Coworker Advocacy: How To Adjust Corporate Narratives

How do you approach cowork­er advocacy?

Ensuring cowork­er advocacy is easi­er said than done. As a com­mu­nic­at­or, get­ting your col­leagues to under­stand, appre­ci­ate, and engage in cor­por­ate com­mu­nic­a­tion has always been a tall order.

Forcing or coer­cing cowork­ers into promp­ted advocacy is often uneth­ic­al, some­times even illeg­al — and gen­er­ally a bad idea regard­ing the actu­al outcomes.

And set­tling for just explain­ing the value of com­mu­nic­a­tion to non-com­mu­nic­a­tion pro­fes­sion­als is often a vain pursuit.

There must be anoth­er way to encour­age cowork­er advocacy.

The Sales Analogy

In a com­pany, who is respons­ible for sales?

“The CEO” would, of course, be a per­fectly reas­on­able answer. If a busi­ness ain’t selling, the CEO must be held accountable.

The CEO, in turn, might look to the Head of Sales. The Head of Sales must pro­duce res­ults and report back to the CEO. The Head of Sales might look to the Sales Department to share the burden. 

But what if HR was respons­ible for recruit­ing the Head of Sales — and the whole sales team? Isn’t, then, HR respons­ible for sales per­form­ance as well? If HR does a lousy job recruit­ing, don’t they share at least a little responsibility? 

What about cowork­ers work­ing with order ful­fil­ment in some capa­city? The best sales pitch argu­ably has a sat­is­fied cus­tom­er refer­ring new cus­tom­ers. So, isn’t a product- and ser­vice deliv­ery a cru­cial com­pon­ent of long-term sales suc­cess? Again, a per­fectly reas­on­able assumption.

What about cus­tom­er ser­vice? And what about all oth­er sup­port func­tions ensur­ing cus­tom­er sat­is­fac­tion and oper­a­tion­al excel­lence? What about research- and devel­op­ment? Aren’t R&D crit­ic­al to even hav­ing products or ser­vices worth selling?

The short answer is: Yes, they are. They all are. 

Communication and coworker advocacy

The logic seems clear. In any busi­ness ven­ture, every­one is respons­ible for sales. Each cowork­er car­ries the respons­ib­il­ity — albeit at vary­ing degrees and in dif­fer­ent ways! — but they all do. 

Most busi­ness-minded pro­fes­sion­als get this intu­it­ively. No mat­ter their role in the busi­ness, they under­stand that the com­pany must make money to make payroll. Some roles struggle with prov­ing their worth con­cern­ing the sales pro­cess, but even these people under­stand the import­ance of sales. 

Now — let’s flip the nar­rat­ive over to communication.

Oops.

Communication is typ­ic­ally one of those func­tions in an organ­isa­tion where it’s chal­len­ging to demon­strate a dir­ect effect on the bot­tom line. Still, the CEO is respons­ible for how the busi­ness com­mu­nic­ates and the Head of Communication is typ­ic­ally held account­able — and so is the Communication Department. 

But from here, the logic often breaks down.

Communication is Everyone’s Concern

Like everything in a busi­ness relates to sales, everything a busi­ness does or says is com­mu­nic­a­tion. Selling is in itself a highly spe­cif­ic and tar­geted form of com­mu­nic­a­tion. Leadership is a form of com­mu­nic­a­tion. Products or ser­vices are in them­selves communication. 

In short, com­mu­nic­a­tion con­cerns every­one and everything in a busi­ness. However, many cowork­ers can­not see their part in the com­mu­nic­a­tion process.

Whereas cowork­ers under­stand that a busi­ness must make money to make payroll, many think of com­mu­nic­a­tions as the sole respons­ib­il­ity of the Communication Department. This is a slip­pery slope. 

A few people, often near the top, might care greatly about com­mu­nic­a­tion — while the rest of the organ­isa­tion does­n’t. The res­ult is top-down com­mu­nic­a­tion intern­ally and con­flict­ing mes­sages extern­ally. this is a recipe for quickly erod­ing cowork­er and cus­tom­er trust. And this is how busi­nesses become stale, and brand val­ues are giv­en a false echo. 

It’s a tox­ic brew, to be sure. 

A Specific Communication Problem

Overall, this type of chal­lenge is unique to com­mu­nic­a­tions and HR. 

The leg­al depart­ment, for instance, does­n’t have this prob­lem; cowork­ers intu­it­ively under­stand that they are indi­vidu­ally respons­ible to com­ply with laws and reg­u­la­tions. Most cowork­ers know that they can­’t just dis­miss com­pli­ance with, “that’s some­thing for the leg­al depart­ment to deal with; it’s not my concern.” 

Marketing, too, gets a free pass due to its close rela­tion­ship to dir­ect sales.

What about non-profit organ­isa­tions, then? For non-profits, com­mu­nic­a­tion often becomes the most cru­cial tool to achieve organ­isa­tion­al suc­cess. In such set­tings, the nar­rat­ive that “com­mu­nic­a­tion is the sole respons­ib­il­ity of the com­mu­nic­a­tions depart­ment” becomes even more detrimental. 

So, how can com­mu­nic­a­tions address the issue of cowork­ers not see­ing them­selves as par­ti­cip­at­ory and respons­ible for the over­all com­mu­nic­a­tion of the com­pany or organisation? 

Tenets of Coworker Advocacy

The first insight is often the most over­looked: Few cowork­ers have been briefed on their actu­al role in advocacy.

Because let’s face it — advocacy is rarely clear for any­one except the CEO. 

Is it about answer­ing emails promptly? Is it about respect­ing and par­ti­cip­at­ing in activ­it­ies cre­ated by the com­mu­nic­a­tion depart­ment? Is it about keep­ing up to date with the latest PowerPoint out­lining “core val­ues” and “elev­at­or pitches”? Is it about act­ively shar­ing the organ­isa­tion’s stor­ies on social media? Or is it about some infringe­ment on free­dom of speech to get every­one speak­ing in uni­son for the organ­isa­tion’s great­er good? 

Well, no. That’s not how cowork­er advocacy works.

Communication brings some­thing that oth­er organ­isa­tion­al func­tions can­not bring to the table — authenticity.

Your cowork­ers might be at fault for not recog­nising their com­mu­nic­a­tion respons­ib­il­it­ies, but for­cing com­pli­ance will only make them less use­ful as advoc­ates for the organisation.

Without authen­ti­city, all com­mu­nic­a­tion breaks down. 

Coworker Advocacy = Culture and Leadership

It’s simple:

Coworkers must want to be great com­mu­nic­at­ors.
Coworkers must want to go the extra mile. 

They want to endorse their work­place, products, and ser­vices — not because they care about their employ­er, but because they care about their friends. 

“Communication is a skill that you can learn. It’s like rid­ing a bicycle or typ­ing. If you’re will­ing to work at it, you can rap­idly improve the qual­ity of every part of your life.”
— Brian Tracy

For authen­t­ic advocacy, cowork­ers must be invited, engaged, and promp­ted. But nev­er coerced or ordered. And estab­lish­ing such a cul­ture is a lead­er­ship challenge.

In con­crete terms, lead­ers and com­mu­nic­at­ors must give their cowork­ers an authen­t­ic and inspir­ing way of talk­ing about the organisation.

If cowork­ers neg­lect their respons­ib­il­it­ies as advoc­ates, they’re not on board with the cur­rent narrative.

Adjusting the Cultural Narrative

To adjust these nar­rat­ives and pro­mote a more open mind­set towards com­mu­nic­a­tion, I’d sug­gest using this framework:

Authenticity > Culture > Collaboration > Accountability > Maturity

Authenticity: What’s the actu­al nar­rat­ive? There might be an idea that com­mu­nic­a­tion is already a cost and the rest of the organ­isa­tion should be shiel­ded from fur­ther waste. In a way, these cowork­ers are “pro­tect­ing” the organisation.

Culture: How do we change the nar­rat­ive? To replace an exist­ing nar­rat­ive, cowork­ers deserve a bet­ter nar­rat­ive that works bet­ter for them than the exist­ing one. “I am a sales­per­son and a bet­ter com­mu­nic­at­or than my competitors.”

Collaboration: How do we rein­force the nar­rat­ive? Coworkers must get nar­rat­ive-spe­cif­ic train­ing which is highly enga­ging and reward­ing — and a safe space for prac­tic­al experimentation. 

Accountability: How do you sup­port the nar­rat­ive? Coworkers must get pos­it­ive feed­back that is dir­ect and clear whenev­er the new nar­rat­ive is applied suc­cess­fully. Positive rein­force­ments typ­ic­ally work best.

Maturity: How well do our nar­rat­ives work? The organ­isa­tion must meas­ure com­mu­nic­a­tion matur­ity to meas­ure pro­gress and identi­fy new or emer­ging harm­ful narratives.

Thank you to Catrin Johansson, Professor in Organizational Communication at Mid Sweden University and Co-Founder of KIX Communication Index, for valu­able feed­back on this blog post.

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Bonus Resource: The Social Objects Workshop (SOW)