How to hit the ground running and then keep your balance

By Chris Hipwell

Many of us have experienced the feeling of being parachuted into a new company or project where we’re expected to produce results in short order, under pressure, to near impossible deadlines and with rather too little resource or preparation. It’s the stuff of what we do; we’re brought in to provide the communications expertise and perspective that a company cannot necessarily provide for itself. All too often, it’s to fill a gap, intervene in a crisis, keep a project running in someone else’s absence, or mastermind a particularly delicate or potentially risky project

So consequently you have to hit the ground running, head towards the muck and bullets, fight alongside people you’ve not met before AND dodge the ‘friendly’ fire, all without the time even to pack the parachute away or have a hot meal.  

Sound familiar? Well, military metaphors aside, what can we do to help ourselves survive and even thrive in such a work situation?  What techniques and practices can we employ so that we succeed to our own high standards and to those of the client?  Let me offer my experiences and learnings from a recent assignment in a large Financial services company which needed short-notice help with a major HR project.  

Under three headings - strategic, practical and personal - I’ve grouped some approaches or attitudes which I found helpful – or which, with hindsight, I wish I’d adopted.  Some are obvious, some are not, but all are ones I think you’ll recognise as useful in a variety of situations in which you may find yourself.

The Strategic

1. Get under the skin of the subject

To be confident about communicating, you need to be confident about the subject. However surprised you are to find yourself in investment banking/pharmaceuticals/petroleum products etc, take on the essence of the content as soon as you can so that you can argue with conviction, and bring others along with you. Telling people that you’re only the communicator robs you of all conviction and devalues the profession. (See ‘Never Say’ below).  You won’t be asked to deliver a half-hour treatise on the subject, but you will need to sound convincing about the basics in the context of the communications you’re delivering. 

To get under the skin of a subject, find a notable sceptic in the company and try to win them round over a cup of coffee. Ask the basics of the people who know:

•    Why are we doing this?

•    Why are we doing this now? 

•    Who doesn’t think it’s a good idea and why? 

•    What’s at stake?

•    Is the company reputation at risk, and how can we minimise that? 

Most importantly, don’t be intimidated; if you think you’re asking a dumb question, you can bet a sizeable number of your eventual audience will be asking the same. Which makes it not dumb at all.

In any event, be sure to avoid the following no-no’s, or ‘never says’ as I call them, when communicating to your client:

“Don’t shoot me I’m only the messenger.”

“I’m afraid we can’t do that,” or, even worse; “I’m afraid that can’t be done.”

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

“I’m sorry I’m not able to share that with you.”

"You're not our only client, you know..."

2. Get with the beat

To effect change, you have to communicate actively with core, authoritative messages. As a key communicator you need to have access to the facts as near to first hand as possible. We all know that communication suffers along the ‘Chinese Whispers’ principle;  the more people there are in the chain, the more unfocused the message gets.  So communications people have every reason to want to be as high up that chain as they can. 

Wanting to be at the heart of things is a perfectly natural instinct for a communicator. That’s a good place to be if you want to get at the unvarnished truth, to hear the messages unfiltered.  You’re more likely to find out why something’s important for the company if you are sitting down with key players around the table. And if there’s not a seat for you there, ring them up, take them for a coffee (this could be getting expensive) or ‘accidentally’ bump into them in a lift or corridor.

3. The human touch

Remember while communicating, it’s about people and relationships much more than it is about processes and technologies.  Machines won’t solve problems of their own accord, people will. Work out who you need to do most business with, and cultivate good relationships there. Who can you call on who will call a spade a spade, and help keep you on the straight and narrow?  Make your motivations clear; you’re not doing this to achieve promotion, or make people’s life difficult for the sake of it; it’s to serve the business better and the people who work there.

The Practical

1. Work out the meetings you need to be in and then get into them, somehow. Ignore the non-essential ones, but cultivate a good source to tell you what went on there. Don’t be afraid to call your own meeting from scratch; in that way lies respect.  And the conference call is a simple and brilliant way to keep abreast of what’s going on without hauling people into one room.  So get the dial-in and PIN numbers ready to be able to set one up whenever you want.

2. Get and use the latest contact list.  The simple act of being able to contact who you want, when you want, how you want, is probably more important than any other single skill.  And you’ll be amazed how often you end up supplying other people’s requests for contacts.

3. Be visible, but don’t take over.  Your physical presence speaks volumes about how much you care about, and are in touch with, the issues.  Make sure you have sufficient office space (preferably open-plan), but don’t abuse it.  Be thoughtful, fill up the stapler, return that chair you borrowed, AND buy the coffees, (this is getting to be an addiction). Works every time. 

4. Date and version every document you produce.  Endless confusion will be avoided if it’s clear what version of your precious Powerpoint presentation people are handling and who the source was.

The Personal

1. Develop a Teflon coating if under criticism, or if someone has a go at you or your project. Even if it feels personal, it won’t help to take it that way. Remember you won’t be working there forever, and that you are being paid to be resilient.  And rise up above office politics; you don’t need to be in that space at all.

2.Look like you’re enjoying it.  If you look interested by what you’re doing, there’s more chance of someone else feeling that way too.  

3. Try to under-react just a bit to things that other people consider to be sudden problems/crises/matters of life and death.  You’ll think clearer that way, and give an air that there’s no problem either that you can’t deal with, or haven’t come across before.  But don’t under-react to the extent that you don’t appear to care.  Simply deal with it – quietly and quickly.  I like the wartime poster motto that appeared everywhere during the Blitz: Keep Calm and Carry On. 

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About Chris Hipwell

Chris had an extensive journalistic and communications career in the BBC, concluding with a role managing both corporate and divisional communications. Crises and business continuity issues were the order of the day and have given him invaluable insight and experience of a large and complex organisation and of how people are the greatest asset an organisation can have.

Chris formed his own Limited Company January 2007 and secured an Interim role at HM Revenue and Customs as Senior Communications Consultant. He designed and led an extensive senior leader engagement programme over a period of two years. Achieving considerable success, this ‘Leading the Way’ initiative has provided direction, promoted discussion and understanding, and instilled confidence in an extended group of senior leaders across the Department.  Chris’s most recent assignment took him to a major financial services organisation, leading the team launching their HR harmonisation project.