The communication role of the people manager has achieved mythic proportions, becoming one of the sturdiest of sacred corporate cows. Companies embarking on change initiatives or seeking to build employee engagement include the manager as a matter of routine. To be sure, managers play a critical role in such activities. The problem is, it is practically impossible to ensure consistent communication from managers. Only under two circumstances is the manager communication component of any plan anywhere close to uniformly consistent:

1. In an organization in which manger-to-employee communication is a fully embedded part of the culture, supported by a leadership that demonstrates the behavior in its everyday actions
2. When it is a short-term, well-defined program with clear instructions, support materials, and accountabilities

The problem is simple: Managers don’t like to communicate. According to research I’ve cited before (published in the Harvard Business Review and FastCompany), two-thirds of managers are uncomfortable communicating with their employees.

As a result, some managers will do the bare minimum when included in a communication cascade. Each will employ whatever communication method makes them least uncomfortable. Yes, some will sit down with employees and have the conversation. Those conversations might be in a group or they could be one-on-one, depending on the manager’s preference. Each produces a different dynamic. Some, though, will distribute the communication they received with a note that says, “Read this.” Some may post it on a bulletin board or forward an email. Some may even delegate the responsibility to a subordinate.

Despite the investment of jaw-dropping sums in programs to make managers better communicators, the needle has barely moved in decades, and it won’t move until companies start promoting workers into manager positions because they have demonstrated management characteristics, not because they have hit the pay-grade ceiling and need to become a manager in order to continue rewarding them for their great (non-manager) work. Another alternative is to require anybody identified as a possible future manager to undergo serious training.

For example, when I was hired as a manager at Mattel in the mid-1980s, I was entered into the Mattel Management Excellence Program, an 11-week course that was required for anybody hired as or promoted to a manager position. This mini-Mattel MBA covered topics like performance problems, effective meetings, team development, and, of course, communication. The other new managers who went through the program with me became a resource to one another long after the program ended. Few organizations have such a program. Most managers are simply thrust into the job with a hearty, “Good luck!”

I don’t share this downbeat assessment in a misguided attempt to convince you to give up on manager communication. I do, however, want to convince you to add other channels to fill the gaps managers will inevitably create. There is another cascade approach that can engage employees in meaningful and relevant communication. What’s more, it’s a method that has been embraced by our brethren in marketing, who increasingly recognize that it is the most impactful form of marketing, producing the highest ROI at the lowest cost.

Influencer marketing, according to one study, delivers $6.85 in earned media value for every $1.00 of paid media. Another study found that influencer marketing delivers 16 times the ROI of digital marketing.

The tools to identify and activate influencers for marketing purposes are readily available. (I’m a big fan of Marshall Kirkpatrick’s Little Bird.) Internally, though? It’s a rare employee communications department that is attempting to map and use influencer networks.

The concept of internal influencer networks is older than some people reading this post

The concept internal influencer networks pre-dates the current influencer marketing by decades. I first learned of it in mid-1993 while thumbing through the July-August issue of the Harvard Business Review. There, an article by David Krackhardt and Jeffrey R. Hanson laid out the idea of Informal Networks: The Company Behind the Chart. Krackhardt and Hanson point out that they started paying attention to the idea in 1981 when they found there was already a substantial body of research that “established the influence of central figures in informal networks.” They advise that…

“Companies should examine trust networks when implementing a major change or experiencing a crisis. The communication network can help identify gaps in information flow, the inefficient use of resources, and the failure to generate new ideas. They should be examined when productivity is low.”

Two years ago, McKinsey & Company published an article, Tapping the power of hidden influencers, that treated internal influence networks as though it were a new concept. Their findings dovetail almost exactly with those of the 1993 HBR piece:

• Influencer patterns rarely reflect the organization chart.
• Informal influencers exist at every level of the organization.
• You can’t determine who influencers are based on their title, role, or tenure.
• The influencers aren’t who managers or C-suite executives think they are.

While the data to support internal influencers and the processes to identify and activate them have been floating around for at least 30 years, the internal communications community has not embraced it. I have been attending employee communications conferences for nearly 40 years and can’t recall a single session or keynote dedicated to mapping and using internal influencer networks.

There are some exceptions. European consultant Leandro Herrero specializes in employee influencer networks and demostrated their power in an experiment that found the top five influencers in a company achieved nearly double the reach of the top five leaders. He calls the process “Viral Change.” He has even trademarked the name.

It’s high time more communicators jumped on the influencer train. Regardless of whether we take advantage of these networks, employees already routinely turn to influencers they trust to give them credible answers and information, according to Krackhardt and Hanson—and that was back when email was a novelty and nobody had yet dreamed of enterprise social networks (ESNs). Imagine the power of influencer networks today! In most organizations, though, internal social media is little more than commenting bolted onto articles and ESNs introduced without an adoption strategy.

A little research will produce an internal influencer network map

Internal communicators should map their internal influence networks now and prepare to activate influencers for any communication in which widespread understanding and support is critical. Creating the map requires an upfront understanding of what you’re trying to accomplish with any given communication:

• What kind of influence are we talking about?—Some employees may be influential when it comes to employment issues like benefits, compensation, and hiring practices. Others may wield influence around business practices, strategy, and plans. There is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all influencer.
• What kinds of influence networks are there?—According to Krackhardt and Hanson, there are three: Advice networks, the influencers others call on to solve problems and share technical information; trust networks, where employees go to share sensitive political information and seek support in a crisis; and communication networks home to those employees who regularly talk about work-related topics. The trust and communication networks are the ones you want to uncover.

Creating the map is a simple matter of asking. An employee survey can reveal the network as long as employees trust the company enough to provide honest answers. According to Krackhardt and Hanson, the questions to ask include the following:

• Whom do you talk to every day?
• Whom do you go to for help or advice at least once a week?
• Whom would you recruit to support a proposal of yours that could be unpopular?
• Whom would you trust to keep in confidence your concerns about a work-related issue?

Then, the authors suggest, you need to cross-check the answers and process the information with any of the easily accessible tools that produce network maps. It is also important to revisit the maps at least every year or two since comings and goings will alter the network nodes.

Once you know who is in these networks, develop culturally-acceptable tools and processes to ensure their interactions support the company’s goals. Be sure to give them early access to information so they are prepared when others seek them out for their perspective. You might even consider having them participate in the initiative planning process so they have some ownership of the outcomes. I am certain that effective internal influencer marketing will produce the same (if not better) results than our externally-focused colleagues have seen. For those employees whose managers are less than effective at communication, the information provided by influencers can fill the gap.

Mapping influencer networks is just one of the activities internal communicators should consider in order to remain relevant in the online, networked world. I will cover this and other steps in my free webinar this Friday. Register