If there’s one paradox in internal communication it’s this: it often takes longer to get something signed off for internal use than it does for an external audience.
Why is that, when ultimately, you’re communicating with colleagues who know you warts-and-all already?
At a time when we’re all talking about trust, wouldn’t it be better to just… trust the writer, the audience, the response?
So, how refreshing it is when we hear of an organisation whose approach to approvals is more efficient.
At Ryanair, the airline’s IC manager James O’Connor explains, “things don’t have to go through ten rounds of approvals, and they don’t have to sit with a panel of people before they get signed off.”
The aim? “To keep things moving.”
It’s the same approach the company takes to keeping their 600-strong fleet of aircraft flying dot-to-dot between 37 different countries. And what a refreshing translation to an IC playbook.
Cutting the approvals process in half would no doubt save a lot of IC teams a long-haul flight’s worth of time.
So how does James do it?
The answer is to take a sensible approach to perfection.
Perfection, James told Katie, is not a one-size-fits-all attitude, but rather about asking what perfect means for each project.
“[The details of] our operating procedures are flawless – our safety too,” says James. But when it comes to a lot of their IC work, “the perfection is in the timing.”
James talks about how his work competes with Instagram and X. And if you’re not jumping on something straight away, you’ve missed it.
Great lighting is nice. But if you’ve missed the moment, a perfectly lit five-minute video of your CEO reading from a pre-prepared script is pointless.
His leaders see the sense. And James and his team get things out asap.
And, if things don’t go quite to plan and they put something out that has a small mistake in it? “We learn for next time,” he says. “And next time is always better.”
“Step outside your ego and be yourself,” he adds.
Remember, we’re all on the same side.
Listen to episode #125 of the Internal Comms Podcast, Ryanair’s exercise in efficiency.
