All posts by Eric Martindale

I taught a module on reputation management at the University of Leeds a year or so ago and one of the definitions of reputation management that I used was by Doorley and Garcia. They said that:

Reputation = Sum of images = Performance + Behaviour + Communications

As I reflected on my own career, it struck me that producing communications ‘stuff’ is becoming a smaller and smaller part of the role of being a communicator and that we deliver a lot of other value for the organisations and leaders that we work for. Here’s a few obvious and less obvious examples:

1. Build better organisations 

The good news is that in most companies, the communications function is no longer just an order taker but truly has an impact on the success of the organisation. For instance, in my last-in-house role, I was a member of the leadership team and so worked on the business strategy and plan.

For me, making the firm more successful is the most important thing that communicators can do. Frankly it doesn’t matter how zingy your Yammer post is if the organisation is failing. Being knowledgeable about the business goals means that you can develop the right communications strategy and plan to deliver them.

2. Change culture and behaviours 

It’s true that people believe actions more than words. If a company says that it’s a listening organisation and then does nothing with the feedback it receives then how do you think people are going to feel? If a company says that its people are its number one asset but there’s an abusive culture and the employee benefits were cut last year, how are people going to feel? Communicators have a really important role in determining the culture and values of a firm and ensure that leaders do the right thing as well as say the right thing.

3. Improve products and services 

I had one client who asked for my help to deal with a torrent of customer complaints that were being reported in the national media each week. However, if you keep getting customer complaints reported in the media and don’t learn from them, then the coverage is likely to get worse. To prevent this, I worked with the operational team to review complaint handling processes so that customers got a decent response in a reasonable time and didn’t feel as much need to complain to the media.

Then we looked at our products and service standards, changed how we sold them and provided more information at the point of sale to minimise the risk of them being sold to vulnerable members of society who couldn’t afford them. These combined efforts reduced customer complaints in the media by over 90%.

In another example, during the last recession, the company I worked for was reducing expenditure, making a lot of people redundant and had to make the difficult decision to cut its corporate donation to a charity. However, by working with our marketing team, we enabled our customers to donate their loyalty card points to the charity and we would match it. We were able to promote this partnership to their supporters and our customers and the overall donation to the charity increased whilst still at a lower cost to the firm.

4. Maintain trust and care for colleagues

When an organisation makes employees redundant, people can understandably feel disappointed and have a sense that the agreement between them has been broken. Communicators can play a key role here to ensure that companies are as transparent as possible about planned changes and treat people with respect.

In previous roles, I’ve persuaded HR and operational management colleagues to provide better retention bonuses and outplacement support to people being made redundant. This not only helped maintain service standards during the transition but also kept up morale by demonstrating that the company cared.

5. Be the company’s conscience 

Perhaps one of the roles that I’m most proud of is being the conscience of organisations and asking what is reasonable and then persuading managers and lawyers to do the right thing. I was part of the team that responded to the biggest explosion in peacetime Europe at an oil terminal north of London. There were people made homeless and business premises destroyed. Initially, it wasn’t clear who was at fault for the explosion, but myself and my communications colleagues persuaded our company and our joint venture partner to help those people affected by this incident anyway because that was the right thing to do.

Then there’s all the other things that we do as communicators: trainer, facilitator/peace negotiator, mentor and coach. Talking of coaches, I’ve now got a solid understanding of the South Wales luxury coach market from scouring the Internet to find suitable transport for a group of peers, MPs and UK Government officials visiting one of our sites.

I’m not a natural style guru but I have persuaded one manager to ditch the formal business attire when speaking with a group of school children and other clients not to wear their usual vibrant shirts and ties in TV interviews.

Once, I even had to find a pantomime cow to present a prize to a customer that was sponsored by our dairy supplier.

Lastly, I had a client who like to smoke at shisha bars, so I secured speaking opportunities for him at conferences across Europe, wrote his speeches, marketed our involvement and then Googled shisha bar Paris and shisha bar Prague.

So, when you are sitting down with your client, help them to understand all the value you bring to the organisation and not just the communications stuff.

Daniel Schraibman is an independent change and engagement consultant.

I had finished an interim communications contract that I didn’t enjoy and wondered whether this was the end of my communications career. After all, I’d worked in pretty much every area of the profession at a senior level, with both major international firms and start-ups, so what was there left to learn?

Alongside my communications work, for many years, I’ve also been a residential landlord which has made me more customer-centric, resilient and able to sort problems at pace. I wondered whether property could be an alternative career option, and I started looking at potential properties to develop.

I came across a 500-year-old listed commercial building that had been empty for seven years in the centre of my local market town that was previously a tea rooms with a flat above. I know that for some of you reading that sentence, really loud alarm bells are already ringing but I walked in and fell in love with it. Even in its rundown state, I could see the potential of the building and what the benefits could be for the town if it was brought back to life. It had beautiful bones but needed a lot of work doing on it.

So, I bid in the online auction and got it! This was the first of many things I did over the four-year renovation that I had never done before – asbestos and lead paint tests anyone? I thought trusses and purlins were an Edwardian lady’s undergarments, but it turns out that they are some of the structural woodwork of the building.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much from my residential landlord experience that was very helpful because this was on a totally different scale. I had a team of 60 people working for me including a whole range of specialists – conservation officers, structural engineers, quantity surveyors etc.

Aside from improving my general business skills, what surprised me was how much my communications and change experience came in handy. I created the business plan (for an integrated community hub with two Airbnb’s, workspaces, a function room and a café), the vision, mission and the brand (The Hummingbird Denbigh or Y Colibryn Dinbych in Welsh), engaged with the local community, media and politicians and managed the project team. Based upon my proposal, I secured planning permission with no objections, and grant funding from the Welsh Government and local wind farm.

Perhaps, the biggest thing I learned is that being a communicator is the best job in the world if you truly believe in what you are doing. I am quite a pragmatic person, and a lot of this project involved organising and cajoling people to get practical stuff done.

What made all the difference, in my view, was that I wanted to do the best for the building and for the town and the local community sensed that vision and supported me. We all want to make a positive difference to the world and if you can remind people of that higher purpose through your communications, then they will go the extra mile to make it happen.

A video tour of the building is available on YouTube and the front flat and the rear flat are available to rent via Airbnb

I began my career at Abbey National (now Banco Santander), quickly stepping into leadership and managing the area’s largest branch by the age of 23. It was an incredible experience that started my lifelong interest in helping people and organisations going through change.

Recently, Santander announced it would close 95 branches – over 20% of its UK network, including three where I built my career. Whilst not surprising, given the rise of online banking and reduced footfall, it’s still a loss. Other banks were quicker to scale down, but Santander took a more customer-focused approach, maintaining in-person service to build trust and deepen relationships. I believe that strategy still holds value.

High streets are evolving. As more products move online, services – especially personal, human ones – take centre stage. Modern banks must strike a balance: offer digital tools and smart ATMs alongside physical touchpoints like pop-up branch formats and community bankers to provide some face-to-face support where it counts.

In my time as a branch manager and financial adviser, I had the privilege of supporting people through some of life’s biggest financial moments:

·        A young couple planning their first home

·        A man recovering from a heart attack, unsure how to pay his mortgage

·        A widow dealing with her late husband’s estate

·        A parent investing in a child’s future

·        A separated couple dividing assets and moving forward

These are deeply human situations, and you can’t replicate empathy or understanding through a chatbot.

As a change communicator, my time working face-to-face with customers taught me some invaluable lessons. For example, when a company is making changes to its business that are complex or have a substantive effect on people’s lives (e.g. mergers, revised job roles, redundancies, new or closing sites etc.), a blended communication approach is essential.

Start with a personal touch and also have information available online so people can revisit it in their own time. Not only is this more humane, it’s also good business. You benefit from their ideas, and by giving people a chance to be heard, you reduce the risks of protests, negative media stories and poor morale.

Working in bank branches also showed me that communications can’t be one-size-fits-all. I had to adapt my language and tone, whether speaking to financially savvy clients in affluent areas or blue-collar workers in more deprived neighbourhoods. Too often, head office-led change projects assume everyone works at a desk with easy digital access. That’s simply not the reality.

On a recent project, I supported a warehouse team with only one shared PC that they could only access in their lunch break, so instead of sending digital updates, the project lead joined their regular team meeting for a face-to-face briefing. We then followed up with printed updates on notice boards and in the canteen; simple, but effective.

HSBC coined the term ‘glocal’ to describe balancing global standards with local relevance. Buzzword or not, it captures a critical truth: successful change communication happens when strategy meets empathy. And that’s how you build a better business.