Leaders Letter 183 - 5 Questions With Comms Leader Megan Witherspoon
How To Drive Your Business Forward With Clear & Effective Comms
Dear Leaders, recently I asked the previous 5 questions contributors who I should interview for the next round and this week’s guest Megan was recommended twice.
So I knew I needed to invite Megan to the newsletter. Meet Megan (Witherspoon), Megan is the Vice President of Communications at Altria. Megan handles internal and external comms and is an industry leader, helping one of the largest brands in her space create clear and concise communications. Megan also leads ESG and offers a great way of improving the success of ESG.
Megan has worked fully remotely for over a year and has a number of great recommendations for anyone in leadership to follow if seriously considering a fully remote role.
The 5 Questions
Q. You handle internal and external comms, what are the most important 5 elements of comms you teach most regularly to leaders you work with?
Be “in the know”– You have to know what’s going on in order to know what’s most important to communicate. This means deeply understanding the industry and business, staying up-to-date with what’s happening around the company, keeping a pulse on how employees are feeling and what they need, understanding evolving external perspectives and expectations, etc. Our communicators are some of the most “tuned in” people in the company.
Drive strategic clarity – People are pulled in many directions all the time, balancing competing priorities and resource demands. Communications are critical for driving strategic clarity and focusing people on the most important things they need to know/feel/do. If you’re not clear what the business priorities are and why, you’re lost from the start.
Less really is more – Gone are the days of “spray and pray” - sharing the same communication multiple times across multiple platforms in hopes that one breaks through. People don’t have the time or patience for it, the noise is deafening, and we will quickly be tuned out. It’s far better to know our audience and be targeted and deliberate – delivering the right message to the right person in the right time/place. And keep it short and simple. Word economy wins.
Credibility takes years to establish and minutes to tarnish – Our words must always align with our actions. Our “inside voice” needs to match our “outside voice.” Our executives are the faces and voices for the company, so we must influence, shape, and protect them. And we should never try to re-write history – it’s already in the record, and no one will be fooled.
Corporate speak kills – Jargon, acronyms, and business buzzwords are rampant. Different functions seem to speak their own languages (have you ever heard an engineer try to talk to a marketer?). Good communicators are translators – making sense out of the nonsense so that everyone can understand the message. But in order to be good translators, they need to understand the work and be good business partners and consultants.
Q. You grew up as a competitive swimmer, how has this shown up in your professional career?
Competitive swimming taught me so many lessons that are valuable in business. It taught me self-discipline and grit. It taught me time-management, teamwork, and how to be a good role model. It showed me that big dreams can come true with enough passion and persistence. It taught me how to lose gracefully, and that winning is a team effort. It showed me what a “coach” really means. And it gave me my first experience with burnout, which taught me to really listen to my mind and body and take better care of myself.
Q. You recently celebrated a year in a small mountain town in Colorado where you are one of the only fully remote team members, what are the 3 most essential areas to get right when allowing fully remote in the modern hybrid workforce?
Be intentional about connecting. I believe relationship-building and networking can be just as effective (and in some ways more effective) in a remote environment as in-person. But it requires intentionality. We can no longer rely on happenstance encounters in the hallway or at the coffee bar, or surface-level chit-chat in the cafeteria (and really, how effective was that, anyway?). We need to dedicate time and create space to connect in a purposeful and meaningful way with people outside of our immediate work group.
Flexibility requires flexibility. Today I have far more flexibility and control over my time than I ever had before. My quality of life is vastly improved. But flexibility requires flexibility. Because I live in a different time zone than most of my colleagues, I sometimes take 6 am meetings. Because I’m fully remote, I travel more for important meetings and events. I sometimes need to give up a little of my flexibility to meet the flexibility needs of others. It’s a give-and-take.
Be present. It can be easy in the virtual world to recede into the background - to multitask during meetings, turn off the camera, avoid the team chit-chat on Teams/Slack, or neglect personal connections. But we can (and must) continue to be fully present even when not physically present. Turn on the camera. Speak up. Be engaged in the conversation. Make yourself available. Show up.
Q. ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) has come under the wrath of criticism in recent months, you lead ESG strategy, what can companies do more to ensure ESG is manageable and can keep their company accountable for positive change?
ESG is not a “bad word,” but it has been badly misused and abused. The best way to avoid internal and external criticism around ESG is to stay focused, clearly articulate the business benefits, and avoid exaggerations. Narrow in on the specific aspects of ESG that are most critical to address based on your particular company or industry (by conducting a materiality assessment, for example), with the long-term sustainability of the business in mind. We can’t do everything at once, or we risk doing none of them very well. We also can’t do one thing extremely well while neglecting other important areas. Know the issues that matter most, go deep on those, and clearly articulate the business value of the work.
Q. You are a leader who frequently discusses the future of work, what themes do you think we will be discussing in a year's time when reshaping businesses to succeed?
I have a feeling a year from now we’ll still be talking about the impacts of remote work, the success or failure of return-to-office mandates and the pros/cons of various structured hybrid models. Hopefully, by then, we’ll be basing those conversations more on real-world data versus speculation and bias. Conversations about a 4-day work week will likely continue to grow, and we’ll be talking a lot about how AI is reshaping businesses, including when and how people work.
» Please go and connect with Megan on LinkedIn
This week’s focus item is to be in the know as Megan recommends, understand how you can find out critical information and be a driver of transparency. Consider how you could roll out my decision document template within your business.
Have a great week and thanks for reading again this week.
Thanks,
Danny Denhard