Hello and welcome to Cut Through! How to communicate with clarity in a noisy world.
I’m Simon Baugh. I used to be the Chief Executive of UK Government Communications and now I write, speak, and advise companies on communications leadership, strategy and capability.
Cut Through is a new blog and podcast for anyone who relies on communications to drive performance and build trust. It is focussed on the essential skills communicators need to thrive in a world of disruption and change.
Every episode will be a written article, a podcast and a video so that you can read, listen or watch. Whichever suits you best.
In this first episode I want to set out why I’m writing Cut Through!
Communications leadership is at a crossroads.
For many, it feels like a crisis.
Internally, employees expect clarity, transparency and authenticity on everything from company strategy to global political events.
Externally, customers, stakeholders and the media operate at hyper-speed. A single reputational crisis, even one based on false information, can destroy trust, sink share prices or end careers instantly.
Just when you understand the latest tech, it’s outdated. Budgets are tight. Expectations are rising. Trust is low. And through it all, you’re being asked to do more, say more, and react faster.
Leaders today are beset by noise and inundated with information. Unless we rethink how we lead communication, we risk being overwhelmed.
But we should be optimistic about our ability to change to meet this challenge. After all, our profession has been changing rapidly for the last 25 years.
It wasn’t always like this.
At the start of my career the world moved more slowly and the job was more straightforward.
On my first day in PR, my predecessor lent me his most prized asset: a Black and Red A6 notebook containing the handwritten phone numbers of all his media contacts. His handover was a single sentence: “become best friends with everyone in this book”.
As I canvassed views from others in public relations, it seemed pretty straightforward. Yes, it required creativity, relationship skills, and the ability to think on your feet. But, fundamentally, if you stuck to a few simple rules you should be okay: never lie to a journalist; always make sure you have a story; and, most importantly, always pay for lunch.
Unless you were in marketing there was only really one way to get your message to the public. Convince a journalist to write or broadcast your story. Most people only had access to five TV channels. There was no social media.
When I purchased my first mobile phone my flatmates were incredulous. Why did I need one? Who could I possibly need to speak to so urgently that it couldn’t wait until I got to the office?
If you wanted advance sight of a newspaper story then you picked up an early print edition of the Sunday papers that were sold at tube stations on a Saturday night. Media monitoring was done by reading the papers, cutting out the relevant articles, and then photocopying them for the boss.
Internal comms consisted mainly of posters pinned to a company noticeboard. We had recently been given access to the internet, but there was still a debate as to whether people should be permitted to use it during working hours.
The job wasn’t without excitement. I got a buzz from seeing a story I’d briefed, or an article I’d written, in print the next day. But it was steady and predictable.
Fast forward 25 years…
Well… you know how it is.
You’re still expected to be across every BBC bulletin and newspaper editorial. But now there are 500 TV channels and a million citizen journalists.
If that wasn’t enough, you need a view on every social media platform, podcast, digital video channel, and peer to peer messaging app. Your CEO wants to know how she can “go viral”. Your team wants you to partner with an influencer you’ve never heard of but who has more followers than Taylor Swift. You know you should be basing your comms on data, but you have so much data you can’t find any insight. You have only just started getting to grips with generative AI, but apparently you need to talk “agentic AI” if you don’t want to look like you’re stuck in 2024. Oh, and your staff board would like to know why you haven’t put out a statement on Gaza.
“Our comms hasn’t been good enough…”
The world of communications has changed and how we lead must change too. As Chief Executive of the Government Communication Service, I was the most senior communications adviser to the UK Government, leading more than 6,000 communications and marketing professionals.
I advised Ministers in the most high pressure situations, including COBR emergency response meetings, and I led the country’s official communications during the COVID-19 pandemic, the death of HM Queen Elizabeth II, and Russia’s war in Ukraine.
I was privileged to work with some of the best in the business. Number 10 Downing Street political advisers of all parties were among the brightest, hardest working people I’ve known. Yet after six months, all faced criticism. Not because they lacked ability, but because they were in an impossible job.
The response to every political or policy failure was “we failed to get our message across”, “people don’t understand our story” or “the comms hasn’t been good enough.” In four years, I ended up working with eleven political No.10 Directors of Communication.
Anyone trying to engage with the whole of today’s media environment is bound to be overwhelmed - caught in a tidal wave of information and misinformation. The media landscape is more diverse and fragmented than ever. Yet you’re expected to be across everything. Isn’t that your job, after all?
No. It’s not.
Your job is to use communication to achieve your organisation’s objectives. Everything, everywhere, all at once is a movie title not a communications strategy. If you try to do everything then you will fail to do anything. It is time to push back on unrealistic expectations. It’s time to be more strategic. To make some choices. To lead with greater clarity.
Towards a new operating manual
When I started my career there were two books that gave me insight into politics and communication. The first, by US broadcaster Chris Matthews, was called Hardball: How Politics is Played by One Who Knows the Game. The second was the marketing classic Ogilvy on Advertising: The art of selling from the most successful ad man of all time. I read them repeatedly. I felt as if I’d been given the secret recipes for success by the ultimate insiders.
25 years on it feels like the right moment to try to write my own version. The world of communications has changed beyond recognition. But I want to explore precisely what has changed, what hasn’t, and why it matters.
More importantly, I want to examine the winning strategies and the essential skills for this changed world and articulate a new operating model for communications.
I hope I have learned enough to be able to pass on some of what works, what doesn’t, and why. But I definitely don’t have all the answers. That’s why I hope Cut Through! can become a community. Somewhere where other people comment and contribute their learning and ideas too.
I hope it is useful. And even more, I hope you enjoy reading it.
Simon
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