Hear what this top internal communications professional from ING has to say!

Ruth Weber Kelley - Head of ING Group Internal Communications

1. What has been your career path in internal communications?

After studying journalism and Spanish in the US and abroad, I graduated from university into a tough U.S. job market. At that point in my life, I was eager to have a paycheck, which prompted me to consider all kinds of communications roles. After a short stint in PR and advertising, I landed a role with Honeywell in Minneapolis doing internal communications for their Latin American division. Throughout my entire career, I have gravitated toward internal communications roles because they allow me to get inside an industry, a company or a leadership team and act as an internal journalist of sorts. While I’ve done the range of internal and external communications roles, I ultimately chose to specialize in internal communications because of my personal stakeholder model that puts employees at the center of any successful organization.

2. Describe your role and responsibilities at ING Group.

ING has 130,000 employees in more than 60 countries. In the eight years that I’ve been with ING (both in the Americas and now at the headquarters), I’ve seen the company move from being a loose network of independent subsidiaries to a more centrally managed company that is united by a common business strategy, brand and people philosophy. That shift brings new responsibilities for the Group internal communications function. One of my first tasks when I assumed this role was to identify the unique mandate for the Group IC function so that we could add real value and not compete with the work being done by the IC teams at other levels of the company. Through stakeholder interviews and surveys, we identified three key tasks that were uniquely our own: creating awareness and engagement with the overarching ING Group business and brand strategy; sharing the mindset of the executive board; and building a “One ING” feeling by showing the breadth and depth of the global operations.

3. What were your top priorities coming into this role?

I’ve had three key priorities over the past year that continue to be at the top of my agenda: strengthening the team and vehicles at the headquarters level; mobilizing ING’s global communications network to serve as an extension of my team; and positioning my team as the internal consultant and air traffic controller for any ING function that wants to have access to our global audiences. We’ve achieved good progress on each of the three, and now it’s about refining, making it sustainable and measuring it.

4. What were your biggest challenges coming into this role and how did you overcome them?

There were some very good global comms vehicles that had been put in place, but they consumed almost all the team’s time and budget. There was little left over for the other things that I thought could take the function to the next level, such as aligning the global network with our priorities and playing the air traffic controller role. In addition to the resource constraints, our partners internally weren’t consistently accustomed to working in this fashion with Group Internal Communications. So I’ve invested a lot of effort into relationship building and educating people about our role. And we’ve worked hard to show how we can add real value, which speaks louder than any fancy business model presentation.

5. Have you experienced a big change between communications in the US and Europe?

How have you adapted your work style? It’s dangerous to make any generalizations linked to geography, because I’ve found that so much of a communications culture is dictated by the values of a leadership team. So, even though ING is headquartered in Amsterdam, the environment and mindset is very global, with an executive board comprising people from four nationalities. That said, I think it’s fair to say that European work cultures tend to favor evolution over revolution, so I’ve needed to learn to become more consultative and measure progress in smaller steps. On a more personal level, I’ve rediscovered the importance of relationship-building. Because I had enjoyed a strong, longstanding relationship with the ING Americas organization, I knew instinctively how to do my job. When I started at the Group level in January 2007, I needed to build those relationships and credibility from scratch, including learning all the unspoken rules about how you get work done. That was tough at times, because you want so much to make an impact and show results, but you can’t do that until you have the foundation in place – and that takes time.

6. How would you describe the communications culture at ING?

There’s a major commitment to transparency that starts at the top, and you can see that in the way that ING has increased its communications with all stakeholders. Transparency is supported by an executive board who makes the time to be an active participant in the process. From a content standpoint, ING is a very much a “feet on the ground” kind of company, so our messages are concrete and grounded in reality.

7. Have you employed any innovative communications methods?

We recently conducted an online chat led by our chairman and CEO with 145 leaders from around the world discussing ING Group’s strategy. The participants were very forthcoming with feedback to the chairman, in addition to chatting with one another. It’s a great way to surface ideas and measure the pulse of a group, but it can also be a bit like drinking water from a fire hose! If you’re looking for an orderly Q&A forum, this isn’t the tool for you.

8. What are your most effective communications channels at ING?

Face to face communications is by far the most effective way to connect with employees on both an intellectual and emotional level. Our chairman is currently doing a global tour to communicate ING’s strategy, and the response has been phenomenal. Unfortunately, it’s not a very efficient option in a global organization. Push emails from the chairman on key topics are also very effective. They typically link to our corporate intranet where employees can find videos, Q&As and related articles, allowing them to pick and choose the level of information they need. Used sparingly, the emails do get employee’s attention. We also recently introduced a business leaders toolkit, which is designed to integrate Group and business line messaging in a quarterly toolkit to help our leaders be better communicators. Initial feedback has been positive.

9. What skills should successful internal communications professionals possess?

I have high expectations, but first and foremost they must be technically excellent and able to execute. By that I mean excellent reporters and writers who can quickly master the content that they’re writing about. They must understand how to develop communications strategies that advance the business agenda and are linked to other organizational systems (like performance management, recognition) so that the body language of the organization matches what it says. Finally, I’m placing increasing importance on creativity, as internal comms people have to fight more than ever for employees’ attention.

10. How do you influence management decisions?

Try to quantify the benefits and/or downsides associated with a communications decision. One of the best ways to do this is through stakeholder research, so management can see exactly how a target group thinks about an issue. Other effective alternatives include case studies or peer research that show how other industry leaders are addressing an issue. Finally, whatever your recommendations to management, keep them simple and intuitive. Recognize that your management team has 1001 decisions to make every day, and they won’t have the patience to wade through a lot of theory and strategy.

11. What’s your guiding philosophy for internal communications?

No other stakeholder knows the company’s warts as well as employees do. So Internal Communication’s version of reality better match theirs, or you have no credibility. At the same time that you have to acknowledge the warts, never lose sight of all the company’s strengths and what’s possible. It’s a balancing act between being honest about the challenges but never letting them be an excuse for not succeeding.

12. What advice would you give to people just starting in their internal communications career?

Be an excellent communications professional but add the real value through your knowledge of the company and your relationships with people in the business. If you do all that well, internal comms can be a great launching pad for a number of other careers. It’s a great career in itself, but keep your eyes open for where else it could take you.

13. If you could have any superhero power, what would it be?

I grew up on a dairy farm in the United States where our livelihood was inextricably linked to the whims of the sun, the rain and more catastrophic weather like tornadoes. When my husband told me that there is a superhero named Storm who can control the weather, I knew that was the superhero power for me. If I could make it rain in drought-stricken areas or spin out to sea the cyclone that devastated Burma, what a huge difference I could make on the well being of our planet.

14. What is the best advice that anyone ever gave you?

A wise aunt told me that I should go on a second date with my now husband because any man who loved to garden must have a good heart. His broken-down car and vague career ambitions gave me my doubts. But after just having ended a stormy relationship with someone who had the perfect credentials on paper, I saw the wisdom of revising my relationship criteria. Fifteen years and two children later, her advice has stood the test of time.

15. What is your favorite book?

I recently re-read “Love in the time of Cholera” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. His gift for language is exceeded only by his insights into the idiosyncrasies of human nature. Plus he’s so darn quirky – he has to have known people like his characters because I don’t think you could make this stuff up. I’ve had a life-long interest in Latin America, so the setting of the book feels like one big travelogue to me. It’s a treat on so many fronts.