The Strategic Side of Internal Comms: Trust, AI, and Ethical Influence

Emma Fischer: Hi, guys. Welcome back to You've Got Comms. I'm your host for today's episode, Emma Fischer, content marketing manager at Staffbase. And today I'm really excited by my guest. And that is none other than internal communicator extraordinaire, Monique Zytnik. If you're not familiar with Monique, she is the author of "Internal Communication in the Age of AI," as well as a keynote speaker and globally recognized communications expert.Today, we're going to explore what communication at scale really looks like, and that's from founder-led messaging and startups to global organizations where communication must be taught, never assumed. And yes, we are tackling the AI question, how IC pros can move beyond buzzwords and unlock real engagement. And Monique is an absolute expert in dissecting what AI means for internal communicators.Here's a final hint: We talk about persuasion versus manipulation when it comes to leading AI strategies. This episode is packed with insight on storytelling, strategy, and why internal comms is about more than tools. It's about meaning at scale. So I'd love to get started today. And first, I just want to get started with your background, Monique, because you have a really cool work history. So you started as a physiotherapist, if I'm correct, and I'd love to know how that shaped your understanding of both motivation and persuasion.

Monique Zytnik: Thanks so much, Emma, and thanks for having me on the show. My career is incredibly squiggly. And iIt's brought me and taught me many things.So in terms of physiotherapy, I was working as a physiotherapist in a hospital and working with the patients very closely to help them get physically better. And very quickly, I noticed that without them being persuaded, without them actually wanting to get better, they didn't get better or it took longer.And also, working with some of the sports clients as well, it was about persuading them to rest. So it was a really interesting situation where I was taught a very scientific, very physical degrees, angles, and different technologies, but at the end of the day it came down to people and their motivation and their desire to get better.

Emma Fischer: Wow, I wouldn't have thought of it that way, but I think that's actually incredibly insightful. And I was just going to mention for the next question, you've said before, and you just said again, persuasion is about having people want to change. So now as we start to move into communication, how does that influence how you would help coach a comms leader?

Monique Zytnik: How I coach, so there's mentoring and coaching. Coaching is about helping people come up with the problem that they're trying to solve and being aware of it, and also working through the problem themselves.So there's a lot of reflection. Yes, there is guidance, but it's about them coming up with a solution and owning the solution, and being able to implement it themselves. So it's a little bit different from mentoring, but there is that element of self-drive and self-motivation, which I also found with physiotherapy.

Emma Fischer: That's really cool. Another thing that I found was very interesting is that your book, I believe it's the first IC book that was specifically targeted at leaders. So I'd love to hear a little bit more about that. Oh, here we go.

Monique Zytnik: There we go. It is. I wanted to talk about a need for a new way of thinking about communication. I felt there was something missing with this new technology direction that we've been going through in the past couple of years.And I was doing my research, putting my book together, and very quickly, through talking to different practitioners, it became really evident that one of the key pain points was not that the practitioners didn't know what needed to be done, but rather the leaders didn't understand why being strategic would bring results.And this is where I pivoted fairly early on to actually writing my book for leaders to help them understand why and how you can move from tactics to a strategic approach, which is actually going to bring the results.

Emma Fischer: You're definitely a bit ahead of the curve because this is something, at Staffbase, we've been talking about in the last year or so. We did our Employee Communication Impact Study, and then we realized that there's a lot of trust that needs to be addressed at this moment. And I think middle management is this really crucial part for helping to bridge that in a company.So when we're talking about communicating in a company, there's a lot of different sizes. And now we're talking about, let's say, scale. There's this big company, global workforce. How does that communication look like in practice these days, especially when we have hybrid workforces and it's just maybe not practical that people all know each other?

Monique Zytnik: The bigger you get, obviously, the more complex you get. And that's where you end up with matrix organizations and then once you start to have parent companies with sub-companies, it gets even more complex. And that's where investment in effective internal communication is what bring results.Because at the end of the day, it's about business results and it's about helping employees understand your strategy and your direction that you're going insofar as it relates to them, so that they can make the right choices and everybody can be moving in the right direction.A friend of mine, Zora Artis, actually, I think she was . . . I'm just trying to remember who she was talking to. She calls it "Happy Chickens." It's when the employees are happy and kind of productive, but all moving in different directions where you don't actually get the results.You might have high employee engagement, but they might not be working on what you actually need them to be working on and what they actually need to be done.And then there's that other element at scale as well of the organizational listening. So a lot of people think about top-down communication. So our employees need to know what they need to do in their job to move the business forward.But it's also about getting that intel from your employees who are on the front line, who are in contact with your customers, who are experiencing, say, product issues or transportation issues. And getting that intel back to the key leaders who are making the decisions as quickly as possible, and keeping that information flow, so you get better decisions made as well.So there are a whole lot of elements, but I like to think of it as the blood pumping through an organization that keeps it alive and healthy.

Emma Fischer: Oh, I think that is great. I really like the "Happy Chickens" as well. Now I'm thinking of the visual of all the little chickens going around. But one thing we've definitely uncovered by looking at problems in internal comms at the moment, is a lot of internal communicators are having a really difficult job getting their seat at the table.And one of the reasons that we see is they feel very much so undervalued. So do you have any advice if you're trying to help executives either understand or maybe internal communicators to prove themselves? How do you get this communicated? Internal comms is not just an afterthought, it's this business-crafted function.

Monique Zytnik: Well, with everything, unfortunately, I think you do need to prove yourself in this day and age. And I recently worked on a project where it was almost a fight because there were other people seeking attention from the CEO.And there was a lot going on at the time and it's about working out where you can get those quick wins, understanding the business element as well and helping to explain that. So for example, sure, you can put this email out, but if you do that, then the risk is this, and these are the consequences.Actually explaining to the leaders why something's important. And then it's obviously understanding what's, it's Comms 101 as well, it's understanding what's important to them as an individual.So if you're trying to influence your stakeholders, trying to understand, are they a numbers person? Are they worried about the status? Are they wanting to advance their career? How can you as a communicator help them personally and win their trust? And then prove your worth to them.I did have a situation with a client where I had to let them fail. I had to let them fail. And at the end, they turned around and asked for my support and advice afterwards. So getting that recognition of the value that you do bring.

Emma Fischer: I think that's a really smart choice. That's something that came up on our podcast, maybe once or twice. I know one person said they had Fridays where they would just celebrate in the company, like, "Who had the biggest failure this week?" And then this is totally fine, but you cannot repeat the failure the next week. It can't be a failure somebody else had. So I think that's a really clever advice—is  letting people experience failure and then learn from it rather than hide from it. 

Monique Zytnik: Absolutely. It was a very . . . in my case, that you've always got to be calculated. It's the same . . . Dare I go back to physiotherapy? It's the same if you've got a client who doesn't want to listen and you, unfortunately, need to let them experience . . . you can't micromanage.You've got to let them experience a situation or do something and appreciate the end of the value that you can bring and then they will come and listen. So again, I guess it comes down to that self-motivation and that they need to be motivated to want to do a good job and need to be able to recognize that you're the one who can actually help them achieve the success that they want.

Emma Fischer: That's a really smart strategy, just not even for work, but I think in all kinds of relationships to have that mindset. Do you have any other specific advice when it comes to building trust amongst teams? I think what you already stated is a really big thing about responsibility and ownership. Was there anything else?

Monique Zytnik: Absolutely. With my team, I very much like to be the one who facilitates and helps each . . . I get the most reward from seeing my team members succeed and shine, and coach them obviously through difficult meetings and help them succeed with the internal stakeholders.But one of the exercises that I find really helpful is when you sit down with your team and you map out your key stakeholders. And you talk openly about who has a good relationship with who and who's influenced by who and what they're motivated by and speak very candidly about it.I think this power dynamic and relationship dynamic, we don't talk about enough and we're not open enough with each other about. And this is essential to succeeding in an organization, particularly a very political organization.And then from there, once you've mapped out your stakeholders and you can work out which team members work best with who and how you want to pair people up, and also talk openly with them about the challenges that they might have with different stakeholders, then you can support them in actually succeeding with their stakeholder management.Because at the end of the day, we have all these great new tools on the market. AI can help us write quicker, produce more content. But we're going to be the ones who are going to be holding those relationships in the next year or two.That's where our value is going to be lying. And if we are strategic about it and we talk about it openly as a team and we work towards the success of the whole team and the positioning of internal communication, that's when we get the results. And that's when we still have a team in a couple of years time because our value is recognized.

Emma Fischer: I love that. It's putting in some maintenance work at the beginning, and I think that pays off massively. You mentioned AI, which we're going to get to in one minute. But first, I'd love to ask you a little quickfire round we ask some of our guests. So here's four quick questions about IC. And the first one is, what is one buzzword or trend in internal comms you really love at the moment?

Monique Zytnik: Oh, human-centric. I love it because it encapsulates just the imperfection of humanity and at the same time, the focus that it is about us at the end of the day.

Emma Fischer: Oh, I love that. Do you have a trend that you are not a big fan of at the moment?

Monique Zytnik: Cascade. It gives me a headache even just to hear the word. I don't know why people still use it because it doesn't work. It doesn't work beyond one level.

Emma Fischer: Oh, I love that. Do you have the best piece of comms advice you've ever received, or could be your best advice?

Monique Zytnik: My best advice? Always spend an extra five minutes just to think through the strategy bit. It's very easy to jump into something without thinking it through. And I think because of the pace of today, it's worth putting that extra five minutes in to make sure that you've got all your ducks aligned before you move forward.

Emma Fischer: That is some healthy advice. And that's something I'm still working on because I'm very fast moving. I can agree with this one. Just take a moment to think sometimes. We have a final quick question. And that is, do you have a comms tool or tactic that you are obsessed with at the moment?

Monique Zytnik: I would have to say immersive communication. So that's about being deliberate about making sure that you're focused on the experience and that it's multi-sensory, non-linear, and also has interactive gamified elements.

Emma Fischer: And that brings us perfectly into the next part of our conversation because I'd love to dive a little deeper into some of the topics that you were just really dominating, I would say, in IC at the moment.So along with immersive communication, I really love that you in particular speak a lot about AI. Because there's been so much communication about AI and everybody's talking about large language models. They're focused on, at first, it was the fear element, and then, how do we get people to adapt? So right now, I think you would have really good insight. What are we missing when it comes to how we're discussing AI?

Monique Zytnik: I think a lot of people still separate out AI and non-AI. But particularly in the past couple of months, there's that integration. And we need to start thinking about getting to the end result with whatever tool it is and assume that it's probably got a little bit of AI in there somewhere.And at the same time, having that awareness that it is imperfect. There's a lot of really interesting work that's going on at the moment. For example, I understand Mattel's announced a partnership with OpenAI to bring AI into children's products and toys.And a part of this is about normalizing AI so that we're moving beyond that fear level. At the same time, we shouldn't stop questioning and making sure that we are consciously shaping the direction of our society and where we go and what is and what isn't okay. Because I think everything's possible, but we need to put some guardrails in just for our own safety.

Emma Fischer: I love what you mentioned earlier is that you're really excited about how human-centric internal comms is and embracing these imperfections. Do you think though there are some overlooked AI applications that could help the internal comms flow while we can still maintain that human touch? 

Monique Zytnik: I think AI can pretty much enhance and optimize every part of the workflow from idea generation to drafting, to images, to multi-format, so being able to choose what format you would like to receive your content in.So I could choose to receive mine all in German. Or I could receive everything as a video or receive everything as an audio file, however I wish to consume it. So a very human, individual-centred experience for internal comms. And at the same time, also having that AI element to segment audiences down to the individual.So with the amount of data that's possible, it's already possible with many external CRMs to be able to actually use AI to identify how engaged someone is based on data points and then put them in a different communication loop or flow.And then you've got the chatbots. And then you've got the organizational listening and the sentiment analysis to get your data and your insights back into the team so that, again, you can optimize.I think it actually could potentially cover every single component of internal communication. And that's where I think we need to be super clear on what our role is and what we're actually doing and the outcome that we want.When everything's possible, you need to be selective. And you also need to be conscious of the budget required, not only in terms of finances, but also in terms of time, implementation, integration, and adoption as well.

Emma Fischer: And I think that's why these days, internal comms, we are continually redefining what our jobs are at the moment. A lot of us communicators, we are looking quarter to quarter and seeing new ways we implement things. When it comes to AI, I know you just gave a talk about persuasion versus manipulation. So could we get a little insight into that? I think that is a really fascinating angle.

Monique Zytnik: Absolutely. I was just at the IABC World Conference in Vancouver, and my presentation was on the fine line between persuasion and manipulation in the workplace and beyond. So I talked about the different ways that people are manipulated at work.For example, there's some interesting research that came out late last year from Gartner that without clear governance frameworks, about 16% of the C-suite defer to the CEO. And that's obviously a little bit of an element of power in there.And there are a whole range of different ways that people can be manipulated. So the arguments can be attacked. The person can be attacked. You can have gaslighting. You can have smoke and mirrors, so dragging the conversation elsewhere.And a lot of this research was done around actually technology, decision-making, and implementation. So when a CTO was trying to implement a certain type of technology, the tactics that other people in the C-suite were using to scuttle the projects. It was really quite interesting.Anyway, my presentation touched on that. We talked a lot about how people are manipulated in the workplace. And this is important for us as internal communication people, because we do have a responsibility towards culture in the organization and culture in our team.Then I also gave some examples about online manipulation. So we have the recent Romanian election last November, which was basically a TikTok heist. Within two weeks, a unknown person who had done no TV interviews was actually elected as the new president for Romania. And it was to do with a whole online campaign involving influencers and AI chatbots, and a whole range of things.Luckily, that was picked up and it's being investigated by the EU Commission. And they've since had re-elections and someone else has been elected. And then I also covered a couple of other case studies. For example, greenwashing.Adidas was found by the Nuremberg-Fürth local court as greenwashing because they'd withheld key information and hadn't disclosed information around their claims to be climate neutral by 2030. So there are a couple of examples there.And I also covered different tactics and things that we need to think about as communicators. So for example, the IABC has a code of ethics. There was a communicator behind each of these instances of manipulation. So how do we as communicators make sure that we are communicating on the persuasive side and communicating ethically versus using manipulative techniques to influence people?

Emma Fischer: Oh, wow.

Monique Zytnik: It was a pretty big discussion, so it was a whole workshop.

Emma Fischer: I'm so glad you're talking about that. I wish I was there for that Vancouver [event], but I was in Berlin for our event. But I absolutely love this topic because we have the one side, which we've spoken about, where it's positive, where it's uplifting.And I talked a lot about company values. I don't know if you know Ann Mellinger, but she was on the podcast. And we talked about making them authentic, and you have this whole positive aspect. but on the other end, you have to talk about this part, which I think is the more overlooked part, is there's so much fake news.I've seen a bunch of videos trending of people and then they're like, "This isn't true. I'm not a person. I'm AI." I know you've probably talked really in depth, but do you have any quick advice, like, "This is something that is negative. This is something manipulative," like a pro-con list?

Monique Zytnik: In terms of AI?

Emma Fischer: Sure. There's so much I know I want to pick your brain about. In terms of internal communicators, to avoid manipulation, what are some warning signs this is healthy communication or unhealthy communication?

Monique Zytnik: So you need to disclose all of the information. That's the basic. If you're withholding information, that's manipulative. If you're using techniques to change someone's or persuade someone, as I said, withholds information, doesn't give them the full picture and they lose their sense of agency, then that's manipulation.But there is that fine line and the whole point of the whole presentation was, at the start, there was a clear definition, and at the end, it was quite blurry. That's where I encourage teams to talk about this.I encourage teams to also have their own guidelines and to make sure that they are communicating in an ethical way. And it's up to us because AI allows us to be far more manipulative.For example, OpenAI did some research at the start of this year with a Reddit thread and was able to show that their AI-generated content was in the top 80 to 90 percentile of what humans were able to create in a persuasive sense. So that's pretty impressive. But that means that AI can make all of our arguments more persuasive or more manipulative.We can also look at things like deepfakes and misinformation. And it's much harder for people to tell the difference. Again, I think this is something really important for an organization to look at in their risk matrix, is how, as communicators, do we manage misinformation and deepfakes? And how do we combat that and preempt?So I think we're in really interesting times at the moment. And the good news, and this came out of the [ABC] World Conference as well, the Global Alliance has just signed or just ratified a responsible AI use for communication and marketing professional and PR professionals.And the Global Alliance is basically all of the PR and comms associations globally. So any PR comms association you can think of, they're a member of the Global Alliance and they've ratified seven key principles for responsible AI use. So that gives me hope.I think we're one of the first professions that actually have these guidelines to help us use AI responsibly. And also, combined with ethics that a lot of associations have, there is hope that things don't run out completely out of control in our society in terms of comms and manipulation and AI.

Emma Fischer: I love that. That's one of the most, in my opinion, positive yet practical AI conversations I've heard. Because I think, like you said, everything comes down to the human element. And I really loved your points that withholding information is lie, that's false. People are like, "Oh, but we didn't say something not true," but it's a lie by omission. So I think that's really important for organizations.And now while I have you today, I'd love to talk about one more thing in relation to your career, because this really stood out to me. And that is, right now, I know you are working with a sustainable fashion company. So I'd love to hear about that.I'd also love to learn how something like this . . . It's, I guess, a little different than our internal comms talk, but how do you imply or how do you apply your internal comms knowledge to help launch a new brand?

Monique Zytnik: So my background is in leadership, tech, AI, and internal comms. I just ended up, I don't know how it happened, but working on a project with a sustainable communication agency to launch a new bio-circular sneaker and the brand as well.And so my role was to create the strategy and work with a project manager and content lead and then build the team and launch the brand. And it was really interesting because I didn't know anything about fashion or sustainability. And obviously, you can learn those things.But at the end of the day, it's about people and it's about connecting with people. And I used my multi-layered internal communication model, but I guess I can call it communication model, to help structure the strategy.So at the bottom, you've got the sender-receiver, so sending out messages and receiving messages. And so they were the emails that we were, for example, sending guests. Then in the middle, you have the community and it's about building the community. So typically in internal comms, you'd see . . . enterprise social network might be used to facilitate this.Then at the top is immersive communication. And that's where you focus on having a very audience-centric experience for the person as individualized as possible. And it's about being multi-sensory, non-linear and also interactive.So that played out with the launch of the sustainable sneaker brand, with an event in Copenhagen. We had a really great speech from the CEO. I worked with the CEO in just bringing him on stage as in that CEO role.And then we had an area where people could try on the shoes to work out their size. We had an area with a display of the whole process. So the bio-circular sneaker involves special material selection. Then once the sneaker has been much loved and is at the end of its days, then it could be returned to a grinding and composting facility so that it can go back into the earth.And that meant that it needed to be compost-capable. So there were certain materials there, but this whole process was displayed. So you could see the ground sneaker. You could see the next elements of it being mixed with nutrients such as manure and coffee grind so that it could go back into the earth.And then we also had another element where people could see all the different components of the sneaker and feel them and see the different materials that they were made from individually. And that would help them understand the importance of these different elements.So it was a very multi-sensory, obviously food's really important, drinks are really important, music's really important. And that's the whole experience. So that's how this multi-layered communication model, I applied it to the strategy for the launch of the sustainable sneaker brand in Copenhagen.

Emma Fischer: Oh, I love that story. I've watched enough, I don't know if you know the show "Shark Tank" or any version of that when people are pitching their products. And one of the biggest things they hear is, "This product sounds really cool, but the consumers are never going to be able to see this if it doesn't translate." So I love that multifaceted approach that works internally and externally. I think that also helps to amend for past limitations, because maybe in the past we thought we had to have this really cool packaging. That's done, that's it. And now it's like, actually, there's this whole structured approach that can help facilitate any kind of communication.

Monique Zytnik: And that's why this model is really helpful. Because quite often, the biggest bugbear that a lot of comms people get is, say, a leader saying, "Oh, we need a video." And it's about, okay, you want a video. How does that fit into the strategy? What other elements do we need to make it robust and actually have impact?So we did have a video at the launch, in the background, behind the CEO. There was a giant LED screen, but the video was only a tiny part of the whole experience. And it had meaning and relevance to, for example, the presentation that the CEO gave.So as you can see, I'm smiling. It was a really amazing experience and really interesting. Because I was in close contact with influencers in the fashion industry, which is a whole other target audience I hadn't had a lot of exposure to, which was very interesting. We had to stop one taking three pairs of shoes home.Emma Fischer: I wouldn't have thought that. You seem very polished. I thought you fit in really well with the fashion industry. But also, I really saw how much your face lit up when I asked the question. I'm really interested in checking out this shoe now. I think that having that personal element, people who truly really are passionate and care about what they're doing, I think that definitely is really brilliant.And then for a final point, I think a lot of internal communicators can relate. They're being told by someone higher, "Hey, let's make a video. Maybe now let's make a TikTok. Let's make that to solve something." And I think a lot of internal communicators know just this one media type is not the right approach, when it's more about, what are we trying to communicate?

Monique Zytnik: Absolutely. And that's what my model does is really brings it back to, what are the different elements and what are we trying to achieve with it? How does the leadership comms and how does the strategic alignment and stakeholder management fit in with that as well?

Emma Fischer: I think that's right.

Monique Zytnik: Because you can have all the best comms in the world, but unless it's aligned with your business goal, I don't know. Sometimes multicolored cupcakes at DE&I Day, I think, how aligned is that to your business goals? But if it's packaged with a whole range of different other communications activities, then it does make sense.Emma Fischer: No, and I was going to say, I think this model is so strong. It's something that is going to be durable and it's not something you have to constantly redefine. It's like, you stick to this, you can adapt the specifics, but this is the model for success.But as a final question, and please, if you need a moment, you can think about it. You've had a really multifaceted and interesting career. Is there anything about internal comms that you have now completely changed your perspective on throughout your career? First, you thought things should be one way. Now you're like, "No, this was not right."Monique Zytnik: I guess back in the day, we all thought email would die and it never did. I remember when some of the enterprise social networks came in. And it was all about the chat and the messaging, and people wouldn't give up their email.There's a lot of reasons for that and I do understand why. I think that's one of the interesting observations. But at the end of the day, it is really about people. And it's about connecting with people where they're at and understanding what motivates them, understanding what's important to them as well, and being able to speak their language. I think that's the key element.

Emma Fischer: That's great. Our friends at Cognizant, they'll love that because we also had some people talk about that. They were like, "We're not even addressing that statement. Email is alive and well for us." So I love hearing you also echo that. Thank you so much for the conversation today. Is there anything that I left out that you'd like to offer to internal communicators? Any final advice?

Monique Zytnik: I would definitely say stay curious. Things are going to be moving so fast, but stay curious, stay connected, listen to podcasts like "You've Got Comms" is a perfect one where you can learn and have curated content so that you don't need to feel overwhelmed.Also, inform yourself about the AI communication. Here we go. Responsible AI guiding principles for PR. I don't know if you can see that. It's on the Global Alliance website. 

Emma Fischer: Your book also covers AI communication as well. So I also definitely recommend picking up this. I think this is a great niche in AI.

Monique Zytnik: Absolutely. So just keeping ahead of the legal requirements as well, so the EU AI Act and some other  . . . The GDPR and Poppy, and all of the other legal requirements around communication, but enjoy. It's, I honestly think, the best profession in the entire world.

Emma Fischer: I love that and I love what you said as well. We're perhaps the first profession where we are coming up with these requirements. So I think that's something that internal communicators could be really proud of.

Monique Zytnik: Absolutely.

Emma Fischer: So thank you again for joining us. And that was You've Got Comms and we will see you guys next time.

Monique Zytnik: Thank you so much, Emma.