It’s very exciting to work on a big keynote, to have a chance to stand on a stage and tell the world your brilliant idea. Great communicators, though, invest as much energy on internal audiences as external audiences. Why?
Because who makes your brilliant idea a reality? Your team. Who communicates to your potential customers and partners around the world? Your team. Who enables you and your brilliant vision to scale? Your team. You must tell your own people, over and over again, what you tell the outside world.
When you give a keynote, you artfully convey your vision, you show some amazing visuals and you walk off the stage smiling and waving. After that it’s just high fives and a welcome rest. Yay!
You give a keynote once, but you must convey your vision to your employees every chance you get. You show your fabulous team what each of their vital roles are in transforming vision into reality. You answer questions and spark inspiration. You recognize and reward achievements that further the vision.
When you do all of these things over and over again, all of the time, you create a unified team. You lead by communicating.
Internal communications is a never-ending, absolutely essential undertaking. Every great leader is as much as of an evangelist internally as externally. There is no other way to scale a vision into a global reality. When you really invest in internal communications, you can build a massive engine to deliver your vision to the world.
[This post appeared on LinkedIn on 3.10.16.]
