Skip to main content
Commsy creative stuff straight to your inbox

Blog

Keep calm, it’s only Christmas!  

< Blog home

Keep calm, it’s only Christmas!  

The ability for people to differentiate between urgent and important is difficult at the best of times, but in the run up to Christmas, all rational thinking goes out the window……

How many times have you been asked to do ‘some comms’ and the deadline was yesterday? You’ve probably lost count, and in the lead up to Christmas, people get into a particular frenzy about getting stuff done before the holidays. So how do we as IC pros help people understand the difference between urgent and important?

Saying it doesn’t make it so

Help people to understand that important and urgent aren’t necessarily interchangeable words. If something is genuinely important, where time allows, proper thought and planning should be given to it to ensure it lands well and achieves its objectives.

Sometimes it will be both important and urgent, but it’s easy to get carried away on a tide of panic especially when the demands are coming from the powers that be. Even as comms pros, we sometimes need to stop, consider and challenge. Just because someone says it’s urgent, doesn’t make it so.

Start with why

Why? Such a simple but effective question (just ask Simon Sinek). If someone tells you something is urgent, chances are they mean it’s important. And asking someone why it needs to go tomorrow, not only stops them in their tracks but can help you understand where they’re coming from. Rather than see your colleague as a headless chicken running between a million urgent tasks, you may see someone under immense pressure from a boss to deliver.

If it isn’t actually urgent, give them solid explanation to go back to their stakeholder with – help them articulate the benefits of giving this a bit more thought and the wider context that the stakeholder might not have considered. It’s an opportunity to build trusted relationships and demonstrate our ability to think strategically.

Whip out your plan

Any IC pro worth their salt has a plan, and while you can’t anticipate everything, anything that hasn’t been scheduled needs to earn its place. How does it align with what else is going out that week or month? It’s all very well communicating an ‘urgent’ message about completing time sheets before the end of the year but if it clashes with the Christmas party invite, it may well get lost.

Having a plan not only gives you credibility, but confidence to challenge as you have evidence to back up your argument.

How urgent is urgent?

There are varying levels of urgency – the building’s on fire requires immediate comms for example. However, it’s not unheard of for companies to announce something like redundancies in the lead up to Christmas. This type of news is important and depending on the situation, it can’t always wait.

Key attributes of an internal communicator are empathy and the ability to see the wider picture. So, it’s worth reminding your colleagues that most people only take one week off over Christmas, and asking if the announcement can wait until January. It’s never good news to hear, but the week before Christmas is particularly cruel.

Consider how urgent is urgent, before rushing into a communication that has a very real impact on people’s lives.

Christmas is distracting

There’s something about this time of year, when everyone is desperate to wrap everything up before Christmas with a nice bow (pun fully intended).

Yet it’s also when everyone is starting to switch off and spend most of their time worrying about finishing their Christmas shopping or what they said to their boss while drunk at the Christmas party.

In amongst the festive fun, don’t forget to consider your audience.

If it really is important and you want their full attention, communicating the week before Christmas is unadvisable.

Make 2018 the year of prioritising

In his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey talks about putting first things first.

He refers to the Eisenhower Method which categorises tasks into four quadrants:

  • Important/Urgent (do it today)
  • Important/Not Urgent (schedule a time to do it)
  • Unimportant/Urgent (delegate it to someone else), and
  • Unimportant/Not urgent (stop doing it)

Using a tool like this can help us, and others, to prioritise in the most efficient way. And as we saw earlier with the comms plan, backing up what we do with recognised models and methods, give us a stronger foundation to challenge and reinforces our credibility.

So, let’s make 2018 the year we prioritise prioritisation and ensure IC pros are leading the way in effective communication.

Hopefully you’re now reassessing your to-do list and breathing a sigh of relief that the lead up to Christmas doesn’t have to be as frantic as you thought.

We’ll be trying to take our own advice here at Alive, so all that’s left to do is wish you all a very Merry Christmas and to thank you for reading, liking and sharing our posts throughout 2017.

We’re looking forward to seeing what comms adventures 2018 brings our way – see you next year!

By Helen Deverell for Alive!

“The guys at Alive understand the complexities of our business which means we don’t need to explain the detail of every project or design piece – they’re already on it, which keeps things moving and delivers the results we need.”

Emily Stoten — Head of Marketing, Selecta

“I feel like they own and care for the project as much as we do! I would not use anyone else for my creative work and think Alive is ahead of the game.”

Jo Hobbs — Communications Manager

“Thanks for all your help. We are delighted with the campaign, both in terms of the creativity and messaging but also the thought taken over the rollout of the materials. All looks absolutely fabulous!”

Sarah Crowdy — Campaign and Media Officer Communications, South East Water

“We went to ‘Alive’ for ideas on how to run a specific employee program in Europe. Alan and his team were brilliant in coming up with fresh, creative and practical approaches. The team took charge and executed brilliantly. We are pleased with the progress made so far and hope to have the same level of partnership and commitment going forward.”

Sobha Varghese — Tata Consultancy Services

“We had the privilege to work with the Alive team. It was our first time to be involved in creating an animation for our patients within paediatrics. The team were approachable, friendly, creative and very accommodating. Your vision for what you want to create, is at all times acknowledged, appreciated and accommodated by the team. They worked effectively and with great passion towards our project and worked not only alongside health professionals but also our patients who really enjoyed the experience of working with the Alive team. It has given our team the confidence and inspiration to do further projects in the future. We highly recommend Alive and their exceptional team.”

DR ELENI ATHANASAKOS, Lead Paediatric Clinical Scientist — NHS Barts Health

“‘The short animation developed in co-production with clinicians and young people is outstanding! Informative, developmentally appropriate, vitally fun and engaging. We are really grateful for the expertise of the Alive with Ideas team for their innovative approach in building children’s health literacy.'”

Kath Evans — Director of Children’s Nursing at Barts Health

“Our mission was to update our brand visuals to better reflect our innovative and forward-thinking organisation. After receiving numerous pitches from different branding agencies, Alive stood out with their clear passion and understanding of our identity and goals. We thoroughly enjoyed working with the Alive Team to create an engaging new brand that we are immensely proud of.”

Lianne Springer — Communications and Engagement Lead

“Alive wowed us during the pitch process and they didn’t stop wowing us throughout the whole project. Every person we worked with at Alive were so friendly, knowledgeable and clearly passionate about what they do. They have worked with us to really understand what we do and have created a new brand and website that really stands out from our competitors. Thank you!”

Louise Burnard, Head of Marketing and Communications UK — Be | Shaping the Future

“I think the team have done such a brilliant job, particularly with responding to our requests. It's one of the best mental health videos I've ever seen. Very proud to be associated with your exemplary work. Thank you so much.”

Dr Anna Batho — Clinical Psychologist – Critical Care, UCLH

“We have worked with Alan, Caroline and the wider Alive With Ideas team for many years. In that time, they have provided a dedicated service that is second to none. We appreciate their attention to detail and creative approach to bringing our brand, communications and stories to life. And would recommend them to anyone looking for creative communications support.”

Georgia Beech — Internal Communications Specialist, Ocado Group

“This is brilliant. I wanted to give my heartfelt thanks to all of the team who worked on this. You all understood exactly what we wanted to communicate and why, and then managed to do it in a way that was far better than anything I could have imagined. I’m a bit choked up to be honest!”

Sarah Wright, Head of Communications and Campaigns — NEA

“Each time I work with the team, I am always stunned at the effort and creativity that goes into each detail and am always eager for the end result. The team is extremely accommodating and always provide a fresh approach to our projects that elevates our communications materials!”

Alana Khaytin, Communications Specialist — Braskem America

“What I really appreciate about Alive is that they work with us as partners, and care as much about getting it right for our patients as we do.”

Sara Langston, Patient Engagement & Marketing Manager — italk

“Alive are unique in how much they deeply listen and invest in you and your ideas. I have not come across a company that listens as much as they do to ensure your needs are understood and met (actually - they always exceed my needs and expectations). Everyone I recommend Alive to has an equally brilliant experience. When you work with Alive, you are not only getting some genius creativity brought into your life, you are also hanging out with some of the best examples of human beings I’ve ever known.”

Steph Tranter, Hybrid Exec Coach & Psychologist — StephTranter.com

“Alive helped us create a video of our response to the floods of winter 2019. Our Chief Officer received messages from all round the country praising us for it and was really pleased with both the video and the response to it.”

Alexander Mills, Communications Manager — South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue

“Alive were professional, friendly and great to work with. Most importantly they were creative, helping us to bring an extremely important safety campaign to life.”

Jack Grasby — South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue

“The (Alive) team were able to creatively pull together and document (in just over 2minutes) everything our service has achieved over the last few months, from thousands of prescriptions deliveries to hundreds of phone calls made to the vulnerable. The final product was so powerful and reflective of what our service has and continues to achieve. It couldn’t have been better received within the service – thanks Alive for once again helping us to communicate our vision!’”

Emma Wright — South Yorkshire & Rescue

“We worked with the team at Alive to create our staff recognition video.
At a time like this, its never been more important to share the amazing work that our staff have done and continue to do on a daily basis under very difficult circumstances. We wanted to shout about this and recognise that when the time came, South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue stepped up to the plate. We didn’t want an ordinary thank you post on social media or a basic email sent out internally, we wanted something special. Enter Alive. ”

Emma Wright — South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue

“This looks amazing - brought a smile to my face scrolling through it :-)”

Jack Ford, Head of Marketing — streamGO

“Our company is fun, we have great brands, but most importantly we’re all about our people – and I wanted an agency who would understand that and help us bring it to life through our website and other comms. Straight away I felt that Alive ‘got’ us and provided the creative inspiration exactly where we needed it, as well as the technical expertise to deliver a well-functioning website.”

Keren McCarron, Head of Corporate Affairs & Communications — KP Snacks

“Boom!
Thank you so much. Incredible work done at incredible speed by incredible people.
Outstanding work as ever and what a turnaround. As for the concepts – wow. These are that good it would be an insult to describe them as just good. It’s a joke, quite frankly. This is exactly the Alive effect I was after. Right now I feel like I am living in an Alive With Ideas wonderland. Thank you!”

Jack Grasby, Campaigns Manager — SYFR

“If you are looking to improve creativity and build teamwork, I highly recommend a session like this for your team. No matter where you are in your creativity journey, a workshop like this can give your team a boost of energy and ideas to invigorate their creative thinking.”

Amy Lilja, IC Manager — Hennepin Healthcare

“Alive were there to help when we were working every hour to respond to the coronavirus outbreak. They gave us the creativity, ideas and support we needed to deliver campaigns which empowered our residents in the most difficult time most of us have ever seen, personally and professionally. The team understood what we needed, worked closely with us and delivered fast without any compromise on quality. Working with Alive has been a joy in the darkest of times and I have no doubt will have helped to save lives. Thanks team x”

Julie Odams, Assistant Director of Communications & Customers — Derbyshire County Council

“We got 'Alive' involved to help us shift mindsets across our organisation and they delivered! Using simple, clear and creative ideas the team have delivered us a campaign which has seen a dramatic increase in idea sharing and development. They’ve also played a significant role in creating a culture of shared success. I wouldn’t hesitate to work with again, in fact, we already are!”

Gavin Buckle — B&Q
Alive logo