Ruth Crawford

One of the most rewarding parts of being a communications consultant is helping clients to distinguish between what they want and what they need. Example: A Head of Internal Comms approached me last week with a clear ask. He wanted me to give his team a feel-good, inspirational talk for 30 minutes to get them to deliver more strategic work. We had a call about it and I suggested he take a step back from the idea of a talk and give me more context. "Talk to me about your team, your objectives, your challenges. Just talk and I'll listen so I can get a better understanding of what you're trying to achieve and how I can best help you." I encouraged him to talk at length, interjecting with the occasional "and what else?" and "tell me more about that." And pretty quickly I was able to spot quite a glaring gap between what he wanted from me and what he actually needed from me. What he wanted: A 30-minute inspiration talk. This would make everyone feel good in the moment, but it wouldn't move the needle on his real challenge which was that his team were reactive, swamped in ‘urgent’ work, had no clear focus and no alignment to business goals. What he needed: Interactive trainings and workshops for his team so they could learn from me rather than just listen to me. This approach WOULD help him reach his goals. And what I really liked about this client was his ability to consider this redirection, let go of the tactical ask he approached me with and consider a new way of collaborating together with the bigger picture in mind. This is what I enjoy most about consulting; the deep listening, the quiet observation, the probing questions to help a client uncover what they really need. I didn’t always have the courage to redirect in this way. It comes with years of experience, practice and increased confidence in my ability. This approach is more important than ever now that I’m an external consultant, because people hire me for my depth of expertise and not my ability to follow their instructions. Can you apply this same approach to your stakeholders as an in-house comms pro? –––– 🚫 Don’t let an algorithm decide what you read; join 7,888 readers who get my weekly internal comms tips straight to their inbox. ⬆️ Click "Try my free newsletter" on my page to sign up.

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Normalize the path from Chief Communications Officer to Chief Executive Officer. To succeed, Comms people have to: 🤔 Be strategic 💡 Know a lot about various parts of the business and industry 👉 Set big goals and inspire others to collaboratively achieve them 📣 Articulate direction well to several different audiences, including employees, stakeholders, partners, customers, shareholders and board members 👂 Take in and process multiple viewpoints and recommendations to make the best decisions for moving the business forward Sound like anyone else’s job beyond Communications leadership? 📈🚀🙌

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For parents struggling to keep your children off YouTube this summer holiday... spare a thought for the comms and investor relations teams trying to keep shareholders off it too. According to my colleague Ian Silvera in his piece for the SEC Newgate UK newsletter this week (link below), the playbook has changed. The next major activist campaign? It’s just as likely to begin with a YouTube upload or a Substack post as it is with a question at the AGM. Shareholder pressure used to play out in boardrooms or legacy media. Today, it can go viral in minutes, fuelled by creators, forums, and short-form videos. And comms leaders need to be ready for it. Ian lays out the landscape brilliantly. Here are five points that stand out: ▶️ YouTube is the new TV. It’s now the UK’s second most-watched broadcaster, ahead of ITV, per Ofcom. Business creators are growing fast — some are serious analysts, others provocateurs. Either way, they’re shaping how companies are seen. 📚 Substack is becoming a power player. Long-form writing, loyal audiences, and serious influence — especially among those leaving traditional platforms like X. If you're not tracking the newsletters shaping industry sentiment, you should be. 🟠Reddit isn’t just memes and mayhem. Wall Street Bets may have grabbed headlines, but Reddit’s niche investment forums are worth watching. There’s real insight mixed in with the noise — and the potential for reputational flare-ups. ♪ 𝗧𝗶𝗸 𝗧𝗼𝗸 and Instagram are non-negotiable. If Gen Z and Millennials are part of your stakeholder universe, you can't ignore where they spend their time. The smartest firms are already directing significant budget and strategy here. 👩🏻‍💻Editorial and commercial lines are blurred. Journalists are now creators. Creators are now analysts. And campaigns can be built, launched, and scaled from a bedroom. So, what does this mean? Reputation lives everywhere - it's agnostic of platform. Therefore your monitoring, engagement, and comms strategies need to stretch far beyond the usual channels. Sorry. Not necessarily what you wanted to hear but why you need comms people who do this every day! Thanks again to Ian Silvera for the reminder: this isn’t a media trend. It’s the new activist landscape. Meanwhile at home, my own media strategy involves letter-writing practice and non-verbal reasoning (!) in exchange for tablet time (see photo). In the battle for attention - whether it’s shareholders or small people - we’re all just trying to stay one step ahead. Link to Ian's piece: https://lnkd.in/eKme_yFa

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🚨 This week's Earned First newsletter is live, focusing on big moves in corporate comms, and bigger questions about the function’s future. 📰 Rikki Jones (she-her) is joining AstraZeneca after more than a decade with Burson’s GCI Health, relocating to Dubai to lead international comms. 🔎 Meanwhile, Pfizer is restructuring its global corporate affairs function following Sally Susman’s departure. The implications are worth exploring: – Why Susman’s chief corporate affairs officer role is not being replaced – The pressure corporate affairs faces to prove its worth amid cost-cutting and AI – Insights from new reports by Saïd Business School, University of Oxford-GlobeScan and United Minds/Weber Shandwick on where the function goes next Plus: 🎙️ A new podcast interview with Adrian Warr on AI, activism and Asia's communications future 📅 Events in Dubai, Singapore, Dehradun, Mumbai and Nairobi 🎧 Music picks for the curious Read it all here → https://lnkd.in/da6iBhBe Photo by Declan Sun / Unsplash Amith Prabhu Sarika Chavan Ameeta Vadhera Anubhuti Mathur Joulyn Kenny Roshan Alexander Reputation Today Folgate Advisors Asia-Pacific Association of Communication Directors International Communications Consultancy Organisation Africa PR Week

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What’s the real cost of not having a strategic communications plan? On the surface, skipping the planning stage might feel like saving time or moving faster. But the costs, both real and hidden, quickly add up: • You invite a culture of “one-offs.” Without a roadmap, every request becomes urgent and disconnected, pulling focus away from impact. • You risk being seen as a tactical executor, not a strategic driver of the business. • Your work isn’t connected to the business strategy and the C-suite, which keeps comms on the sidelines. • You lose the ability to secure the right resources and budget because you can’t prove how comms links to business goals. • You miss opportunities for proactive storytelling and instead react to events as they come. • You dilute internal alignment when leaders, teams, and channels aren’t working from the same narrative. • You increase reputational risk when gaps and inconsistencies in messaging are easier to exploit. • You undermine measurement since, without a plan (with objectives), it is nearly impossible to show ROI or demonstrate impact. A strategic communications plan is not just a nice-to-have. It is the foundation that allows comms to drive business outcomes, protect reputation, and elevate the function from “order-taker” to business partner. 👉 What other hidden costs have you seen when organizations skip planning?

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