Why External Messaging Fails When Employees Inside Disagree!

Values Under Public Scrutiny

However, we are now going to expand employees, customers, and stakeholders increasingly scrutinize for the budget that organizations actually build up to the same values they promote publicly. Therefore, if employees have completely different experiences internally, the resulting code built together may well undermine the reputation the campaign with design to strengthen. They are allowed to communicate that risk many organizations may potentially overlook. So how organizations navigate these data will matter as much as the campaigns they launch. What steps are needed to help organizations prevent the wheels from falling off these campaigns? Well, my guest today has the answer to this perplexing question. Joining me today from Dallas, Texas is Quentin Crenshaw. He is Executive Vice President of Hudson Public Lake Hudson Lake Public Relations. Quentin, welcome to the podcast.

Hi Peter, great to be here. Nice to meet you.

So how did you come to recognize the potential gaps between what we promote in campaigns and it recognized that we may not be living the same guidance in

America 250 And Internal Readiness

our own offices?

Peter, that's a good question. And I'll tell you to take a step back here. My background is actually in corporate communications, and I've sat in the seats, you know, of a lot of uh organizations that were where you're having to be tr try these marketing campaigns, you know, for com for different companies and for these big events and stuff, and then have sat and and r realized and seen the issues that are happening internally where the internal audiences are not being taken care of as well. So I feel like when this, you know, America 250 was coming around and we worked with so many clients, you know, that are also supporting this uh from an external standpoint, it just became really clear to me that there's a missing gap to think about what's happening inside of organizations today as we're thinking about the marketing campaigns externally. And I will just say this we all know this. America 250 arrived, you know, at a very complicated cultural moment for right now where you think about all the things that are taking place with patriotism and you know n national identity. These are not simple topics, but all and I would say there's also things internally that we have to think about our our people and employees around what this is meeting them in terms of being a very already fractured organization, you got multi-generational workforce things taking place as well, disengagement. So that the knowing that this is a complex time period, this is where I was like, this is an opportunity for corporate communication leaders everywhere to lean into this and think about their internal audiences as well as their external audiences.

So who should take the leadership in making this happen? You know, how does how does one get this ball rolling, so to speak?

I think it's the role. I always think that communication officers and leaders, we sit at a very unique place in organizations to really look at these audiences and and really raise these with leadership. So I do think it's a leadership opportunity across companies, but I think the CC communication officers and marketing officers play that role to really inspire the need for change around audiences because they they're seeing they're seeing what's happening. And I do think that them partnering, raising to the top and thinking about how to partner with HR team across organizations to figure out how to bridge these gaps is definitely the right way to go.

You know, one of the things that has been discussed for a long time is and then that sometimes the senior uh the or the C-suite, as it's called, may not have as much respect for PR as people would like, or they don't fully understand it, and so forth and so on. So, how do you get them engaged in this process of making sure that uh the the external communications and internal communications align and we're all saying the same thing?

Sure. Yeah, I think what you have to do, and this is in any organization with any corporate communication corporate communications leader talking to the C suite, you gotta go to that to the C suite with some facts and some metrics about why this is important and why it's more so important for the business. And so I think in this case, as we're talking about disengagement and things like that, uh sometimes, unfortunately, the C-suite sees culture as a soft spot, you know, the organization. When in actuality, it's not. It's the driver for the business. You cannot businesses cannot run with disengaged employees. Employees are make up the company, they run the business, they drive profitability, all the things that way on. And so I this is why I think it's important to really think about the metrics in place, just surveys and things that are in place to really come forth and share that some numbers and some figures that really support the need to really uh propel uh internal engagement across the way. And then and just just to give an example in terms of the engagement issues, I mean, Gallup, which is a really well-respected survey out there, talks about the fact that global employee engagement has failed to 20% in 2025. And that's the lowest level since 2020 when we were dealing with COVID and everything that's taking place. And so you're seeing kind of in

Make The Business Case With Metrics

a from a macro level, global employee engagement falling. And then if you look at that and look at look inside organizations and they do their own pieces and seeing what's happening in engagement, you have to bring that bring that data to your C-suite and say, hey, we have an issue here, and this is what the numbers are saying, and here's the things I want to do or we want to do together to help address this.

Well, one of the things uh uh I think that uh the C-suite is beginning to recognize now is that their employees and staff are actually uh representatives of that organization. And uh, you know, how they see themselves or see the company gets out to the public and they want to hope that that uh information that they're delivering to the public uh is good uh information based on the positive experience that they're having inside.

Correct.

So absolutely so I would say that you know everybody has to be on the same page and you know it's uh sometimes going to see tweeters as part of the answer, but maybe the and and maybe it is beginning to happen now where the uh senior officials, the chairman, the president, and the and senior VPs actually come down and meet with the staff from time to time or travel around to talk to them and make sure you know are we saying the same thing?

Yeah, exactly. And I think that kind of gets into more of the the I would say in the tack if you were asked like what to do. I mean, I think this is also what we do as a firm as well for coming in and trying to help a company really tackle a what's actually happening in your company, what are your your people really feeling, what's the sentiment of your employees at all levels. It is going in and starting to have these conversations and really uh kind of doing a little bit of audit of kind of how people are feeling, how are they feeling about their connection to that company, to the leaders, to the values that are in place there, and really getting a sense for for uh maybe a a gauge around retention. Those are things that we kind of happen to do, but we always always encourage some level of leader interaction, you know, with the frontline employees and things like that as well, where it makes sense, so that they're they're the ones really being seen as wanting to hear and understand and really be there to really have the discussions with with teams across their organization. Absolutely.

Well, you know, it's interesting that uh I did uh I guess maybe about two weeks ago, I actually did a uh part of a series that won't air until maybe uh uh the next month or something. But uh in terms of leadership, you know, being a leader, you need to be able to uh accept uh or listen to input from those people who work around you, and maybe not directly with you, but need to hear from everybody at every level so that to make sure that we're all on the same page.

That's correct. That's correct. And you know, it's uh it's also interesting to hit the flip side of that. I mean, it's it's absolutely correct. And when I was referencing some of the data that we're seeing out there, it's uh we're seeing even data that shows that even some of the steepest decline engagement is actually among leaders, so managers. Because mind and mind you, these are people to your point that are tasked with executing corporate strategy, you know, and really maintaining that team of morale and driving talent retention. So think about that. If if those the the that critical role of talent are responsible for that and they actually are not also engaged, think about what's happening, right? They're not they're not doing the things we're talking about there. And so I do think part of this is also figuring out ways to really reinvigorate leadership and managers and giving them the tools and the training and the tips they're needing to really be able to lead and to engage their their team members as well. So that's a very critical point that we all we're always trying to encourage organizations to do as we're coming in and helping them think about how to reinvigorate their culture.

You know, uh the conversation right now sort of reminds me of I forget the actual name of the show, Undercover Boss or something like that. Yeah, yeah. Where senior officials actually go and work with the staff and they didn't know who he was or that her was, and you know, they found out things and say, wait a minute, I thought that uh that was in progress already. And staff said, No, we don't know anything about it.

Yeah. It's very true. It's very true, yeah. And we and I I'll tell you that we've the the part of our job I love so much, and our team does a phenomenal job at this, but we just as we dive in to organizations and we really become dive in and we we kind of see as not as consultants, but kind of getting in, becoming students of their business, and really in many ways kind of being partners of those communications and HR teams to to actually come in and dive in and understand what's happening. But it's great because we get a chance to uncover so many I I call them truths, right? Truths from the employees and things that are having place and building them to share those things back appropriately so the bar teams understand, hey, here's disconnects for her are also here's the things that are really resonating very well, you know, that to make sure they're they're connecting the dots and seeing what's happening on the ground. So I actually love the the the ability to do that with our team.

Well, and you know, that the the other thing that I did a show on not too long ago is that the one guy said uh on uh from his I think he was the leadership trainee or trainer or whatever. And he said that leaders need to listen to their uh staff, you know, whether it's uh by open meetings or sitting down and talking together one-on-one, uh, you know, submit papers or how however it goes about it, listen to them and if it makes sense, act on it. You know, don't just uh go through the process. But if if this is really a a solid piece of information or some guidance, use it and also then give credit to the person who brought it to you.

100 100%. That is so key. I think I just think in general, as you get in come into a leadership role and even you know, left to progress up the ranks. I I have always believed that the number one trait that you have got to get stronger on is listening. As you go further up, because think about it, as you're going up further to the ranks or whatever that's taking place, you're getting further away from quote unquote the ground or the reality of what's taking place. And so you've got to be in a place to continue to listen even more, right? And and filter, and really, to your point, as you mentioned earlier, be willing to have the conversations on the ground so you're not getting disconnected from what's actually taking place, you know, in your business and your organization as well. So listening to me becomes even more important as you're become getting into management and actually going up the ranks.

Yeah, as I as I mentioned to you, when I uh took the job as uh vice president down

Culture Audits And Listening Sessions

at uh Fisk University, I made it a point of going to to the department head's office. I didn't ask them to come to mind, I went down to them. That's uh just to sort of break the ice and let them see that hey, look, uh you can communicate with me, and my job is to to help you disseminate information over the positive things about you what you're doing down here. So uh, you know, uh I can't do that unless you give me that information. That's why I'm here to let you know I want to hear from you and uh you know we can move forward together on these things.

Yes, absolutely. That's that again, that's that's exactly the way to do it. That's exactly what we always try to advise people to do the same. So glad you did that. Good.

So have you had any unusual experiences in that uh, you know, perhaps uh you brought on a client and they were doing some things that you don't I don't want to say way off base because they really needed some help. How did you go about, if you had that kind of experience, how did you go about correcting a situation like that?

Yeah, uh quite a bit actually. And I would say every organization is unique and different and and they have their own set of challenges but also opportunities. And so first thing I say is that we never treat anything as a one-size-fit-all approach, right? So I think that it is really about getting in, as I mentioned, taking the first steps of understanding the organization, doing what we call the the cultural audits, right? Which is basically just kind of listening, active listening to different aspects of that audience and kind of hearing what's happening. And and and I was saying before doing that, we are always trying to understand that the current state of how are you what what are your values from leadership that you're putting out? What are the things that you're really wanting, right? But then kind of secondly getting Dana to understand what's happening. I think to your point about fixing it, it's it's uh it's an opportunity to come back and share that information that we're finding on the ground with emplo with employees and stuff like that, backward leadership and and really coming back with some what we think about are some quick wins, you know, some things that we think that could quickly be potentially adopted if the leadership agrees on it, you know, that we think could fix some things. And sometimes it's communication things, sometimes they're saying, hey, we would love to have an opportunity, in some case, leaders to be able to communicate directly to their employees and we don't have a channel for that, right? So it's it could be something if possible, setting up something in place to get that going. However, some things are a little bit more complicated, right? It may be some broader things around pay, you know, and benefits and stuff like that that they're a little complicated. But we are usually trying to trying to figure out how what what's doable over a time period and what is what is it that the leadership is has the appetite to really jump in and change, if not now, later, and figuring out timelines and other things that go on top of that. So all to say is that there's always, listen, there's always going to be a lot of things that that are needed, but we're always trying to figure out what can be done now, you know, and and then what are things that we can maybe get some type of agreement with to kind of be solved for later, and then communicating what you can, you know, to the organization when you come back. It's what you said earlier. You know, it's like you can't go out to team members and say we want to hear from you and and and get your thoughts or whatever, and not come back and share to them what you heard or what we plan to do. It doesn't necessarily mean you can you're saying we're gonna be able to do everything that you have said, but you've got to get back to that those team members and let them know that we heard you, we appreciate your time, you know, and and by and then get back and saying, here are some things that we want to go ahead and and change now, and here's some things that we we're gonna change later, or some things that we cannot change, or whatever the case is, right? But that's that's a very critical piece of this that we always are recommending after we're kind of doing these audits and really talking to leadership as well. So people feel heard and then to your point, we're able to figure out how to adopt, you know, get some some changes adopted in the short term and then communicate what can be done in the long term.

Well, you know, another thing uh that I think particularly let's say the general staff really appreciates is recognition. So if uh, you know, somehow we gave you or or I gave you or this department gave you an idea for doing A, B, C, and D, well, you know, it'd be great if uh the the chair, president of VP or whoever gave them some recognition, like a plaque or a certificate or whatever, in front of everybody else to let them know that, you know, we heard you and we took some action and we appreciated what you did.

That's right. And you know, it's funny, you're right, and recognition looks very different, you know, for different people, right? Some people, we've learned as we work with people, you know, some people like the the public phrase, you know, so to speak. So that means to your point, it could be something that is th this leader, Peter, is being recognized, you know, on a global call or a global meeting, you know, around for his efforts and everything, and he loves that. But another leader may not like that because that makes him feel uncomfortable.

Manager Engagement And Smart Recognition

And so to your point, maybe there's other we think about other ways to recognize them. Maybe they want something that's a little bit more quieter, but they would they would recognize from their leader only, things like that as well. But yeah, to your point, it recognition is such a key point of that, and we actually have found ways to leverage recognition as a way for for almost to build storytelling. So, for example, to say to your point that we we're working with an organization and we're finding out that you know there's I'm covered, there's some challenges and things in place, and the leadership is state, you know, we want to figure out how to reinvigorate our culture. We need to do a leader campaign or a communications campaign or culture campaign around this. And what we try to do is always figure, okay, great, where are the champions in your organization that are already, in this case, adopting and really leading your values, right? And who are they, right? What are those things in place? And figure out how to kind of highlight those folks, recognize them broadly, and let them share out, you know, in this case, Peter, you're a champion for this organization because you're leading the values and you're doing everything great. Let this interview you and get some of your thoughts about what you're doing and how that's working, and share your story out in the organization so people see what success looks like, you know, from the standpoint of what the organization is trying to get across from a value standpoint or a culture standpoint. But it also gets a chance to recognize you, you know, for what you're doing every day and hopefully encourage you to continue doing that, you know. So with that that's the storytelling aspect that I think always seems to work paired with recognition as well to kind of really drive and make sure we're recognizing the values that need to be conveyed in the organization.

Have you had any sort of particularly difficult set of circumstances where communication between the outside and the staff or there was some blockage or lack of uh uh execution or or not done at all? Have you run across that where uh you know the the the state suite thought things were often going very well? The people who were supposed to be executing it didn't do much of anything about it. Have you ever run across those circumstances? And if so, how did you go about resolving those?

Are you meaning, and just basically understanding, are you meaning when something is being executed externally but and we think it's going well, but then the internal audience is not seeing it that way. I want to make sure I understand your question.

That that's right. I think that's pretty much it. Right. So they they've launched the program, but uh inside uh the the organization, well, we that's not happening here. Yeah. Have you had that experience?

Yes. Yes, all the time. And frankly, that's really I believe that was really uh that was really the impetus for this op-ed that I that I drafted because you just said as well. That happens all the time when we are seeing companies go really big about having a big marketing campaign because they want to capture and be part of a moment in time, right? Externally, and to really do that as a way to get their brand out there to customers, to new customers, to stakeholders, and everything else. And that's all big going on, and and that's the way they're the promoting how big their brand is and everything else, when inside the organization, the team members are like, that's all great, but you know, uh uh but do you not care about what's going on here in internally with us, right? And what's going on, and there's so many challenges taking place. And so, yes, that happens quite a bit. And it's and it also it's interesting is that what we see is that when that continues to happen, you know, whatever you all you're doing is really continuing to really create a more divided internal culture, you know, as well, where they feel like there's no no one's thinking about them internally and what this means. So what I what I've always recommended, you know, again, and there's some things I love to talk to you about around uh what I think you can do to kind of really take things like this and really start thinking internally and taking a step in there. But I think that the main thing I would say is that it's always important your your internal audience, in my view, is your number one set of ambassadors of your of your of your company, no matter what. That's your number one customer, no matter what. So treat that number one audience as a primary audience first. If you're doing something externally, anything, whatever, that internal audience needs to be aware of that first. Granted, there are some things that we some companies have to have to kind of communicate things, you know, right off because there's a pump and everything. But the point is that for the most part, rocking campaigns or things you're doing some different way, your internal audience has got to be tr to be aware and engaged around things first so they can be the ones really helping speak to those things when they're in their communities and when they're in their environments, but also be an ambassador for those things as well. When you miss that audience and they feel like you're talking externally, they feel like they're not part of that organization. So that is a that's the hugest gap I think that we've seen companies miss when they're trying to move so fast that they're not recognizing that internal audience first. And that is very, very important, really from a culture standpoint and also from an engagement standpoint.

Well, any other sort of unusual communications that uh actually communications that didn't work as well as they uh they expected to work. Have you had any uh experience with those?

I'm just thinking across the way, lots of c yeah, I'd say lots of campaigns and things we see that people drive externally, they don't match internally. I will also say in general, think about recruiting, right? And this I will say this is very common, and you would say it's unusual that coming in, we've worked with a lot of organizations that have said Hey, we hey, we need help recruiting. We need we need to hire a hundred people, two hundred people

Recruiting Promises Versus Workplace Reality

by this time period, and this is the type of people we need to hire, and we're because we're transforming or we're building a new unit, you know, all you know, what whatever the situation is, is helping recruiting, and they want, like anybody, top talent. You know, they want they want the best, they want to here and there. And what we spent our time working on is really helping think about the great how do w what are the perks, what are the things about this organization that really you want to convey to really, you know, get get this echelon of talent interested and stuff like that. And we do some personas and some some depth in there as well. But the piece is that obviously we we find out a lot is that they're going out and communicating and marketing a culture and an organization that sometimes does not exist internally. So what I mean by that is that what what happens is that it's all these great things that around what they can do and everything else, and then in reality, what happens as they're doing that, we've seen a couple of things happen. One, we've got a chance to work with this company and then amazing campaigns and things to really bring in those those prospective talents they're wanting. They get in the door, they get through onboarding, and they get inside and they're like, What is this? This is not what you sold me on. This is not what I saw and off ads and everything. And so guess what happens? They leave, right? So that we've seen that happen. And then the flip side is that when those things happen is that when you're going out and recruiting, you know, and have recruitment rocking effort efforts out on your platforms and things like that, some companies are forgetting that team members are seeing those things as well. Right? And so you're your current team members, and so we've seen team members see that and see that as being just being dishonest about some of the things that are being displayed out there to the other potential talent and everything, and that and that usually raised the flag too. So this that that's another just really prime example of things we've seen in place, and what we have done to kind of avoid that for companies is to make sure when they're coming asking for recruitment working support, you know, around uh talent, whatever, we always are saying, Great, let's go deeper. Talk to us about your onboarding process, talk to us about your culture, what are your programs you have in place to retain team members, you know, and for engagement and talk about that. And sometimes we're realizing that before we go and try to recruit, you know, your 100 people, you know, and get everything in, let's work on fixing some of the things internally that are gonna keep them. And we work on that stuff first, right? Because otherwise, why would you spend all this money investing in recruitment marketing to bring to the land where you're gonna have a revolving door? And and that same great talent is gonna leave out. So that's where we've seen a lot of our work is really kind of trying to to quote unquote fix or help help kind of reinvigorate that inside part of the organization, and then step out and figure out making sure we can do recruitment marketing-wise to make sure that we're recruiting the right way and actually positioning the company in a way that's actually true to its values and what's happening inside.

You know, one of the things I've noticed lately, probably the last few years, is the diversity of the audience and diversity. And I mean specifically that I've seen far more aging people uh being more prominent in commercials than they have been in the past. And even every so often someone that's uh maybe in a wheelchair or something along those lines. So I guess it also depends upon how broad an audience you want for for the particular campaign you're you're launching that to make sure you have representatives in there so that they can see themselves in this outreach as well, and that probably helped move the program forward a little bit faster.

Yeah, you're absolutely right. You're I think representation matters 100%, you know, for all the way around. And I think what we've seen is definitely in any type of quote unquote recruitment marketing campaigns or things we're doing, even internally, people want to see themselves in what you're doing, right? Specifically if you're trying to come to an organization. And so we've always tried to make sure that we uh in anything we're doing, and and looking at the deploy deployed demographics in the case that we're doing campaigns where people can see people that look like them, you know, or they can see themselves in there as well. And that comes to life in storytelling, you know, in visuals, things like that as well, testimonials, and making sure that's that's seen from the from the inside and out as well.

Well, look, uh, we're coming uh pretty close to the end of things here now. Is there anything about the uh idea of making sure that uh everybody's involved and your your messaging is all on the same page? Is there anything that we may have missed in this discussion?

Yeah, I think we covered a lot and it was a great conversation. I I think the point that I I just want to make sure is clear if everyone was listening, because I do think is that the fact that for for America 2050 or any type of big marketing campaign, the thing I the advice I always give, again, to any communicate communications officer leader is to always take that step and look internally first at your organization, you know what you're doing, and making sure, as I mentioned, that you are truly treating your internal audience as your number one and primary customer first

Representation And Employee Storytelling

is most. And so making sure you're doing the doing the work that to do that, and then really spend the time as leaders to really uh listen to your to your to your to your people, you know, establish structural listening sessions internally, you know, with your team, partner with your HR team to evaluate your current your current values that are in place, things like that as well, and then really get out and see kind of how those values are connecting with with uh through these listening sessions and whatnot. And always think about you know, your employee audience, even for if you're doing some type of campaign externally and needing to get voices, don't neglect the voices that are inside inside your own organization. You know, that it's really great to think about team member voices and those as well, and kind of what and thinking how to elevate those stories that exist inside the business and and what they're doing to kind of, you know, whatever it is, they're solving problems with customers, teams that are collaborating across regions, you know, how they're supporting the communities. Those kind of stories really are important externally as well, not only for potential talent, but also for your stakeholders as well, and having those things out there as well. So I think those are things that I would say are important to make sure, you know, uh leaders are thinking about doing as they're doing marketing campaigns, thinking about that inside culture itself. And again, making sure they've they're being considered as a number one stakeholder in anything that you're doing as well.

Well, Corner, let me say thank you so very much for uh being on our program today. I think uh you've provided our audience with uh a wealth of information that uh they're gonna be used to maybe improve their uh uh outreach. So let me say thank you, and I certainly appreciate it. Thank you.

I appreciate the topics for time. I really appreciate it so much.

You've been listening to uh my guest today, Crent, our Executive Vice President of Huston Lake Public Relations joining us with our text. And uh if you enjoyed the podcast, please would like you to give us a review at topic relations review podcast.com.