When Internal Communication Breaks Down

In this episode of Relationships at Work, Russel Lolacher speaks with Alejandra Ramirez, founder of Ready Cultures, about why internal communication often fails in organizations.

They discuss how misaligned messaging damages workplace culture, why clarity matters in leadership communication, and how Alejandra’s Head–Heart–Hands framework helps leaders communicate what’s happening, why it matters, and what teams should do next.

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Transcript

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Russel Lolacher: And on the show today we have Alejandra Ramirez, and here is why she is awesome. She is the founder and chief connector at Ready Cultures, helping organizations build better culture with better communication.

This is an addition to her role as founder of Ready Strategies, which helps small and growing businesses with their marketing, communications and branding. She has nearly 20 years experience in internal and corporate comms, helping companies guide their teams through growth, rebrands, mergers, layoffs, all the big things in the lifespan of a corporation, always with clarity, empathy, and purpose.

And she's here. Hello, Alejandra. How are you?

Alejandra Ramirez: Hello? Hello. You did your research.

Russel Lolacher: I, I'd done some Googling. Yes, absolutely. I am an probably overstate on this podcast, a bit of a communications nerd that is the foundation of my background as well as leadership. So I have some questions. Super curious as to your approach, especially around internal comms because. Yeah, sometimes I just don't think we get it right, especially how we define what internal comms is.

But before we get there, I have to ask the question I ask all of my guests, which is, what is your best or worst employee experience?

Alejandra Ramirez: Gosh, I feel like we've. All have we, we all have at least one of each of those, right? One example that's always stuck with me for years is it was early in my career and I worked with a leader who was pretty brilliant at managing up, right? So they always knew what the top partners wanted to hear.

You know, they presented really well. But then when they left those meetings and it came to managing either across or down, they really. Couldn't hold the line. And I remember a specific time when there was a really big internal conflict and there were multiple teams involved. And, you know, I was pretty junior.

I checked with this individual to say, Hey, you know what, I wanted their read on how to navigate it. And I, you know, followed what was discussed. And then the moment it got uncomfortable, right? And another senior pushed back, they backed away from everything we had been discussing and. It really felt like I was thrown under the bus to smooth things over.

And it just, I, I didn't like it and it stuck with me and it stuck with me because it showed me that, it showed me what happens when you lead for appearances instead of accountability. And it taught a lot. It taught me a lot about the culture of leaders who focus on managing up, but never managed down.

With any backbone in my opinion. Right? So people don't remember the all hands pep talks or, or those little sort of values on the wall. They remember if you have their back when things get tense. And that is a big part of relationships at work, right? And so when you know, it's why I say trust is built in the messy, uncomfortable moments, right?

And if you only care about how you look up and across. Then don't protect your own people. You're not gonna get very far and people are, you're gonna have a lot of high turnover, a lot of high retention. So that's just one, one moment that sticks in my mind just because it was so early in my career and it really defined a lot of how I work and, and worked when I was in house.

Russel Lolacher: It, I love that you brought that up because I do, I've heard, and I've had quite a few conversations of the importance of managing up, the importance of managing up. I'm like, okay, I get that, but aren't you just leading yourself and your career? Like, sure, your relationship up is fantastic and you're handholding your boss and getting what they deliver. So your promotion will be probably fine. You're ruining your team, you are leaving them behind, especially if you're not sharing that knowledge, sharing that experience, sharing what needs the, the larger picture. So again, I put air quotes around that leader, but that's a manager, not a leader in that particular instance.

But yeah, it's always heartbreaking 'cause I'm like, I, but where's the team in this, where's the leadership in this?

Rather than the, oh, great, your career's gonna go skyrocketing. So proud for you.

Alejandra Ramirez: I mean, if you're gonna lead, you need people. Right? You can't lead yourself. So It's a big piece

Russel Lolacher: Well, yeah. I mean, I, I would argue that you do need to lead yourself, but in preparation for leading others, like that's that self-awareness situ. Right. But not in the, not to the benefit of just you.

Alejandra Ramirez: Exactly. Exactly. That's exactly it.

Russel Lolacher: So you're even touching on a bit of what we're gonna talk about today, which is communication. Because that person was all about the up, not the. Down, right? They were shining their light up. Well, what's that whole mushroom metaphor? Like, you're, the light's shining up. We, the team's in the dark, right?

We're, we're, we're left out. But communication is so key. I talk on the show a lot that you need three essentials for any great leader. Self-awareness, situational awareness and communication. And if you're not good at any of those, you're not a leader. Full stop. So we're talking about internal communications here, and any leader worth their salt has to understand. Their connection to the communication, connection to who their audience is and all these things. But before we go down that rabbit hole, 'cause you know, I'm, I'm preaching to the choir here. What is misalignment? So we're gonna be talking about misalignment when it comes to culture, when it comes to communication piece, but I need to understand what you even mean by misalignment when you're talking about it.

Alejandra Ramirez: I love this question and it's sort of core to what I do, which is to me, misalignment is when a company's strategy is one thing, but the employees are doing a completely different thing. Meaning you have a goal in mind to, you know, be the best company in this specific industry. And you're gonna do this by you know, reinventing a product or selling.

I'm, I'm just trying to think of a recent example without, you know, giving away names. If you have that goal in mind, that's your strategy. You need your people to do things to get to that. And if your people are not clear on what they need to do, you've got misalignment because what you say and what you do need to match at a company that, that's my my impression of it

Russel Lolacher: No, and that's, that's great. I'm just, I'm also wanna pull back a bit on that. Isn't vision and mission also a piece of that? Because it's not just goal, because a goal is a subsection of a vision mission if it's a good one.

Alejandra Ramirez: Right. A strategy should include that. Exactly. Exactly.

Russel Lolacher: being the per operative word there? So how do you know it's misalign?

Alejandra Ramirez: Well, so there's different ways. I mean, when I work with clients, I work through what I call audits, and I, I do either focus groups or surveys that essentially ask those questions. So. From, from the most senior person to the most junior person in a company. And I say, you know, on a scale of one to five, how would you rate the firm's vision?

You know, and I do. I do qualitative and I do quantitative because sometimes if they can, they can reply, you know, if they can write it out and say, this is the vision, okay, that's great. But then you wanna ask, does this align with your day to day? And if leadership is ranking something a four or a five, but then staff is ranking it a two, you know, you've got yourself a gap that you need to fix.

And so I, I like to ask a lot of questions. It, it's, it's a big part of, of uncovering where that misalignment is. And inevitably what I find is usually there's three broad buckets. There's more, but the ones I see most commonly are the companies who have a great mission and vision and values. That's all it is.

It's just up on a wall and they have no real, they haven't operationalized it. They haven't used it to communicate why they do what they do. Then you've got the company that has zero message and zero clear, you know, clear sort of direction. They have great tools and systems and they have all the bells and whistles and they have slack and they have this, and they, but it's just tools because they're not, they have nothing to say.

And then I find that some companies. Have neither, and they all, you know, they all have their, their pros and cons to, you know, getting to that end goal. But you need both. You need to have a clear message. You need to have a clear system to point back to, and you need to have clear actions. You need to be clear about how those things you want done.

Look in the day-to-day, and I'll give you, I'll give you an example. I was talking to a company, and this is a trend that's happening. I'm sure you've seen it on LinkedIn. You've seen it in the news. I was talking to a company that said, well, you know, we're AI first. And I said, that's so lovely. What does that mean?

They're like, oh, well, it means we use ai. And I said, great. What does that mean for your person in marketing? Who does the sales? Well, I don't know. It's like, all right, well, what does it mean for your operations person? I'm, I'm not sure. I said, well then you're not AI first, you're buzzword first. Because clarity and and alignment come from defining what it means to be said thing that you're claiming to be, in this case, AI first.

Because AI first to one person may mean completely different things to another person. And if you don't set those and manage those expectations from the go, people are gonna fill in those blanks and it's inevitably gonna go sideways. So.

Russel Lolacher: We even get back to that definition piece. Like if they can't even define it for themselves, how the hell are they gonna get anybody else to buy into any of this? But it sure sounds good 'cause their 12-year-old son mentioned it once. And then we need to be AI everything. So I've heard you talk about that misaligned messaging actually can cost fractures in culture, and you're kind of touching on that as well.

I wanna dig a little deeper into that. How can those dots connect

Alejandra Ramirez: Well, I wanna take a step back and define culture. Firstly,

Russel Lolacher: please? I'd love me some definitions. Yeah, please.

Alejandra Ramirez: I'm a big believer that the, the definition most people use is not very useful, and it's not very actionable. It's very much like, oh, it's a shared way of doing things, or it's a shared system and value of values. To me, I like to look back to science, and if you think about science, when you're culturing something, you're creating conditions under which you want things to grow.

Think of a Petri dish. You have the agar, you have all the things. It is a very actionable thing. You are culturing a system, a tool, and so to me. Culture and, and the, and the workplace is the same concept. It's not just this static list of values that everyone's expected to to follow. In fact, it's the words and the actions that you are using to create this sort of system that you want things to thrive under.

So if you say you're transparent, what are the actions you're taking to make this a transparent culture? If you're not doing that, then you're probably not transparent. So I say that because to me, I think that's a, a key piece, right? You, you wanna be clear about what culture even means. And your question was how do you connect sort of misalignment and and culture, right?

So the fractures, so to me it goes back to defining your purpose and, and your values. You need to know where you're headed before, you know, you tell people how to get there. And if you create, if you create values that are clear and then you communicate them, you're gonna connect those dots. And, and it goes back to this idea of clarity, which is, in my mind, confusion is expensive.

Right? It clarity makes you money. And I, I mean, I hate to be that. Blunt, but it just is, I mean, at the end of the day, every business is in it to make profits. But what happens is inevitably people will forget the people that do the work at the ex, you know, at the expense of everything else. And so, to me, I think that the misalignment can be solved with clear messaging and clear communication and, and that's what builds the culture.

Russel Lolacher: Now when we're talking about communication here, who are we talking about from? Internal communication. Is this executive? Is this hr? Is this. There are subcultures. I mean, we don't just have one homogenous culture. We've got a lot of leaders within an organization. So when we're talking internal comms and alignment, where is this coming from?

Alejandra Ramirez: It? Well, it depends on the company and it depends on the culture. I know that's sort of a wishy-washy answer, but what I mean by that is. Some companies are very top down, meaning you have someone at the top who says, here's what's happening, here's how, what's being done? Off you go. And maybe it's because they're smaller, they can afford to do that, or it's just sort of how they, how they function.

Some companies are more flat. So they, they, you know, they, yes, the message is sort of still sort of from the top, so to speak, meaning whoever that person who's driving that strategy and direction is. But then you've got different, like you said, these subcultures, whether it's because it's in a different country and that adds a whole other layer, or whether it's just in a different state in the US or whatever it may be.

You, you need to be clear about who the messages come from for your culture. So it could be in some scenarios, it could be the head of hr, depending on what the topic is. It could be the CEO, it could be the COO and, and it really depends on what's the message you're trying to get across and how have you defined your culture in a way that helps make the most of people doing their job and doing it well and understanding that.

And so takes a little bit of. Trial and error. You have to sort of test things out. Make sure you have a feedback loop, right? You can't just assume it's not a one-sided conversa. It, it's not a conversation if it's one-sided, right? And so, all of those pieces play a role in defining who it comes from.

And, and at the end of the day, communication is core to human connection. So everyone communicates, everyone communicates differently, but at your company you need to be clear and define who, who that is and how that shows up.

Russel Lolacher: And I love that you kind of touched on that as well, is that we confuse communication with broadcasting all the time, is that communication is not one way. It is not a blast email, it is not. Communication is you sent it. Did they understand it? Did they receive it in the way that you intended it? Did they hear it the way you wanted it?

Did they tell you how they, like, there is that, to your point, feedback loop as well. But so many organizations are all about, but I mentioned the vision and mission in the email. See, I aligned, look, I sent it at them as opposed to with them and sort of make that connection. Which brings me to, I wanna hear your thoughts about the humanity of our communication. So. I know a lot of organizations, those, that leadership, that people that are connecting those dots, it ends up starting to sound pretty corporate it or it starts sounding and then you put up a wall and connection to employees because they feel you're talking again, back to being at them without human speak and much more about as pertaining to our strategic plan from 2017.

Like nobody's reading that. They deleted that email when you were halfway through that sentence, so. I hear the alignment, but also there should be some tone. There should be something to it. What are your thoughts on that?

Alejandra Ramirez: That is a hundred percent accurate. I think it's so important to build connection and you do that by being human and not speaking, like you said in this corporate jargon. I think most leaders overcomplicate things, right? So. When you're trying to communicate, you just wanna, you know, ask yourself, what are we doing?

Why does it matter? And how does each person's work fit in? If you, if they can't answer that in their own words, you're asking for trouble. And by own words, I just mean think about, you know, if you have kids, how you would explain something to your kid. Think about if you have a friend who's like, Hey, what are you working on today?

Or, how are you? Right. Just. It's just like everyone else in your life. There's the, I don't know why people think there's this sudden what, what is it severance, like, you know, the any and the Audi that this isn't. Sure, some people like to keep their private life private at work, but at the end of the day, the communication and how you communicate with people transcends every environment.

And so I think it's really important to remember that and to remember that people just wanna understand what you're saying and, and why it matters to them. And that. The more human you can sound when doing so, the more connection you're just gonna build naturally.

Russel Lolacher: Simplicity's so key. I've heard quite a few times that nothing should have any more than three points in it. Nothing should e 'cause people will not remember anything beyond three points. So if you're trying to jam everything into your correspondence, your one month email and it's got 17 bullet points in it, nobody's reading past the introduction 'cause they just saw it.

It's too long read later, kind of through it and to your point, we overcomplicate it. We want to get every, but there's so much happening. We need to tell everything, everybody, everything. No, you need to chunk it and break it down and communicate maybe more often, but. We the nature of busy. Right. Which leads me into my next question, which is self-work. So how do we know we're part of the problem or part of the solution when it comes to communication? Because as the person that's the communicator whether it's the leader, executive, hr, how do we know we're getting it right or not getting right? And if it's feedback, what questions are we asking to ensure we are.

Alejandra Ramirez: So I think you as a leader, you need to start with curiosity. And I know we're talking about sort of the self, but at the end of the day, your people take their cues from you. So if you're calm, they're gonna be calm. If you're chaotic and stressed, they're gonna be chaotic and stressed. And so because your team picks up on every twitch and every silence and every side comment, you need to be that rock.

You need to be. That sort of place that people can go to and feel like, okay, we've got someone keeping us focused. And you do that by asking questions. You do that by saying, Hey, you know, we just, you know, we just launched this new product and we sent it out to all of you to test it. How did that land? I just worked with a company.

They were doing this monthly newsletter. They weren't tracking it, they weren't doing anything. And I said, okay, well let's start by adding just at the bottom of the newsletter, just add a, did you find this newsletter useful? Yes or no button? Just that simple, right? And I use that as an example because the more information you can get, the more you can adjust.

Because if you're finding that people are, you know, in your, if you're in your head saying one thing and, and then the feedback is saying another, then clearly. There's a misalignment there and you need to be will willing to take that and adjust for it. You can't just say, gimme the feedback, thanks, and then do nothing.

That's also not great. But that self piece transcends the self because again, people, if you are a leader, and by leader I don't mean the CEO, I mean a leader, very definition of a leader is someone who can lead people and that comes with that communication. And so. Those three points you mentioned, the self-awareness being one of them, I think that is so key, but you need to be willing to ask questions to get to that point and be willing to take feedback.

Russel Lolacher: Oh yeah. I mean, it's one thing to do the action of asking for it. It's a completely other, another to be humble enough to be open enough to go, oh, I got it wrong. How can I get it right? To your point, you've talked about a framework three H framework, and I think that's. As a leader trying to understand and how to better communicate internally, how is that a framework that's gonna work?

Alejandra Ramirez: So. I, well, first of all, like you, I work in threes. I like threes the three H framework as an example. So three H stands for head, heart, and hands. And to me, I think that any individual who is responsible for leading when it comes to communication needs to be able to answer three basic things, which is the head, the heart, and the hands.

And what I mean by that is. What are the facts? The head is the facts. Like write down what the facts are. Do they make sense? What is happening? Great. Can you answer that? Yes. The heart is, why does this matter? People wanna know why things matter. Most people aren't just like, great new way of doing something, let me go off and do it.

They wanna know why, because they wanna know that they're spending their time wisely. So you need to be prepared to answer why and why not just. Because it's good for the company, but why it matters to them and why it matters to what's being done. And then you've got the hands, which is what do you need them to do?

What? What do they need to do as a next step? If you can answer those three things, you are going to get very far. If you cannot answer those three things, you're not ready to communicate. And I always like to say, that doesn't mean you have to know all the answers. People think they need to wait for everything to be perfect to go out.

You can still use the head, heart hands when you don't have all the facts, but that could be part of the head. You could say, listen, we're working with minimal facts. We're still looking into whatever this scenario is, but here's what we do know, and we will come back to you when there's more to to be said.

And you know, when you get to the hands, say, stay tuned for another email with instructions that tells them I need to know to look to my inbox for that information. And it, it sounds really simple, but you'd be surprised how many people don't get that right. And inevitably what happens is they send an email, A, that is way too long, B, that has no clear point to it.

And C, that just doesn't connect with people because. They're just like, whatever, this doesn't apply to me, and then it goes into their trash. So it's

Russel Lolacher: I love that framework. No, it absolutely is. It hits on all the points that we need as communicators to connect with the people that we're trying to connect with. Is this just written communication? Because it sounds like it'd probably work for every type of internal communication.

Alejandra Ramirez: It works for everything. So the, the, I find that people generally use it for written when I've reached out to them about it, because that's. Just how most companies still communicate most effectively and mo most commonly. But it does apply. I've used it, you know, I was prepping a CEO for a town hall, and we used that exact scenario.

I said, let's talk about it. What are the facts? What do you want people to know? What are, you know, why, why should they care? And what do you need them to do? And so it does certainly apply for any form of communication, whether it's written or spoken or, I don't know, smoke signals or something. I'm kidding.

But yeah, it doesn't, it, it applies to everything.

Russel Lolacher: How do you, so there's one piece I always have a problem with when it comes to, and this usually falls to executive more than any other group within an organization. They tend to outsource their communication. I'm too busy, somebody else should write it for me. I'm like, so you hire other people to build relationships on your behalf, but at the same time they'll be like, but I'm so busy.

What am I supposed to do? Where is the, where's the, the middle ground in that, because we talk about connection, we talk at the executive level, and then we're like, Hey, internal comms team, can you make me sound smart? Can you make, can you connect for me? Everybody that gets those emails knows that executive didn't write that, and it just seems to build up a bigger, to your point, gap between the employees and the employer.

Where's, where's the happy middle ground?

Alejandra Ramirez: Well, so I wanna start by, by emphasizing that I don't think it's bad to outsource something. If you have someone on your team who is a really phenomenal writer, leverage that. But to me, outsourcing doesn't mean here you go off, you go do it yourself. To me. It's using skills from another person to still tell your story and you need to continue to be involved.

So I've worked, you know, when I worked in house, I worked with, you know, a very senior person who was not great at writing and communicating, but he was really good at expressing what he was trying to say. Sort of one-on-one to me, and I was able to pull that information and create his voice. And it, it, it was, it was a team effort.

It wasn't just will make me look smart. It was, here's what I'm trying to say. How can we turn it into something that people will actually understand? And so it's okay to outsource. It's, it's not okay to delegate, if that makes sense. This is a little bit of a nuance there, but. It makes a big difference and you need to be, you know, I've turned down clients who have called me in to say, you know, we just can you just come in and make it sound nice and, and just like, you know, fix it.

I'm like, well, no, I'm not here to make it sound nice. I'm here to connect and bridge what you're trying to say with what you want people to do. I'm not here to put lipstick on a pig, so if that's all you want, then I know you're not bought in and you're not ready to actually do the work to get it right.

Russel Lolacher: It constantly comes up on the show. The lack of training leaders get they're put in positions that they are really good at their old jobs, so they must be leaders now. Like, no, no, no. It's a completely different skillset. I find the same when it comes to communication is that we almost take it for granted because we've been speaking since we were four.

Why do I need, how to learn, how to communicate? I've been communicating my whole life. What do we need to do as leaders to better understand? Are deficient, like we need to be trained in these things. There's degrees and masters and doctorates in communication. This is a skillset and yet we treat it like it's an either a nice to have or it's obvious. So how do you connect the dots with people that way?

Alejandra Ramirez: Well, so there's a few things. I always like to remind people that soft skills are still skills, meaning they help drive your profits. Again, when I, a lot of the clients I work with, you know, we're talking about a merger or a big change, and so you're talking about people who have made a really big investment in something and wanna make it.

Make the most of it. So I always like to say, if you are trying to launch this and you've invested all this money, you have to take the time to communicate to people what's needed. Otherwise, that money is just gonna go right out the window because you've just wasted every cent on this fancy thing that's not being used or implemented effectively.

Communication is your best insurance policy. And so I always work with, with leaders on. Helping them understand that it's a core tenant to their job. It's not an afterthought. It's not just this thing that happens off to the side. And I always do that by tying it to the bottom line and it, it, it really is core to that because yes, I mean, ultimately communication is about connection and relationship building.

And if you do it well. That's the piece that you do well, and then it drives the bottom line. But for some of these leaders, it, it comes, you know, who are very much like we're here, we're numbers driven. We're, you know, that, that's what tends to happen when you have some, you know, someone at the senior level, you need to tie it back to the bottom line.

And the bottom line is if people are not clear, they're not gonna get you the money that you need and the dollars that you need. And I, again, I, to some people that may sound crass, but it. It's just a fact. I mean, if you're running a business, you need people to do what you need them to do, and you want them to do it not forcibly.

You want them to do it in a way that is clear to them and makes them say, oh aha. Let me do it. And by the way, here's maybe a better way of doing it. I always also like to remind leaders that you can't assume people can read your mind. They just can't. So how are you gonna take that and turn it into something?

The final point I will make is, and this is something I've just recently started doing after a conversation I had someone a couple months ago, is getting, it's really uncomfortable for leaders to be sort of in the spotlight. For many people, it's really uncomfortable and communication usually means you're in the spotlight because you're the one saying what needs to happen.

So getting them comfortable with that. What I have found is doing improv is a really great way of helping make them feel more comfortable in the uncomfortable. And that's really key too, because usually what happens is you get to air in the headlights when you know when they're put on the spot.

And so the more you can prepare people to just be like, Hey, this is, this is just how life is, sometimes you don't know the answer. It it helps 'em.

Russel Lolacher: Trying to introduce yes, and into people that have no concept of these things.

Alejandra Ramirez: Yeah,

Russel Lolacher: They wanna throw in a butt any chance they can get or put a period on things. Yeah, I, I love, I love the idea of improv because just as you've mentioned, sort of, it gets them outta their comfort zone too, because they're used to their rigid environment as oppo and, and their reoccurring environment that they're used to and comfortable in and safe in. Yeah, love that. So we're communicating with our team. We're doing that internal communication piece. We're trying our best when it comes to connecting the dots, either to the why, the what, the how, but it's not working and people aren't providing that feedback. Click at the bottom because maybe that gap is becoming too big and we're just not paying attention to it.

'cause we're busy as leaders doing our own thing. What are some warning signs we should be looking for with a team? That we are cracking our culture and we're not getting those obvious feedback loops because maybe there isn't that psychological safety we assume exists.

Alejandra Ramirez: So this is what I call the quiet before the quit. So usually the warning signs are so quiet until they've hit the fan and then all the alarms are going off. You want us, you wanna think. If people aren't too quiet, that's probably a problem because it probably tells you that morale is really low. So if, say you do gather and collect feedback, but the feedback is, you know, the engagement, the number of people who are sending the feedback is nominal.

That's big. You also wanna look at retention and turnover. It costs a lot of money to replace people and if you are constantly turning people over, and by people I don't mean you're always look, you're always gonna lose people. It's just sort of part of. You know, the world of work, but you don't wanna lose the right people.

And if you start to notice that turnover is sort of across the board as opposed to for the people that you don't mind leaving, that's a huge problem. Recruiting is another thing, right? When you're recruiting, that's an extension of your internal culture, because what happens is you're trying to bring people into a culture that aligns for them.

They talk, they, they read GlassDoor, they read all of these things. So if you're finding that you are having trouble recruiting people as much as you previously were, that's a really big thing as well. The one piece that I also look at is employee engagement, right? And so I talk about silence, the feedback loop being, if it's quiet, you know it's gonna be a problem. The engagement in the flip is the same concept, right?

So employee engagement, if, if people are engaged, they're gonna be clicking on things, they're gonna be opening things, they're gonna be responding to things. And so those are all little, what I call. Tweets that that make a difference. And I like to think of it as think about your fire alarm. If you don't check your fire alarm, that doesn't mean it's great, right?

Like it's gonna start beeping when it's low on battery. You don't wanna wait to change that battery once the fire has started. If you're noticing little changes in sort of how things have normally run. That's your cue to maybe take a look and change those batteries and rethink how you're doing things.

Russel Lolacher: I wanna put it back into the relationship piece 'cause hey, it's the name of the podcast. We get to know our team, we get to understand our team. They are individuals, they are a team, but they are a team of individuals and how they want to be communicated to may not be the same as the entire organization. So I wanna start with the first question, which is, how do we. Co-create communication because on that communication be, could be coming on down on high for the broader culture, and then the team's like, okay, but that's for everybody. It doesn't relate to me. It doesn't relate to my work because it's trying to communicate to too many people as opposed to this team of 10 who have their own. So how do you as a leader look at that communication and go, okay, it's not, I get it. I get why you communicate in that way, but it's not gonna work for my team. I need to maybe be a little clearer in this. What are we looking for? How do we do that?

Alejandra Ramirez: I think too often people are focused on the operational piece of it, which is like, well, here's the message and now it goes to the manager and now the manager's gonna give it to the employee and then the employee's gonna go and do their work. That I would be out of a job if it were that easy, because that would just be like, all right, I always like to say, and, and I use this as part of the audits I do, is what I call the grapevine.

So there's the normal channel of information, and then there's the grapevine, sort of the little gossip channel. So I always as a manager, think about who are the people on your team that others look to? Remove yourself from the equation. Obviously, ideally they look to you as well, but who are the people on your team?

Who are influencers? Who are the people that are likely to convince others to do a certain thing? Think about those people and build them into how you're communicating. So rather than being like, here's this blanket statement, how can you bring those people in? Right? Who are those people that others are looking to, to get their information and seeing is credible?

Build them into your process and into your plan. Because if they are bought in, everyone else is gonna be bought in. And that's why this idea of, you know, to me, leader isn't the manager. It can be. A leader is someone who influences. And so when you think about that, and you're in a, in a, if you're in a role that manages teams, you yourself need to be a leader, but you also need to learn how to use the skills of others to influence the whole team.

Russel Lolacher: Does remote matter if we're now working with hybrid teams, fully remote teams, this is the new, well, sort of the new world to work. That's a whole other conversation, but we are now more geographically dispersed. We are now having full relationships with people through a screen, much like we're doing right now. Is there a different way of communicating, aligning with them than there is just your regular town halls or your emails?

Alejandra Ramirez: I personally don't think so. I think that connection can happen over Zoom. I think that the same principles that apply when you're thinking about how to connect with your team and how to build a relationship with someone applies whether they're in person or whether they're over zoom. So I, I like to say that it's more important.

What's more important is understanding the individual people and how they like to receive information than it is to think, oh, well, they're remote versus in person. So. Map that out and say, okay, I have a team. You know, when I was in house, I had a team that was spread across six states. So I found ways that worked to bring us together.

In some cases, it was bringing us together in person, where we would do, once a quarter, we would meet in person just to connect and we went mini golfing and we did, you know, all these fun things. But then I also found ways to structure meetings where it wasn't just everyone jump on a Zoom call and let's.

Let's tell each other our updates. It, it was finding one-on-one opportunities. It was finding ways to connect via email or having a tool where, you know, does Slack work better for someone? And so understanding your team at the individual level ultimately helps the whole, because then you're influencing for the greater good.

Russel Lolacher: I recently had an aha moment in regards to the communication. So as a communication guy, I always like, you can't over communicate. You can't over communicate. You can't over communicate, right? People are busy. They want, they need to hear the same thing over and over again for it to really latch on. And then I talk to a bunch of neurodivergent people and they're like, if you tell me one damn more time, do you think I'm an idiot? Because I've already figured this out and I've moved on, like, you don't need to tell me again. And I think that, and I bring that up because from the remote side of things, I've heard a lot that it's intention. You need to communicate more because they're not in front of you. They don't have that personal energy and connection of walking by a cubicle.

So you may need to communicate. But to your point, if you know them individually, there's some people going, no, no, you told me I heard it. I know I've moved on to another thing. I've, you don't need to be overly intentional with the communication. So I think that really emphasizes the fact these are individuals, not a homogenous team that needs to be communicated to.

Alejandra Ramirez: Yeah, I mean, as someone who's neurodivergent, I am, I get it. I used to be that person when I was a junior. I'd see something and I'd be like, got it. Okay. Connected the dots, let's go. And then I'd see the email again and I'd be like, did no one read the first email? But I also was self-aware enough to know that not every email was for me.

And my boss at the time when I was starting my career was phenomenal because she knew how each person. Liked to be communicated with. And so that made a very big difference and, and making and ensuring that people were getting the job done. And I'll give an example of that. shared an office with a, a woman who just received information very differently and our boss knew that.

And so for me, she knew she could come in and be like, Hey, how you doing? Here's this thing I need you to do. Got it. Great. Thanks. The woman I shared an office with, I, I would be sitting there and I'd see my boss do this, where she would say, how was your morning going? Have you, you know, like just how it was all about understanding and connecting with the person and making them feel like it was all about them.

And then being like, listen, can you do me a huge favor? I could use your help with. Then the person would be like, absolutely, I can help you. Right? If she had done that for me, I would've been like, get to the point. If she had done what she did to me, to that person, the person would've been like, why are you so rude?

Right? So you need to, as a leader, understand the people on your team and then communicate. Their personality in mind, which is why, in my opinion, you can't always just be like, here's the message from on high, good luck. Every person. And that's why to me, the managers are such an important piece of that communication.

And they're the ones that are disappearing lately at companies. They're kind of getting rid of the middle. So you're having to really rethink how does that look when you don't have that middle management? Ideally, being the ones connecting and, and bringing people together.

Russel Lolacher: Fortunately, I've heard that as well. And the middle management is actually where the leadership is.

That's actually where that connection to heart hands, you know, all of that comes from, because by the time we get to the executive level, it seems like we're just putting out fires and just reacting to everything that's not leading, that's managing, they're not inspiring, they are

just trying to, you know, serve the shareholders. So it, it's harder to connect. People are having their connections with the people that they directly report to, and that's where the middle management has the heart and soul of an organization and communication is how they do that. Sorry, I got a little ranty there. But yeah, that breaks my heart, that middle management is the one that's being punished when they're the actual heart and soul of an organization

Alejandra Ramirez: It speaks a lot to how companies view communication, doesn't it?

Russel Lolacher: As two communication nerds. You can audibly hear our heartbreaking ladies and gentlemen, so.

Alejandra Ramirez: Shattering into a million pieces.

Russel Lolacher: we, you've talked about major Titanic shifts in organizations. You've talked about like, you know, mergers, acquisitions, huge change management moves in an organization that's going through change like this, what policies and processes are in place? So consistency stays across the board because if we wanna be aligned, it can't be a crapshoot.

We have to be consistent in how we communicate. For the entire organization, how do we, what are we putting in place to make that even a reality?

Alejandra Ramirez: Well, so when it comes to change, especially, we all know change is hard. As someone who loves to travel and is super spontaneous, even change is hard for me, right? So you have to be able to put yourself in the, in the in people's shoes to understand. How to kind of get them over that hump. And I always say with change, you need to start small.

You can't be like, okay, from one day to the next, we're flipping the switch and now everyone's using this new tool. That's just never going to happen. And that is a recipe for disaster. So starting small is one thing. The other thing I always like to say is that it's really important to remember that,

sorry, re remind me what your question was again. Just 'cause I wanna make sure I'm answering it.

Russel Lolacher: We're talking about big Titanic shifts in organizations, and more than anything, we're talking about consistency. So how

does an organization, what policies and processes are they putting in place? Because three H is great, but I don't know if it's a policy or a process at that level for consistency.

Alejandra Ramirez: Yeah. So consistency. So with change, you wanna start small first and foremost. You don't wanna just put this like cast this wide net and expect everyone to just do the thing overnight. But when it comes to consistency. I am big on creating sort of guides that define who sends what when, right? Different companies call it different things.

I literally will work with a client and say, okay, people crave consistency. So what are the types of things that you're sending communication about? Is it operational updates? Is it events? Is it. You know, changes to how you're using a tool, whatever it may be, let's identify what those things are and then let's identify who is saying those things and let's identify how often those things need to be sent out.

And I'm talking sort of at the operational level. Again, every team is different. Every team and every leader knows how best to work it within their teams. But if you create this sort of waterfall or like structured. Guide for how to communicate, then people start to anticipate certain things from you versus from the COO versus from their manager versus from, you know, the chief of staff right did or hr.

And so the more that you can structure that upfront and make sure that everyone's in agreement about, okay, when this type of information needs to go, we now know that HR is the one to send it. People will start to know, okay, this is a message from HR and I know it comes once a month and I know it does this thing.

That to me is key to consistency because it sets expectations up front and then it follows through with, you know, that communication.

Russel Lolacher: We started the conversation with trust and I think communication is the DNA of trust. But what if we're working in a culture that doesn't have those books is risk adverse, but we're leaders that wanna have a team that gets it. They want, we wanna be transparent, we wanna motivate with communication, we wanna align, and yet we're in this quagmire surrounded us of an organization that doesn't get it. How does that work?

Alejandra Ramirez: Well look, I mean, you can only control what you can control. So if you have your team and you're able to just make sure that your team is clear on what's expected and clear on what you know needs to happen, that's all you can really do. And by, and what I mean by that is you still obviously need to be able to go to the, you know, senior you know team and say, Hey.

Here's what I'm hearing. Here's what I'm trying to do. Does this sound right? And making sure it aligns. Unfortunately it's not sustainable if you are in a culture that is chaotic and, you know, likes to change things week to week and day to day. Because as much as you can try to control things within your team and say, it's okay, we're gonna say this or do that, if the culture as a whole is structured in a way that doesn't allow that to thrive, it, it's, it's.

You might wanna think about, you know, it is, if it's the right fit, quite frankly, and that's okay, right? Because sometimes it's not the right fit and you wanna just go elsewhere.

Russel Lolacher: Unfortunately, then your team's gonna suffer because you're trying to do best by them and best for you. But then if it doesn't fit for you, your team is still stuck there.

Alejandra Ramirez: And it's, it's very true. And that's really unfortunate. But think about it, if you're in a position. Where you're responsible for a team and you're miserable. It goes back to relationship with self, right? Because people need someone they can trust, and if you are that person who is not very happy, they're going to see that.

And it's also not gonna be very useful. So obviously it's really important to think about your relationship with yourself as well as your relationship with your team and the both. Both have to be aligned to work well. If they're not, then. You gotta rethink your situation. I know that's, again, I, I, sometimes people tell me I'm a little too blunt, but it's, it's, you know, and by the way, some of the best relationships are built after you've left a company because some of the people that you keep in touch with are the people who were like, I'm so glad you took that first step, or, I'm so glad that you showed me a different way, or, I'm so glad.

Right. So it's still about relationship building.

Russel Lolacher: Hey, you're using my language, Aandra. I'm, I'm fine with it. This is the bluntness of relationship. I get it with self and everyone. before, as we get closer to ending this conversation, I'm kind of curious about transparency in this because. Sometimes you'll have executive go, you can say this, but do not say this, this, and this.

You can say this, but do not say this. Even though those things are probably exactly what your team needs to hear, but the executive or leadership or board is super risk adverse. Your job as leader is to build trust, but then keeping things from them that they probably should hear. Where do you fall on that?

Alejandra Ramirez: I'm a big believer that if you're in a position of leadership. It means that the senior executives trust you and therefore I think you need to be willing to toe the line a little bit and, and, and not necessarily, obviously you can't give away confidential information if it's, you know, gonna cause a lawsuit or something.

But you need to know how to take that and turn it into a conversation with your team. And it could just be, listen, here's the reality we're facing and here's what I can tell you. And there's a few other pieces. I'm not at liberty to tell you about right now, but I, I, I want you to know that you can trust that things are moving in the direction they need to be moving.

And, and once I'm able to tell you more, I will. Or if you're willing to kind of tell them a little more and say, look, here's, here's, here's what we do know, and here's what we're able to talk about. Here's a couple other facts that you should know, but please don't, you know. Please don't take that and, you know, share it with the world.

But you as a, as a leader, you need to know your team and understand those nuances, and understand those currents of how they communicate and, and what helps build that trust and show that you're transparent.

Russel Lolacher: We talked about, I mean, misalignment is huge and, and, and our, and our communication has to be aligned with our vision, mission, and goals. Have you ever seen it where it needs to be reverse engineered to the point where vision and mission suck? I'm trying to communicate over here, but I have a horrible resource and source of truth that you're providing me.

Your vision is three pages long. Has it ever come to an organization where they're like, we can't. We've been operating, we are communicating. We need to go back and rethink what our vision and mission is, because as a culture, this is not where we should be hanging our hat. We got it wrong.

Alejandra Ramirez: Absolutely. I mean, that goes back to those three examples I mentioned where some companies have the vision, but you know, no way to communicate it or vice versa. Absolutely. You need to start with the, the purpose and the core message. If you don't have that, you don't, nothing else is gonna work. And so sometimes that reverse engineering comes with looking at who the managers are, who are most trusted by senior leadership to speak up and say.

Here's the problem, here's the disconnect, and you need to fix that. And I've worked with clients on that where we'll do what I call messaging sprints where we, you know, just do a deep dive on just what is, what is your message, what are you trying to say? And then let's. Test it out. Think it. It's like in marketing where you're launching something new, you kind of test it and then you adjust it and then you test it and you adjust it.

And you need to be willing to do that obviously with sort of a core direction and purpose in mind. But you know, maybe it's worded a little differently for certain scenarios or, you know, that that is, is key. And I wouldn't even call it reverse engineering. I would just say it's essential to any communication and you need to look at it first and foremost.

Russel Lolacher: Good leaders don't let their egos get in the way of rethinking what may not be working anymore for them. And even something as core as a vision and mission, don't be so stuck in it because it'll do more damage than anything else if we, if you continue to perpetuate. someone's listening to this right now, and there are, there are a few people listening. If they have to take that first step into understanding how internal comms needs to better align in order to ensure their culture is going in the way they want, where do they start? What does a tomorrow step that they take going, okay, I really need to figure out what my next step is here because I do not know how our communication's working and everything else.

What would you recommend to them?

Alejandra Ramirez: Would say to start by listening. Just flat out, start by listening and by listening I mean ask your team questions. Write down what you know, and then ask the questions and say, how would you explain this? Or Do you understand why we're doing this? And take note of that. Once you have that, it gives you a better sense for how aligned or misaligned you are.

And then ideally, then you have a better sense of where you go next.

Russel Lolacher: That is Alejandra Ramirez. She's the founder and chief connector at Ready Cultures. She's also the founder of Ready Strategies, helping organizations build better culture with better communication. She's helping with marketing all the things she's busy. Thank you so much for being here, Alejandra. Really appreciate it.

Alejandra Ramirez: Thanks so much for having me.