Katie 00:04
Hello, and welcome to The Internal Comms Podcast with me, Katie Macaulay. If you’re passionate about how to truly involve, inspire and energise employees, you’re in the right place. Every fortnight I sit down with a leading comms practitioner, author, consultant, or academic. And together, we explore ways to improve communication at work. For this episode, we have not one, or two, but three esteemed guests. Now I’m sure most listeners will probably know a little about McKinsey. Founded in 1926, the firm is the oldest and largest of the strategic management consultancies. However, listeners may be surprised to learn the firm has a dedicated communications practice that serves clients on their change, transformation, and growth journeys. Today, we are joined by three members of that practice, Andi Almond, David Honigmann, and Eric Sherman. All three of you work with global communication leaders on their strategic and change communication efforts, and have a deep, holistic understanding of the comms space. So, I am delighted to have you here today. Thank you so much for joining me. Andi, I’m gonna start with you if that’s okay; you’re the leader of the practice. So, can you tell us a little bit more about the team and the work that you do?

Andi 01:42
Absolutely. And thank you, Katie. It’s so nice to be here with you today. I am the global leader of our communications practice working alongside David and Eric. We have a group of about 30 communications experts spread across the globe. And as you said, our team partners with clients to help them drive their change, transformation and growth agendas. That means everything from creating clear and compelling narratives to energising stakeholders, communications strategy that meets audiences where they are, and developing the roadmaps to sustain momentum and engagement over time. We’re really looking in our engagements to create that seamless link between the overall strategy and aspiration of the company and the communications to reinforce that plan.

Katie 02:31
Just one point of clarification I’d be fascinated to know about, does your work always mean that you’re partnering with other McKinsey colleagues as part of another initiative? Or sometimes is it purely a communications project?

Andi 02:48
That’s a great question. In general, we partner with other McKinsey strategy teams. And so that’s one of the things that’s really wonderful about our practice is we can work seamlessly across all of the efforts that are going on in a transformation at an organisation to win hearts and minds and help make that transformation successful. There’s a great piece of research that our firm did, which is all about the notion of treating the soft stuff as the hard stuff. So, we can come in and partner alongside our consultants who are doing some more of that hard stuff and make sure that we’re thinking about the soft stuff in tow.

Katie 03:25
We hear this phrase a lot, don’t we that change is constant now. We live in a world of constant change. What’s top of mind for business leaders today in your experience? And what are the implications of these issues for us as comms professionals?

Andi 03:41
You’re totally right, Katie, I feel like that old cliche that the only constant is change has never been more true, right? I think it’s fair to say that the landscape has changed more in the last five years than in the previous 50. And if we take a step back for a moment, it’s important to take that holistic view and just understand the forces that are shaping businesses today. I’m sure it’s something your listeners are always focused on as communications professionals, because it’s so important to have that context top of mind.

Andi 04:11
Organisations now are navigating so much the ongoing ripple effects of operating in a post-COVID world, geopolitical shocks, the rise of Gen AI, of course, the race to net zero, new ways of working, hybrid, in person, the list goes on. And you could really say that any one of those would be an industry defining issue, but they’re all happening at the same time. So organisations need to be resilient not only to try and weather the storm and come out successfully, but to transform and lead in the process. And I think that offers some interesting opportunities for communications leaders from our vantage point, I’d say there’s probably three themes that we see as organisations navigate that uncertainty, and disruption for communications leaders.

Andi 05:04
So first, the communications leader really serves as the voice of the leadership team. And perhaps more than anyone, communications leaders need to really inhabit the mindset of the CEO and top team to understand translate and bring that voice and effectively communicate the company’s aspiration on both a broad and narrow scale.

Andi 05:27
Secondly, the communications leader can be an acute sensor. I’m sure David will talk about this more. But in an era of context collapse, internal and external walls are porous, there’s just no boundaries between stakeholders or modes of communication. And so I think one of the most fundamental foundational roles of the communications leader that’s maybe less seen or recognised is that ability to serve as a sensor of both the inside and the outside of the organisation to be that pulse check. And by cultivating a deep and wide network that brings that pulse and rhythm of the organisation and the external environment to bear, and to use those insights to better inform strategy.

Andi 06:14
And then the third one that I’d say is the communications leader as a true strategic transformation partner. Comms leaders really are on the frontlines to help protect and radiate the CEO’s vision, and help mobilise the top team to do the same. Our research shows that organizations whose leaders communicate in a way that fosters understanding and conviction are over three times more likely to report improving organisational performance and outperforming their peers. So you started with the question, the pace of change is only going to accelerate and the best communications leaders can actively prepare and help their organisations on that journey.

Katie 06:58
I’m just curious, as you were explaining those three themes, and they absolutely resonate with me as well. When you reflect on your career in communication, how do you feel now about the world that we live in? Are you super excited, because comms has been pushed up the agenda by this constant change by the greater demands of people to be involved, be inspired to be informed to be co creating the content? Or is it slightly scary? Because of the reasons why constantly being pushed up the agenda? I’m just curious on your own reflections, when you reflect back on your career?

Andi 07:33
Yes, absolutely, I get really energised by it. I do think that there’s even more of a role for communications to help contextualize and for communications leaders, because there is a lot that’s going to be disintermediated or that touch of a button can probably happen much more quickly. So I can appreciate and understand why people could feel daunted by that. But I think if you approach it with a mindset of constant learning, and just get energised and excited about that, the role of someone who can help interpret and make sense of and continue with that winning hearts and minds, I think there’s more need for that than ever. And that’s a piece that’s uniquely human.

Katie 08:15
Yeah, that makes perfect sense. This episode of The Internal Comms Podcast is brought to you by the internal communication masterclass. I’ve condensed more than 30 years of experience and expertise into this unique on demand learning journey. Eight workstreams, 63 lessons, a total of six hours of content, complete with downloadable course books filled with yet more resources and some compelling homework tasks. To find out more visit, ICmasterclass.com. This is a comprehensive program filled with real world insights and robust frameworks, all designed to build your confidence, capabilities and credibility. This is an entirely on demand program: learn at your own pace, anytime, anywhere. And there’s no expiry date, so you can revisit the content whenever you wish. As a listener of the show, you enjoy a 30% discount, use the code ‘podcast’ at the checkout to save over £800 pounds or $1,000. That website address again, ICmasterclass.com stand out from the crowd, gain that promotion and feel re energised and inspired. ICmasterclass.com.

Katie 09:53
David coming to you. I’ve often heard the McKinsey statistic and I don’t know if you still use it as a firm that, 70% of transformation projects fail to deliver their stated goals or objectives. Having seen so many change and transformation projects over the years. In your view, to what degree does internal comms actually make the difference?

David 10:19
We come back every few years and re survey that. And that figure is stubbornly persistent. Wow, I think the last time we did it, the percentage of successful transformations had fallen slightly and something that’s very interesting and predictable: the bigger the organisation, the less likely a transformation is to succeed. When transformations fail, it’s not because of the things people think. People will say, “Oh, we just needed more resources we needed a bigger budget or the strategy was wrong.” It’s not really that. What goes wrong with transformations is that employees are being asked to change their behaviours and their mindsets and quite understandably, they don’t like it. They don’t like it, they don’t see the behaviour of managers backing it up. They perform compliance for a bit until they think nobody’s watching and then they go back to behaving the way they always have done before. And personally, I have a great deal of sympathy for that.

David 11:16
But the good news is that the most important lever you can pull is aligning the organisation, which starts with aligning the top team around a single unitary narrative about what we’re doing and why we’re doing it. You want to be answering the Magnificent questions. What are we proud of now? What are we building on? Why do we need to change? What’s changed in our external world? What’s changed in our internal world? What are we actually going to do? What does this require you as workforce to do differently? What different behaviours and mindsets will you need? And then three questions that people often forget. What will we as leaders do differently? Because we’re asking you to change everything you do. Quite often it’s not there, what leaders are going to do to support that? Why am I confident this is going to work? Because people can see the changes necessary and understand what you’re proposing. But if they don’t think it’s going to be successful, they don’t need to invest any time and fun. Why will it be better? Why will where we come out of this be a better place than where we went in both for the company, but more importantly, why will this be better for me? Why will I be able to grow? How will this improve the richness and smoothness of my life?

David 12:35
If you have all of those things in place your chance of success, go up by a factor of about six. There’s a couple of things that it’s worth saying about that. One is Andi was talking earlier about context collapse. And that’s been a huge thing that we’ve seen. When I started in this job about 30 years ago, you could get away with telling different stories to different people. Your investor relations people would tell one story to Wall Street, your recruitment, people would tell a different story to talent they wanted to attract, as internal comms people, we would tell a third story, the marketing department would be talking to customers, the procurement department be talking to suppliers, all of those will be different stories. If you could ever get away with that you absolutely can’t now.

David 13:21
So one really important rule for heads of comms, both transformations and in steady state, is somebody needs to hold the overarching master narrative for the whole of the company to make sure that we’re not telling different stories to different people. In an ideal world that’s the head of comms in conjunction with the CEO doing that. So good heads of comms step up and say, I will absolutely own the narrative. It doesn’t mean I do all the talking, but it means that I make sure I know what’s being said.

David 13:53
Third thing about transformations is in transformation is a transformation of culture as much as it is of behaviour. And by culture I mean, the sort of wider set of assumptions spoken and spoken about how things are done round here. And the way that culture is transmitted, it’s basically through the telling of stories about how it looks like now when we do it badly, what it needs to look like in the future when we do it well again.

Katie 14:21
Just a question about process, really, because I couldn’t agree more about that importance of that overarching, compelling narrative. Your Magnificent questions, thank you very much for those very helpful. Would I be right in thinking, if you get answers to those questions from a diverse sample of people across the company of different roles, seniority, etc, etc. That input then could be very useful in terms of building that narrative? Is that how you might get to that narrative?

David 14:52
Yes. So typically, we start at the top, and we have a hypothesis from the leaders of the company, we take that down and test it with people, we find out which words resonate, which bits fall flat, and which bits are simply incomprehensible. And it’s an iterative process that goes up and down and up and down. So part of what you’re doing when you’re focus grouping it with people or interviewing people close to the frontline is you’re looking for the really resonant stories and anecdotes that leaders can take away.

Katie 15:24
That makes perfect sense.

Katie 15:25
David, for us as comms practitioners, whether we’re in house, or we’re advisors, what should we be doing to better advise and guide and partner our leaders to help them be their best and better connect, engage their people?

David 15:41
The best way into this is probably a slightly disparaging finding from a report we did at the end of last year on the state of organisations, where we asked 1000s of people across many organisations and many countries, whether they thought that the leaders in their organisation were engaged, passionate and truly inspiring and the proportion of who said yes, was 25%.

David 16:06
So, in that kind of world where people aren’t getting what they think they need, what do good comms professionals do? The first thing is they helped galvanise the organisation around one thing, what is the one big thing that we do, rather than the many things? So you try to be hedgehog rather than fox, formulation. Transparency is great. But transparency, if you just turn on a firehose, transparency just becomes noise. So you’re looking for the memorable thing the organisation’s about. One of our colleagues worked recently with a Singaporean bank, their one big thing was, we want to make banking joyful. So something that is simple, endlessly rich, as you unpack it, and unexpected, so that it sticks in the memory is what you’re looking for there.

David 16:58
Secondly, I think we’ve talked about the importance of narratives. The narrative is not the output, the output is conversation, the narrative is the springboard that gets you into the conversation. I personally, and I think we all do, spend a lot of time with CEOs, comms leads and the leadership of companies saying, Okay, first of all, what is your story? Secondly, can you answer the question on it, which takes quite a lot of work? Thirdly, can you answer the follow up question to the question on it? So practicing being able to have conversations that feel human And getting people comfortable with saying, I don’t know the answer to that yet. This is the process we’re going through to find out that answer.

David 17:45
The last thing that good chief comms officers good CEOs do is they bring everything back to purpose. Gen Zs and millennials know a lot how central purpose is to the way that people engage with their work. And what makes them bring their whole self to work. employees really want to know why they’re working So making sure that there is a noble purpose and there is a clear line of sight from that noble purpose to our strategy to our behaviours, if you don’t show is super, super important.

Katie 18:20
Brilliant answer. So helpful to think of that core message as being memorable, simple, but rich, and so many different areas you could take it that it makes your imagination fly as a comms professional, because you can bring it to life in so many different ways. And I couldn’t agree with you more around conversation, because it’s through conversation that we really learn, isn’t it, that we really develop that we can think, is it Kotter that’s got this phrase about being able to kick the tires on something? But it’s that desire that I think we all have to say, you’re not just gonna be able to tell it to me, I’ve got to test it, I’ve got to really engage with it. And that’s, you have to do that from conversation, don’t you?

David 19:02
The test I often use when we’re talking about the purpose or indeed a new strategy. But if you’re talking about that to employees, I say, Does this sound difficult, important and fun? It’s not difficult. It’s not enough of a challenge, if it’s not important. In other words, if it’s not going to change the world, I don’t care. And if it’s not going to be fun, then people will not bring their whole selves to it. It needs to be all three of those things.

Katie 19:28
Really helpful. Thank you. Eric, what are some of the best practices you’ve seen from leaders as they engage and mobilise internally, their teams their people?

Eric 19:39
I’ll share three best practices that we see. One is, we see CEOs and growth leaders repeat and renew their narrative over time to drive positive actions. You can’t stay in a fixed position, it must be dynamic and ever evolving. Repetition here is a real thing, and it’s a muscle that has to be developed. Through our growth research we know that 80% of growth leaders are more likely than their peers to communicate their growth successes often, both internally and externally.

Eric 20:13
The second area is making communications a team sport. So the best CEOs build a deep bench of leaders, and even external ambassadors to help elevate and amplify an organisation’s singular narrative. There’s a fantastic remark from our CEO Excellence Research and in the book from Richard Davis, he is the former CEO of US Bankcorp who said the holy grail is to have 12 people on a management team, who are equal voices and equal storytellers. They can speak for the team for the company, not just for themselves. The third best practice is that communications is not a nice to have, it’s a must have and a core capability to drive growth and reach that long term aspiration. High performing organisations are nearly three times as likely to express their narratives well, and demonstrate thought leadership on topics of public interest.

Katie 21:20
Now you all have a bird’s eye view across different markets. I’m really fascinated about how internal communication strategies might vary across cultures and geographies. Do any specific regions or cultures come to mind where you’ve had to significantly adapt your approach?

Andi 21:41
Yeah, it’s a great question. So we do have a kind of front row seat to that, our team is about 50% in North America, and 50% across Europe, and then the Middle East and Asia Pacific. And when we look at the kinds of work we do, it’s fairly consistent everywhere. So whether it’s creating change narratives, or capability building for communications, effectiveness, or understanding stakeholder needs, bringing story into action, all of those kinds of communications change elements play out, pretty much everywhere. But the way that those might be brought to life, and making sure to understand culture and context does vary across different cultures. Many moons ago, I was working with a banking client in Germany is just one example. And during communications and change work, they were launching a big digital transformation. And it was just really fascinating to see the differences in terms of cultural sensitivity and adaptation, as well as nuances of medium and style of communications to what I’d seen with some of my clients in the States. And just as one example to bring that to life is the formality and thoroughness of communications in Germany. There was really detailed planning, very comprehensive documentation, and also a very clear chain of command. What it meant was all team members were super well informed about the strategy and aligned at the end of the day, but decision making could be slower compared to some of the more agile and flexible models in the States and neither good nor bad, pros and cons of both, but that was just the way of working that then you adapt and shift the style and the approach that you brought. And so I found that fascinating, and we certainly do see that play out in other geographies.

Katie 23:41
Yeah, that’s a really helpful observation. Thank you. I’m curious to pick your brains about the future of communication, and particularly the talent that’s going to be needed as we move forward. And the McKinsey I’m sure publishes a lot on AI and generative AI, it must be top of mind for many of your clients. How do you predict new technologies like generative AI might change the game for us as comms professionals?

Andi 24:12
Now, I love it, I guess it wouldn’t really be possible to be on a podcast about internal communications and not talk about gen AI. So this is very top of mind and topical, no surprise. But just recently, we wrote a article that that captured our perspective on the topic. And we can certainly unpack it a little bit more here. But the headline is, the organisation of the future will be enabled by Gen AI, but still driven by people. What we’re seeing is definitely organisations are going to become more and more rapidly tech enabled and automated, and that’ll free up time for people to do more strategic things, to be more creative, and ultimately, for communications to be more personalised and human. We all know harnessed incorrectly, Gen AI can spread misinformation, it can create experiences that are at best, bland and transactional. And at worst, it can intrude on privacy. I think there’s no question, it’ll enable us to be more efficient to bring speed into what we can do. But I think the opportunity for communications professionals today and as we look to the future will be to leverage Gen AI as an enabler and a tool, not a full scale solution.

Katie 25:28
So the human qualities in the human mind and what the humans can do becomes more important in some ways, or we have more time to do those things.

David 25:38
I think, at some subliminal level, you can absolutely tell when something has been written by a machine and people just don’t like it. If you’re telling me, this is what you need to do to access your pension details. Okay, fine. I’ll take that. If you’re trying to inspire me about a change or help me work in a different way I want to see the breath coming in and out of your lungs.

Andi 26:02
Well, that’s where some of the elements in terms of capability building or coaching to be able to deliver those messages again was authenticity. Eat with your own personality and infuse it with meaning, I think will become even more important because to some extent, like David said, there’s probably a range of different types of content that could be more easily and more efficiently created with an overlay again of that empathy and context, but then even more, who delivers it? How do they deliver it? On what medium? What are the opportunities for two way engagement? …become even more important? And I think, again, opportunity, if people approach it with a mindset of continuous learning and excitement around those elements.

Katie 26:45
David, what advice would you give those looking to pursue internal comms now, and maybe even that next generation of comms professionals? And I’m just curious, has that advice changed over the years?

David 26:58
It’s a good question. I think the single most important thing for people who want long term careers, incomes, is to be curious. And that’s a combination of a couple of things. It’s wanting to understand how complex systems work and fit together, all the way from the big architecture to the granularity. But it’s also really wanting to and being good at listening to people. Lots of great writing in the field of comms is not writing, it’s listening, it’s being in the focus group. It’s being in the conversation, hearing a phrase and going “Yes, that’s it. That’s the line. Those are the three words I’m going to take away and build my campaign around.” I think someone said that he knew he had done enough research, when he heard the same stories coming around again and again, from different people. It’s knowing when you’ve heard enough really to understand it. The other thing I would say is it used to be that people in certain Britain who went into journalism, there was something very interesting about doing a journalism degree. If you wanted to go into journalism in Britain, you jolly well did three years of Latin, and then wrote leaders for The Times. And generally speaking, I’m quite keen on people developing an expertise. But what I think was good about that is that people got used to actually being able to learn quite deeply something about something. The experience of being able to explain complex things to people who don’t understand them is really what you’re about. And you will get that by practicing it.

Katie 28:36
Yeah, and you’re making me think that alongside listening, and it comes back to the journalistic thing is about asking the right question, asking the smart questions, finding those questions that really do the heavy lifting. Picking up the right stone and getting the right information out of people I think is critical. As journalists, we do that that was my early training, but must be so important in the consultancy world, I’m guessing as well.

David 29:02
Yep. you don’t win in transformation without changing people’s mindsets and behaviours. And you don’t do that without talking to them.

Katie 29:11
This episode of The Internal Comms Podcast is brought to you by my very own Friday update. Would you like a short email from me, never more than five bullet points long, giving you my take on the week’s news from across the world of communications? This might be the latest reports, books, podcasts, conferences, campaigns that have caught my eye during the week. I always limit myself to just five nuggets of news, so you can read it in record time, but still feel a little bit more informed, hopefully a little uplifted as you end your week. Now, this is subscriber only content, which was initially intended just for AB colleagues and clients. I don’t post this content anywhere else. So you do you need to sign up. But that is super easy. Simply go to abcomm.co.uk/Friday, we just need your email address. And it’s equally easy to unsubscribe at any time. So give it a go that sign up page again, abcomm.co.uk/Friday. And if you do choose to be a subscriber, I very much look forward to being in touch.

Katie 30:44
Let’s turn to those quick fire questions. I’m so excited to ask you these questions. Given your rich and deep experience what personality trait or characteristic has most led to your career success?

Eric 30:58
I’ll get the ball rolling. There’s a Japanese word I love Kaizen, which translates to continuous improvement. And honestly, it’s an ethos that is just very important to me. And I think it speaks to what we were talking about before in terms of continuously learning trying to improve upon your craft. And it’s something that I always anchor back on this idea of continuous improvement and changing for the better.

Katie 31:28
Love it.

Andi 31:29
And for me, it may not come as a surprise based on my answers here. I bring a blend of optimism, so seeing glass half full and realism. And it’s a blend that that I think has served me well. It just allows to bring a positive spirit but also a bent toward action that I think has been helpful.

Katie 31:48
Thank you, Andi, David?

David 31:51
This does not show me in a good light. So once I’ve said it, I will immediately withdraw it. But I’m really easily bored. And the reason why I think that’s been a superpower rather than a handicap is the granular details of this world that I am now in has been really helpful and really enjoyable.

Katie 32:13
I always think it’s a privileged position. I thought that for decades that no one else gets to see right into the centre of how things work, why they work, why they don’t work , it’s a privilege.

David 32:26
It is a privilege. And it’s a privilege that we have to earn over and over again. But on a good day, this really is the best job in the world.

Katie 32:35
You have segued so nicely into my second quickfire question, which is what would surprise most people about working for McKinsey.

Andi 32:44
For me, it’s definitely been the ability to forge my own path through the firm. And there’s actually a saying here, create your own McKinsey. And I’ve definitely been a bit of a poster child for that. But I think maybe that’s something that would be a surprise that there’s this perception of a singular path through the firm. And it’s really not the case, there’s just so much happening and so much innovation and change. And it is a place where entrepreneurialism is seen as a really good thing. And so if you spot an area that you have a particular passion area around and you want to pursue it and try to build that out, there’s a lot of opportunity to do that and have a bit of a jungle gym career.

Katie 33:25
Quick one then, the best business book ever written? Tough question, okay.

David 33:30
Okay the best business books are not business books, right. The best business book is Middlemarch, because Middlemarch is the best book ever written. That said, I want to give a nod to a couple of things I’ve read relatively recently. One is Malcolm Harris’s book about Palo Alto, and about how so much of the world as we know it today is built on things that have happened in Stanford from communication technologies, from the railway, to radio transistors, to computers, to the internet, to social media. It’s a long book, it doesn’t read like a long book, it’s really good. The other one is Emily St. John Mandel’s The Glass Hotel, which was served follow up to Station 11, which was basically this is what it’s like to live like through a pandemic, which was really useful when we actually had to do that. Glass hotel isn’t a perfect novel, although it’s really fun. Andi, Eric, I’m really keen to hear what your recommendations

Eric 34:30
I don’t know if these necessarily count as business books, though. So hopefully I get a pass here. And we’re in the ballpark. I’ve been rereading books this year. So I’ve read both of these again for the second time, and I like them even more. The first is Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs. Amazing. The second is Shoe Dog by Phil Knight. So hopefully I’m not causing too much trouble with those responses!

Andi 34:55
I’m gonna stay off piste with you guys and to not give up your business book but as fitting a communications expert. I loved Pip Williams’ novel The Dictionary of Lost Words. And it’s a historical novel about the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary. It’s told through the eyes of a young woman who discovers and is collecting words that are discarded by the male lexicographers. It’s wonderful, fast read really lovely. And if you like words and their meanings you’ll love its exploration of language and the power of words and just the voices that shape our lexicon. Loved it.

Katie 35:38
Such good advice. Links as ever listeners, of course, in the show notes. What piece of bad advice or unhelpful thinking has consistently dogged the communication profession?

Andi 35:51
I would say it’s the belief that more communications is always better.

Katie 35:56
So true. My final question, we give you a billboard for millions to see, this is totally nicked from the Tim Ferriss show, you can put on that billboard any message you like or even an image? What are you going to put on your billboards?

Andi 36:14
I’m very excited to have a billboard that’s very lovely. Mine would say, ‘Traveler, there is no road, you make your own path as you walk.’ And that’s from one of my all time favourite poems by the Spanish poet Antonio Machado. It’s called Caminante, no hay camino.

Katie 36:32
Lovely. Thank you, Andi.

David 36:36
I’m going to say: ‘Just because it’s not hard, doesn’t mean it’s easy.’ We talk in business a lot about there’s the hard stuff, which other people do. And there’s the soft stuff, which we do. And people grandiose themselves when they say, Oh, I do the hard stuff. What hard means there is tangible, it doesn’t mean difficult. And therefore, the opposite of hard is not easy. It’s intangible. The soft stuff that we do is more difficult. But I also think ultimately it’s more important.

Katie 37:11
And more valuable. Yes, absolutely couldn’t agree more. Eric your billboard?

Eric 37:15
I just want to say I would both read and act on Andi and David’s billboard so I hope that they’re proud. I’ll admit, I’m glad you mentioned Tim Ferriss because I listened to him quite a bit too. And I’m just going to steal with pride because they provided plenty of inspiration. The last one I listened to which actually resonated. I liked Jocko Willinks’ ‘Discipline equals freedom.’ I would put that on a billboard because I think constraint and discipline and structure are actually really great things to help you identify the areas that are most important to you and focus on what matters most especially in a world where there’s constant noise and ways by which you can get distracted.

Katie 37:58
Totally. Thank you so much, everyone. This has been such an amazing conversation. Thank you for your time and your wisdom has been deployed

Andi 38:08
Thank you, Katie.

Katie 38:11
So that is a wrap for this episode of The Internal Comms Podcast. For detailed show notes and a full downloadable transcript, visit us at abcomm.co.uk/podcasts. You will also find our entire back catalogue of more than 100 episodes. If you did find this episode helpful. I have a small favour to ask, please, could you like, rate, or even subscribe to the show on your favourite podcast platform? This just gives the algorithms a little nudge and helps your fellow internal comms colleagues from around the world discover our show. A huge thank you to Andi, Eric and David, what a great show. My thanks also to the show’s producer, John, sound engineer Stuart, Content Manager, Madi, designer, Rob and the rest of the wonderful crew at AB who keep the show on the road. And finally, my heartfelt thanks to you for tuning in to The Internal Comms Podcast. This show would be nothing without you. I do love hearing from you. So please do connect with me on LinkedIn. Tell me what you want more of less of your feedback will be invaluable as we start to design Season 12 of this show. So, until next time, lovely listeners stay safe and well. And remember, it’s what’s inside that counts.