The Internal Comms Playbook

That CEO message you spent three weeks perfecting? About 40% of employees opened it. Half of those read past the second paragraph. And by tomorrow, most won't remember what it said.

This isn't a failure of effort. Internal communications teams work harder than anyone realises. The problem is that we've been playing the wrong game entirely.

For decades, internal comms has operated like a delivery service. Get information from leadership's heads into employees' heads as efficiently as possible. Optimise the send times. Segment the audiences. Measure the open rates. Make the trains run faster.

But nobody's asking whether anyone actually wants to be on the train.

The Internal Comms Playbook offers a fundamentally different approach. Drawing on behavioural economics, brand marketing, and experience design, this book shows you how to create communications that people actually read, understand, remember, and act upon.

What you'll learn:

• Why the 60/40 rule from advertising transforms your entire communications strategy
• How to close the "perception gap" between what you send and what people receive
• The psychology of waiting, and why a visible timeline beats a faster one
• When to add friction (yes, add it) and when to strip it away
• How to run pilots that build belief before you scale
• Why showing your working builds more trust than polished perfection
• Measurement frameworks that track understanding, not just opens
• A practical 90-day roadmap for getting started without needing approval from seventeen stakeholders

This isn't academic theory. It's a working playbook built for communications directors, HR leaders, and anyone responsible for helping organisations talk to their own people. Every chapter ends with something you can use tomorrow.

The principles aren't complicated. Lead with meaning. Tell better stories. Design moments, not messages. Support people at the point of need. Measure what actually matters.

Simple ideas. Properly applied. That's what moves the needle.

Stop optimising for delivery. Start designing for meaning.