Institute of Internal Communication

E-mail, consultants, CEOs who won’t communicate, and approvals processes are just some of the things that corporate communicators would like to throw into Room 101.

These were just some of the findings from a survey of corporate communicators conducted via CiB’s monthly ezine.

We asked its 4,800 subscribers what they would most like to throw into Room 101 – the room where prisoners were subjected to his or her own worst nightmares or fears in George Orwell’s book “Nineteen Eighty-Four”, and the title of a hit BBC TV programme where celebrities are invited to “dump” what they hate most.

The ezine’s readers didn’t hold back as they unceremoniously dumped marketing departments, strategy directors, project managers and open plan offices into Room 101.

One or two items consistently seemed to get the most votes, including inept managers who are well rewarded, but don't provide any input unless that input advances their professional careers and managers who pay lip service to communications.

Other thorns in the side included communication activities based on a communication policy rather than a strategic communication plan and bosses not knowing the difference.

Major gripes included:

• People who claim to be communicators, but who cannot spell.
• People who equate "sending out a brief" with "communicating"
• People who miss deadlines
• People who understand the need for good communication but neither practice nor support it
• Project managers who insist on using their professional jargon rather than plain language.

Some readers had specific problems, such as those working in local government. One wrote: “I hate the protocol of having to do deal with politicians. I would dump it now if I had power. Dealing with my senior management is not a problem, but political decisions kill communication.”

But the final word rests with one respondent who provided a long list of items that included: “Strategy directors, project managers, emerging leaders, people who are in communications because they think it's a fun job but don't have any communication qualifications or experience, HR people who think they own communications functions, the budget planners who think we can manage on zero budgets and egotistical communication requests.”

The CiB ezine is a a free monthly resource for anyone employed in corporate or internal communications. As well as features, it also includes the latest job vacancies in the world of corporate communications and details of relevant training courses.