsel and coaching: “Okay, you have a great voice for this, but you know what? You’ve got a whole new world here that you have to work with. Let’s talk about how we can refine that and make it work for all the stakeholders, including internal employees, whom we have to reach and who have to believe in us.”
Shel: One thought before we wrap this episode up: It doesn’t matter what the executive’s voice is if what they say does not align with what they do.
They can be heartfelt, and they can get choked up when they’re talking to employees. But if their behavior is inconsistent with that, that is a failure of integrity.
That creates a say-do gap.
Mark: We’ve seen examples of that, right? People who want you to believe, “I’m open, transparent, and a decent human being,” and yet they do conference calls or send out a blanket email to fire 35,000 people at once.
I’m not really seeing the connection there.
You’re right. Their actions have to be consistent with how they want to be seen.
Shel: By the way, you mentioned bad layoffs. I had said I found an example of an executive doing this badly.
Vishal Garg, with Better.com, laid off 900 people at the same time. He invited them all to a Zoom call—this was in December 2021—and told them they were part of the unlucky group whose employment was being terminated.
Then he accused some of the terminated employees of stealing from the company by being unproductive.
There was considerable backlash, so much so that he had to apologize for failing to show respect and appreciation. The board actually announced a leadership and cultural assessment as a result.
That’s what executive voice looks like when it goes badly wrong.
Mark: Not a lot of love shown there.
I think a lot of people are familiar with that story, but it’s good to be reminded that this is real stuff that happens. It makes you wonder: Was there an internal or executive communication person even there in the room?
And if so, was he or she ignored?
There’s a lot of Monday-morning quarterbacking about that stuff, but you just wonder: How the heck does that happen?
Shel: You have to believe either there was no communications perspective in the room or it wasn’t listened to.
This is why I think we have to talk about the “seat at the table,” even though I get really sick of that conversation.
Mark: Me too, Shel. We definitely have to talk about that.
AI is a great example of where people are saying, “Yeah, we never get a seat at the table.”
And I’m thinking, “You have no idea the opportunity that is in front of you right now, this very second.”
Shel: We’ll definitely do an episode on that.
But that’ll do it for this episode. I hope listeners will send us your comments and questions. Just head over to firpodcastnetwork.com and find the show. You’ll get all the information on how to comment.
And until next time, Mark, this has been great. I’m really looking forward to continuing this.
Mark: I’m loving it. What a great partner. Thanks, y’all. I look forward to continuing this journey with you.
The post OTSP #5: Finding Your Leader’s Voice for Internal Stakeholders appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.