Breaking Down Barriers to Transformative Comms with Erik S. Meyers

Julie Ford 00:01

Welcome to the IC connected or icon podcast. This podcast will challenge conventional thinking about internal communications. It will force you to think differently. Consider bold ideas and step outside your comfort zone through real unscripted insights from some of the best internal comms pros and subject matter experts in the world. But most importantly, this podcast will help you elevate your career, and together will elevate the internal comms profession to the C suite.

Mike 00:03

This is my client from Reykjavik, Iceland, and I would like to welcome you to the icon podcast with Eric Meyers. Eric is a we lead comms honoree and Eric has been a standout communicator and communication leader for a number of years. The icon podcast is sponsored by Sparrow connected the internal communication platform that is accelerating business performance, and elevating the world's communication leaders through the wheelie comms program. Eric, you have been living and working mainly in the German speaking world for the last 25 years. And I would like you to introduce yourself and maybe say a little bit about, you know what it's been like working in a very different culture from which you were raised.

Erik S. Meyers 1:25

Yeah, thank you, Mike, for the introduction. Thanks also for the opportunity to talk about communications, communications leadership, which I think I could talk about for hours or days or weeks. Also with you probably. I'm originally from Connecticut. So New England in the US. I spent quite a bit of time in school, also my senior year in high school as an exchange student, studied German and biology. And I always wanted to gain work experience in Germany, which I guess I loved being in my love languages anyway. And I had the opportunity to join sap in 1998, at the headquarters starting first in a in a development department as a technical writer and translator, and had many, many different roles of SAP throughout the years I was there. And moved into communications fairly early, which was around customer communications. But I was a writer for several CEOs there several board members, I did internal communications, huge piece was digital, of course. And I also worked for one of the board members on strategy projects, but also communications. When I guess back to when I originally came to Germany, I never really had a plan to say okay, I'm going to Germany for five years. But I really wanted to gain this work experience and I just loved still here to love living in Europe. My next role after that was working at BASF. Also at the headquarters, I was hired as sort of the first digital communications leader to pull together digital communications topics quickly also was responsible for global employee communications, photo film and part of the European communications. At the end of my time there I was responsible for communications, marketing communications for one of the divisions, and I decided to then go to Hilty, the construction leader in Liechtenstein, I became head of Corporate Communications, which also was a strong piece around digital we launched or internal as well, we launched a digital workplace for all 30,000 employees. It was a very tight project. After that, I was a digital communications consultant. And since January this year, so 2022 I'm the Communications head at l&r, which is a privately owned company in the medical product space. I think. I mean, one thing that has definitely given me a lot of, I would say potential or potential opportunities was really being bilingual, but also being experienced in working different in color in different cultures. Many of the companies or jobs that I had, either within a company moving or between companies was really because of this these skills, which I built over the years learning also some German dialects, although I don't speak them that well. I guess that and I've just loved living here and working here. I mean, there's big differences like health insurance, many more vacation days, which we have. In Germany, it's around 30. Now I'm in Vienna since September, it's about 25. But that's still a lot compared to the US. Yeah, and I mean, I love using both languages or language in general, and I guess in a communications role in a German speaking country, or any country, that's wherever you are, you need to understand the language, particularly if you're dealing with employees, they're also external partners.

Mike 5:19

Well, I mean, there's a lot in what you're saying that I think is really interesting, and that we can explore. But I think a common thread of what you've discussed, is not just that you're working in different cultures, you're working between and across cultures, and not just national culture. I mean, you work, obviously, between, you know, the Anglo American and the Germanic cultures, but you also work across, and your, your academic background reflects the scientific world, and the the communications world, the, you know, kind of expansive world of, you know, big ideas, you know, working externally with the more focused world of working internally. And, you know, is there are there any kind of lessons that you have further communication, folks who find themselves between different cultures and different, you know, value systems as much as anything else?

Erik S. Meyers 6:12

That's a very good point, I think most of my roles have been global. So really, the headquarters are in German speaking countries, but we have, as we do now, colleagues in every country, or many countries, customers, in many, many countries, I think, one thing is really an I tell this to people that are thinking of moving abroad, say from the US mainly, or traveling, you have to immediately expect that wherever you are, will not be like where you're from and things. And yeah, I know. Yeah, I mean, you're the same. But are you understand this, you what you think maybe say, quote, unquote, normal, or good or a right way of doing things may actually be the exact opposite in the country that you're going to, and vice versa. And I think you really have to be open for for these differences, and not try to do something like you think it should be done. I think there's a cliche, which, unfortunately, I have seen a lot that American companies particularly have a certain way of doing things try to export to the rest of the world, and it usually fails. Or most people in many countries are already assuming, oh, God, the Americans are coming, they're going to tell us what to do and act like they know everything. And, yeah, and, and this just doesn't work. And I mean, there are so many examples, also of products that have been launched another countries with the name and something strange, because I mean, it really cliche American look for a will just call it the same thing and launch it. Or people are shocked when they go to another country that it's not like the US. But in general, wherever you are, if you're moving to another country you're working. And I would say this is one thing that I highly recommend, for anybody that I'm either hiring or mentoring, you really need international experience, no matter what company you are, even in the US. In the US, it really, really helps you open your eyes to different things in the world gives you a different perspective. In most companies, many companies are global, ours isn't that big, but it's also global, you really need to understand these different aspects and just try to find common ground to communicate, say a strategy or a topic. And you always have to keep in the back of your mind that everybody's different. There will be different reactions. And you may also or you should tailor your communications to the different countries also building a network within these countries, because obviously, they know the language, but they also know that people better.

Mike 8:56

You mentioned that your current company is quite a bit smaller than some of the other companies that you've worked with. One of the things that, you know, that I've looked at over the years, you know, particularly working outside the US, I've lived and worked in about six different countries, in addition to the US, is the difference between the strategy dynamics in a large company versus a small company. I would imagine that if you're a multinational, whether you have 1000 people, or 100,000 people, certain rules apply regardless of size. And there's a bigger question about when do you need a dedicated internal comms Resource Function? Whatever you want to call it? Is there a magic number? Is there a magic process? Is there a magic strategy? Or do you see certain common principles at least?

Erik S. Meyers 9:49

That's a very good question. I think. In general, every company needs some communications resource. I think even One of my first places I worked at 50 employees, a small automotive publisher near Boston, in the US. But there was communications need there for communicating to customers, etc. Obviously, the internal piece there was a lot easier. I mean, the owner manager walked around and could talk to everybody. I think you definitely need somebody focused, at least in part on internal communications. Because no matter the size, even a smaller company, there's still going to be people who don't know what's going on. People who don't understand where the company's going. Or of course, then there's the gossip rumor mill, which you want to try to. Yep. I mean, you really want to explain and be open about what's going on. And I think that applies no matter what size the company is, obviously, the larger the company is, the more challenge this is huge companies, the biggest challenge is often I mean, top down, never really works, the board, implements a strategy. And then, you know, after the, maybe one or maximum two layers after that, nobody knows what's what's going on. And think the other aspect of of communications, particularly internal communications, to keep people informed, which is the number one thing they motivated and also trying to connect people is it's takes regular work. So you need somebody who's regularly sort of greasing the wheel, trying to inform people and really pull the information that they're getting from throughout the organization and provide it to others, and also helping facilitate conversations, particularly between leadership and employees, which often is, which often is missing,

Mike 11:49

it's interesting to hear you say that you're talking about dialogue within the organization, particularly being missing, you know, that the company strategy usually doesn't penetrate more than a layer or two, below, before people just consider, you know, consider that what they're doing is what they're doing. And that's pretty much what I also heard you saying was that, you know, internal Kouns is foundational, in a lot of ways. And you know, having been, you know, you know, you're a communication director, but you have in a lot of ways in internal comms consciousness, and indeed an internal comms heart in a lot of ways. What can you say about the topic or what people say around, you know, internal and external comms are merging? What is your thought about that? And what do you how do you say that? How do you think that's going to end up working in the end? If it's going to happen at all?

Erik S. Meyers 12:47

I think in general, I mean, we're, whatever the size of the company are in your communications teams, internal, external, whatever need to be working closely together. The worst situations I've seen where? Yeah, there's several social media channels, for example, and marketing is doing one and communications and the message going out is completely different or conflicting. I think there's the stakeholder management or the target groups that you want to reach. Which you have to coordinate but I don't, I still think there's a need for separate internal and external, I think, particularly, I mean, people say, Oh, if it's in, you know, if it's communicated internally to probably go outside, that's not necessarily true. And I think there's often I would say, sadly, so often a much bigger focus on customer and journalists and external, when actually, you really want to make sure first, that your employees know what's going on, that they're informed, they're motivated. And they understand how what they're doing connects to the company strategy and direction. Because if you don't have that, you're not going to be selling product. You won't have happy customers. And when something goes wrong internally, or there's a chain challenges are a crisis. And the employees have no idea what's going on or start even rebelling. I mean, then unfortunately, that's often when leaders, senior leaders in the company realized that that's so important, but you need to be doing that all the time. Being open with your employees, if there's a merger or acquisition and not trying to make it sound like it's so great, when it may be good, but there's often negative pieces which from my personal experience, which I've tried to counteract, they want to make it they'll see new leaders want to make it sound so great, and employees immediately smell the the reality. And I think companies need to really shift much more and invest in internal comms and I think if you're if you're start hang out in your communications career, a lot of people are, say pulled to maybe the quote unquote glamorous PR jobs or say speech writing for, for CEOs. I've been a CEO, speech writers so that it can be fun. But there's so much need for internal communications experts, because there's such a lack of often in many companies really experienced people who, who can explain topics to employees and really, really focus on the employee, because without that your company won't be successful.

Mike 22:40

No, that's, that's, that's actually, uh, you know, a very interesting segue to another part of the conversation. I mean, really, the, you know, the idea that technology is an instant solution technology, you know, you know, like, for example, you see, a practice, you know, in not just internal communication, but in terms of workplace technology in general, where you have certain vendors saying, we've got an ROI calculator that if you buy our solution, you'll increase your employee engagement by X percent, and that will increase your profitability by experts at. And so we can promise you a 10, to one ROI that never works. And you've got a slogan called fight the hype? And how do you, you know, how do you put that, you know, bring that to life in an internal comms context, in a corporate kind of context. And then just in general, you know, in the way you approach life, you know, because you do a lot of stuff outside of your comms work. That's, you know, that's also interesting. And I think interesting to, to the listeners out there, I mean, really, you know, fighting the hype, what does that look like inside the firewall outside the firewall and outside the workplace?

Erik S. Meyers 24:05

Yeah, I think, fight the hype. And I used I've used that for quite some time. There's so much hype in particularly in digital, but also in the communications world. Where? Yeah, I mean, you go on LinkedIn, and somebody writes something about some new trend, and pretty much everybody else jumps on and like, oh, we need that. That's so cool, whatever. Because it's like jumping on the bandwagon. But what is the actual value of it, and with digital or with technology, in general, less is more. And you really have to, as I said before, start with a corporate strategy. So just throwing tools at employees because they're cool, or they're supposed to help never works. Because, in my experience, often, there's 20 that they're having to deal with. You know, it keeps also wanting to implement things and Employees have no idea what to use when. And also from from an external comms perspective, particularly social media. I mean, when I hear or when I see people on particularly LinkedIn or Twitter writing, oh, everybody needs to be on Tik Tok, your company needs to be in tick tock. I think that is not a strategy that is not a communication strategy or a smart move. What you do is starting with a corporate strategy, you have a communication strategy, which then explains your target groups, your your channels, your goals, and then you see, okay, which channels do you want to use, because, like I said, before, with technology, and particularly also, with communications, you really need to focus. You don't need to be on everything, just because somebody says that you need to so fight the hype, I could probably do every minute. Every time I'm on LinkedIn, there's something there where I think why there isn't really a conversation, it's more about just people patting each other on the back, because they've, they're talking about the latest trend. So because it should be what makes what creates value, what makes sense, what connects to the strategy, and also what can be particularly for internal comms be digested, in general, and type. I mean, I also am writing fight the hype about technology topics, but there's a lot of other topics or trends, where we're the people should take a step back and look at whether it makes sense rather than just dump jumping on it. And then everybody moves from one to the other one trend.

Mike 26:32

You know, I think implicitly, you know, the bigger the bandwagon gets, the less interesting and less strategic the conversation gets. And I wanted to talk in kind of rapid fire fashion with you having your fight that had sobriety and about a couple a number of topics, one of which is the whole workplace strategy, conversation about remote first, hybrid and office space. And there was, you know, if, if anything, an overwhelming amount of hype about hybrid working as being the eternal solution, all of this stuff, what would you say with your site, the hype? What would you say with your fight the hype hand on about the workplace strategy conversation?

Erik S. Meyers 27:16

Some people now are saying, Oh, it's all going to be remote? Or we don't need office space? Or, or, or some people are saying that we also work in the office, because we all need to work together. I think it's the same thing for the other topics around which digital to use, or which communications to do or how you're implementing digital. It starts with a corporate strategy, what are the goals of the of the company? And how can this best be done? For the company, so in terms of when should people maybe work in the office or maybe from home? And it's really an individual thing, because every company is a different culture. I think statements like, we also be in the office or we also be remote. That's where I would say, that is so hype, because you, there's never a one size fits all, at all, never in particularly in this topic. You know, it's where people can work best. So some companies maybe don't have great digital workplaces. So they do need to be more in person. Some people have tools, I mean, it depends on which company you're working in, I think the best, the best thing is to offer flexibility. So the company needs to offer flexibility to employees and not say you have to be in the office on Monday. On the other hand, they should also make clear that sometimes if you're working on a project, maybe it is better if people are all together in a room. But but employees basically shouldn't feel like they're being forced to do something, there should be a flexibility around that. And I think in general, the workspace or future of work is flexibility. But that makes sense for each company, and everybody's different.

Mike 28:56

Another trend, you know, maybe maybe there's another way to ask the question, you know, of all of the trends and micro trends this year, what do you think was the most hype vision, I've got a background conversation about one of them, I want to see whether you and I land on the same place or not? I'm just kind of curious about how that would work. What is the most hate the business culture topic that's come out this year?

Erik S. Meyers 29:27

So not communications just more in general? Communicate?

Mike 29:31

I mean, wherever in the business world it shows up.

Erik S. Meyers 29:35

I mean, I think one is definitely the Tick Tock thing every bit we're all on tick tock, I think the other and I know we've had some conversations about this, the whole mindfulness topic. So which I guess from my fight the high perspective, mindfulness or will give you massages at work or whatever, it's just, it's it's basically not changing things. It's making the company or culture sound better than it probably is. And it's offering support or topics, in particularly when when they hear mindfulness or things like that, or even worse. There's the chief happiness officers something which I know a couple of

Mike 30:19

one of my best friends is the chief happiness officer, by the way, although he's the chief happiness officer of the entire country here in Iceland, not just have a company.

Erik S. Meyers 30:28

I think, for country, it's a bit different than a company. But often, I mean, not every company. But my first thought, and I would say that's probably fight the high perspective is that they probably have have either very workaholic culture or almost burnout culture. And it's sort of the way of saying, Oh, we're going to help you. But those positions and accompany are very difficult to actually affect change. And, and offering things. I mean, and I say this, from my personal perspective, where I've seen companies that I know or have worked in, where there are these roles, you kind of know what the reality is. And I guess, as a communicator, maybe you're I'm often or we are often quite cynical, because we know the truth, often of things, which other people don't know. But does that really help the company? I mean, is it actually helping the culture be more supportive or more human? Or is it just sort of something that the company can say, Oh, we have we're dealing with my mindfulness. No, no, that

Mike 31:34

that's, that's interesting that you that you've blended on mindfulness, and really the world of corporate hygiene and well being perks as being one of these, I would have picked quite quick as the hype trend of 2020 to the, you know, the the substance less hype trend of the year. To what extent does that resonate with you at all?

Erik S. Meyers 32:01

I didn't even think about that. But yeah, quiet. I mean, that's the hype, the fight the hype thing to win. If I read another phrase that starts with great are quiet. My stomach is turning a bit quiet, quitting and quiet resignation. All these trends, but every time there's these trends, so many people jump on them. But the question is, is it really happening? Does it really make sense? I mean, I don't know how many times I've had conversations in LinkedIn, where I'm one of the only people to actually count or something. And I know one person, somebody, somebody, some communications leader and wouldn't say his name, but I can't remember it anyway, wrote a blog about some authenticity, I can't remember. And, and one person who I also know, on LinkedIn wrote, it wasn't even a critical comment, it was said, which is my also question, how was that gonna work? You know, and, and he was, he was attacked, I mean, literal, really, like, very verbally attacked. You know, you're obviously a dinosaur. I mean, I don't even know it was all there was no conversation, and everybody else was like, Oh, my God, this blog is so amazing. And I mean, I, you,

Mike 33:22

you highlight a very interesting and important issue in the world of, you know, communication, leadership and communication, thought leadership. And that is, you know, you've got people out there who are saying stuff, some of which is contrary and some of which is, you know, really just kind of, you know, celebrating the trendiness of trans. But there's, you know, there's very little actual conversation going on, what do you think can actually stimulate some more conversations and more productive conversation in the field in the coming year? This is certainly something that I'd like to see happen. Because, you know, I write as you know, I write quite a bit and, you know, often I get, like, 50 likes and no comments. You know, what could stimulate some conversation? Because we need conversation and move things forward.

Erik S. Meyers 34:18

Often today, it's very, it's a big challenge, because I've got a couple of posts on LinkedIn that went viral, I think one out even 300,000 views or so I can't remember the topic. But it was, I wouldn't say I wrote more from an IP perspective, but it was commenting on something or often it's just the title of a blog. That that is really I would say perhaps could be construed as clickbait. But obviously with I would, if I did a title like that, then there's actual content behind it. So it's not so much clickbait just grabbing people's attention. But I really am particularly in the communications world. It's almost so of perpetuating hype, because in many business areas there, from my also perspective, there's not as much hype and communications, as always, oh, we all need to newsroom which was a few years ago, you know, we all need to be on tick tock. And it's just a lot of people patting each other on the back. I think we need more people like us, the two of us to really take these topics and not just not just agree with the hype. And I think one one value, which you have as a communicator, and unfortunately, also not that many, and I would recommend everybody who's in communications or looking at or starting in communications, the communicator in many companies, or the communications leader is often the only person in the company who tells the truth to the CEO or senior executives. And you get so much more value. And respect when you do that, instead of just jumping on the latest trend or being another yes person because they don't often get the truth. In my experience, it's often the communications person, or I would say myself to, to bring up these topics. And I think it's the same thing for communications, say writing a blog or or topic, you get so much more respect, but also just conversation and learning. If you don't go you don't write from the perspective that everybody else's. But you you actually think about a topic, what actually makes sense. Back to the tic toc, or everybody's hybrid or whatever. What makes sense? Or even worse, which people often ignore, how would that actually work? I mean, I guess maybe I'm too logical. But often when people come up with these things, are we all have to do this or that? I mean, are things like in the US with so many memes companies jumped on the latest meme? I don't know defund police, or cancel capitalism. I mean, how would that actually work? It sounds great. Worse is, of course, companies that just every month have their latest meme that they jump on, but they're actually not changing anything. So actually questioning things, not just immediately jumping on, we need more definitely need more people like that. And so and for the communications role, itself, as a communications leader, that within a company really gets you respect. And you and you learn so much by doing that,

Mike 37:34

you talk about the meme of the month, and I can't resist the temptation to talk about what I would consider in the same vein, the meme of the century. And that is the concept of employee engagement, particularly, you know, the idea that a internal comms and player engagement of the same thing, and be that focusing on the improvement of employee engagement scores, is somehow going to magically improve your profitability and productivity. To what extent do you see the employee engagement conversation as being genuinely value additive? versus, you know, just simply being, you know, this, this meme on steroids?

Erik S. Meyers 38:14

I think, I mean, there's so many articles, or gurus talking about how to improve employee motivation or productivity. I mean, basically, if you treat people like they're humans and not task robots, or slaves, that's already most of the most of the most of the mostly what you need to do for that. Employee engagement, I mean, I think is a piece that you need to look at in terms of I mean, employee communications, for example, isn't, as it used to be just top down, you know, the latest message from the CEO. It's about explaining topics is about bringing people together, so that they know what's going on. So they're all also motivated and, and also productive, and enter and like the job and like working there. Employee engagement that that's gone awry is when there are employee surveys, which, which most companies do, and either people are forced to more or less only say everything's great, or, which unfortunately, I've also seen in some companies, the results aren't so great. But the good pieces are played up and the bad things are ignored and employees are immediately cynical. And I think that's one thing you always have to watch with employee communications. You don't want people to be cynical. So if there is an employee engagement survey, for example, or the company really wants to improve employee engagement, then things actually have to improve because employees will very quickly be cynical and and not believe anything Anything the either employee engagement team is saying or the leaders are saying, I think employee engagement as a topic shouldn't be more in the HR space. Or it's a it's a strong working collaboration between internal comms in HR. But also you need for, I would say, every topic, if the CEO is not behind it, or doesn't support it, then you might as well not even do it, because sending the communicator out or the HR person out to try to promote something when everybody knows the CEO either hasn't doesn't talk about it. Or worse since things against it, then that's never going to work.

Mike 40:42

Well, I think I think you highlighted interesting trend here, I think, an implicit trend around employee engagement, that a lot of what's done in the name of employee engagement is actually an attempted work around around the concept of actually treating people like human beings, instead of as task robots. And, and worse, and that you also in saying that, you know, there's something inherent about the design of a lot of mainstream employee engagement surveys, in that they either drive force positive answers, like if you ask the Gallup do 12 question of do you think your associate your your fellow employees do quality work? If you've got any doubt about the confidentiality, that survey? You're not going to answer that question in the negative. But you also said that, you know, you also implied that, you know, a lot of companies or at least a number of companies use these files of the of these false positive results as a bulwark against actual change. Is that, you know, is that something you want to elaborate on? Because I think that's a really, you know, interesting cautionary trend that I think people need to be more aware of, particularly more ice people need to be aware of? Yeah, I

Erik S. Meyers 41:59

think, I mean, in general, results of employee engagement surveys or feedback from employees is important. But obviously, a company cannot change everything overnight. But if you're getting results from an employee engagement survey, which certain perspectives, for example, do you recommend our company as an employer to friends and family, which isn't very good. I mean, that should be setting off alarm alarms, for the leaders, that there's something that actually needs to happen rather than a wire those people so upset. So if you're going to do I mean, from the internal comms perspective, if you're supporting communications around an employee survey, which tend to be run by HR, you should be also pushing that whatever results are good or bad or openly communicated. And the bad things are the answers that are quite negative, at least the senior leaders admit that, that something needs to be done. But also that obviously, things can change overnight. And I think one thing that that can be a very huge hindrance is when the company has communicates a very strong supportive corporate culture, with values etc, both internally and externally. And employees don't see that necessarily being lived. And for example, toxic leaders are promoted. When you get these results, I mean, if nothing changes, or if you see the background of that, what's going on, and the results come, and the senior leaders don't see the need to change them. I mean, nothing's going to change. And of course, it can't change overnight. But I think internal comms, this is one thing, which is so important that again, back to this fight the hype or speaking truth, really same mean, the company will be successful if the employees are informed, interested, motivated. And and if they should actually be informed, interested and motivated and not. Oh, we had these three answers, which were great from the employee engagement survey, but the rest obviously they're not. Because it is a it is a very good if if I mean guarantee and anonymous answers, etc. It's a great snapshot, at least from employees, because normally, probably they would never give you feedback.

Mike 44:28

Let me just jump in because we've we've got a limited amount of time left. The idea that, you know, corporate behavior can be inconsistent with corporate rhetoric. And I think that's an outstanding segue for a very brief mention of one of your other pursuits, which is fiction writing. To what extent does your fiction writing interplay with your or provide relief from your corporate comms work? And you know, do you have anything to to recommend, you know, from your repertoire for this audience,

Erik S. Meyers 45:03

I love language and writing. So I think this fits quite well to also what I do communications. I mean, being able to craft messages or explain complex topics, as you said at the beginning of this discussion, many of the companies have worked in a more technical or scientific, explaining complex topics, simply, I've always loved writing. And I think, to be a good communicator, you need to be creative, not just with language, and it definitely helps to, when I'm writing fiction, I'm currently working on a crime because the Crime Murder Mystery series, first book will come out in about a year. It just gives you really creative use of language, which you can also use in terms of creativity from particularly for internal comms, because people won't want to read or hear sort of dry sort of business See, videos or texts. And you have to tell I mean, this is a bit of a hype, topic, storytelling, but you do have to have sort of an interesting article or text or video that that really pull people in. And this is something that I can definitely gain experience from. In my fiction writing.

Mike 46:23

Well, we're we're coming up to the end of our hour together, I just wanted to ask if you had anything else that we haven't covered in this conversation that you think could add value to the icon podcast audience here.

Erik S. Meyers 46:35

I mean, I think at the end, or as I said before, I mean, internal comms is so important. Many people want to do PR or speech writing. I think it's such an important topic. And if you're interested in communications, or you're already in communications, I think having additional experience as an internal comms person or or specializing it is so valuable for every company, a we need more people who are really focused and experience in internal comms. Because it's we see now today with all the challenges around the remote work, hybrid, are the crises that are going on. We need people within companies bringing people, the employees together, and also more importantly, making sure the leaders aren't off somewhere 50,000 feet up, but really connected to employees.

Mike 47:22

That's excellent. Really want to thank you for the conversation today for the insights and wisdom that you've shared and also for putting some pretty sharp definition beyond behind the the fight the hope slogan. So thank you very much, Eric, for joining us. This is Mike Klein, and signing off from Reykjavik and the icon, podcast for Spirit connected. Thank you.

Julie Ford 47:49

Thanks for listening to the Icahn podcast. This podcast has been brought to you by Sparrow connected head over to Sparrow connected.com To learn more about the internal comms platform that is elevating the internal comms profession. And be sure to follow we lead comms on LinkedIn. If you liked this podcast, please subscribe on your favorite podcast channels and tune in for the next episode.

Breaking Down Barriers to Transformative Comms with Erik S. Meyers

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