In the end, an internal communication strategy is about understanding and communicating with, not to, employees. What do they need and want to hear? How will the information help them do their job better? How can their ideas be incorporated into the operation and ethos? Answer these questions and an organization might just be able to answer the most important question of all: Where will the next great idea come from?

Internal communication is such a simple topic it is nearly always forgotten as a strategic element of organizational performance. When was the last time anyone read a company’s strategic plan and found a section on internal communication? And yet how and when we communicate is so important to an organization’s culture, and central to a performance culture.