What internal comms should learn from TV 

Internal communications teams have more tools at their disposal than they know what to do with. They are also facing more pressure than ever before. That combination can create a dangerous instinct to add more, when what colleagues often need is communication that makes things clearer, warmer and easier to believe in. 

Communicating amid AI acceleration, economic uncertainty, changing employee expectations and constant organisational change can naturally encourage comms leaders to reach for something new. Perhaps a new intranet, digital hub or format. A new answer to the same old question of how to make people pay attention. 

In my view, this is a moment to remember that the best internal communications does not need to be reinvented. Sometimes we need to be led by what people have always needed from work, which is clarity, creativity, connection, recognition and a sense that they belong to something worth being part of. 

That’s why I am so proud to have been involved in dsm-firmenich’s Progress Tour. The company had the kind of challenge many global businesses know well. How do you make a new brand, born from a major merger, feel real to 30,000 colleagues across more than 60 markets?

The answer was not another cascade from the centre. It was a six part, CCO hosted series that travelled to South Africa, Dubai, the US, Mexico, Norway, France and China, putting colleagues, cultures and local stories at the heart of the new business and brand. 

What made it work was not only that the series was beautifully filmed. It worked because it was generous. It gave dsm-firmenich colleagues a way into the story of the business. It allowed scientists, technicians, operators, local teams and leaders to be seen not as proof points, but as characters. It treated internal audiences with the same care and creative ambition we expect for any external audience. 

That idea of generosity and respect for viewers is something I understand from many years in broadcast television. TV teaches you very quickly that attention is earned. You have to think about pace, energy and signposting. You have to know when people need context, when they need emotion, when they need a change of scene and when they need a human being to say something simply. Good storytelling makes content watchable, understandable and felt. 

In internal communications, that discipline should resonate because it matters today, more than ever. A message can be strategically correct and still fail because no one has been given a reason to care. A leader can say the right thing and still feel distant if the format only allows them to broadcast. A purpose may be elegantly written and still feel abstract unless people see it being lived by colleagues like them. 

The Progress Tour understood this. It has a global spine, but local texture. It has leadership presence without leadership taking up the whole story. This magazine style film series brings motion design, documentary technique, warmth and humour together in a way that makes a complex organisation feel deeply human. 

The experience showed me that getting back to basics is a modern opportunity for internal comms. This work created moments for employees to recognise themselves in the future of the business, and in the age of AI, human storytelling has become more valuable, not less. 

Culture has never been built by transmission. It’s built through attention, trust and shared pride. At its best, internal communications gives people a reason to look up from the day to day and understand where a business is going. 

dsm-firmenich gave colleagues an opportunity to belong and think, I can see my place here, and this story belongs to me too.