Kevin Can F**k Himself is a unique type of television show. It starts like a traditional multi-camera sitcom (think Friends, Everybody Loves Raymond, Malcom in the Middle) complete with bright lights, exaggerated characters and a studio laughing track.
We start by following Kevin, a childish but seemingly harmless husband. But whenever the camera follows his wife Allison into another room, the format changes. The sitcom disappears, and we’re suddenly in a much darker, more realistic drama.
Nothing about Kevin changes – but everything about the perspective does.
That’s where this show has a surprisingly good lesson for internal comms.
Are you in a corporate sitcom?
Every organisation has its own sitcom version of reality.
It’s the one that appears in strategy decks, leadership presentations, and company-wide emails.
In that world:
- The strategy is exciting.
- The change programme is energising.
- The leadership team is bold and visionary.
- The culture is collaborative and empowering.
Cue the corporate laugh track.
But step out of that room (metaphorically speaking) and the lighting can change along with perspectives.
Now the same story might feel very different:
- The strategy feels confusing.
- The change programme feels relentless.
- Leadership feels distant.
- The culture feels… complicated.
Neither version is necessarily wrong, they’re just coming from different places.
The communicator’s dilemma
One of the clever things about Kevin Can F*** Himself* is that the camera decides which world we’re in.
Internal communicators have the skills to do something similar.
We don’t control the events themselves, but we do shape how they’re understood. That creates a risk.
If our communications only ever show the sitcom version of the organisation, people living in the drama version will stop believing us. Not because the message is dishonest, but because it’s incomplete and doesn’t reflect the realities.
Here’s the uncomfortable question
What if the organisation you’re describing… isn’t the one people are experiencing?
The danger of the corporate laugh track
In the sitcom half of the show, the laugh track tells the audience how to feel.
A punchline lands, everyone laughs, and we’re reassured that everything is fine. Corporate communications has its own version of this.
Words like:
- exciting
- energising
- transformational
- journey
There’s nothing wrong with these words, but when they appear automatically – regardless of what people are actually experiencing – it can be jarring and start to sound a lot like a laugh track.
And often, once people hear the laugh track, they start looking for the other room.
The internal comms lesson
The best communicators know that organisations have more than one perspective.
They acknowledge friction during change, reflect employee concerns alongside leadership ambition, and they explain the why, not just the outcome. Not to undermine the organisation’s story, but to make it credible.
When people recognise their own lived experience in the narrative, trust grows. Sometimes the most important thing internal communications can do isn’t polish the sitcom – it’s to walk into the other room… and turn the lights on.
Want help turning the lights on in your organisation? Ping us an email at hello@alivewithideas.com.
