I am going to preface this post by
saying that I am not writing about my opinion on President Trump and the current
administration’s politics, I am discussing their communication problems. This
is in no way a political post.
Do you trust our current administration?
According to the Pew
Research Center, public trust in the government is at an all-time low. Only
17% of Americans say that they trust our Federal Government to do what is
right, compare that to 55% in 2001. After that peak in the fall of 2001, the public
trust in government has been a fairly steady decline. One of my readings for
class this week mentioned that, historically, seniors and activists distrust
the government the most. This paper, which was written in 2010, is still probably
accurate on this, but according to the Pew study, most generations do not trust
the current administration: 19% of millennials, 17% of Gen-X, and 16% of
boomers trust the government.
Here’s a thought provoking question:
could better internal communication within our government increase the public’s
trust in the current administration?
According to this
article, “lack of coordination and internal information deficit can be a major
source of internal friction and embarrassment for an organization.” Is our
federal government exempt from this rule?
If you have watched the news at all
this year, you have probably seen President Trump’s Press Secretary, Sarah
Huckabee Sanders, at least once. Her entire job is to be the spokesperson for
the President, but sometimes it seems like she is not on the same page as him.
She is not the only one that doesn’t seem to know what the President is
thinking, most of his Cabinet members seem to be in the same boat. This,
partly, comes from the President’s affinity for social media (which could
warrant a whole post by itself!), but also shows a lack of internal
communication within our government.
Here are a couple of ways I think
better internal communication within the administration will help public trust:
1. A Unified Administration
In the past, the President and his
staff members were communicating, or at least seemed to be. They presented a
united front. Today, it seems like not all of the members of the administration
have views aligning with the President, and they are constantly changing. According
to the New
York Times, President Trump holds the record for turnover in Cabinet
members and White House Staff.
Why is this a reason to cause
distrust? In the public’s eyes, this constant rotation of staff could mean that
the President is pushing people out because of differing views, or maybe their
unwillingness to bend to his will.
If the President and the rest of the
administration (and, honestly, every politician) were more willing to
communicate and compromise, it would help them look unified to the public. They
should make an effort to talk internally, not only about the messages that they
want to send to the public, but also about problems that they are seeing within
the organization. Most of the time problems are better solved that way than just
the constant rotation of new Cabinet and staff members. According to the entreprenuer.com
article, internal communication doesn’t only help unify departments, it also
helps bind employees to the organization. It helps with retention, which is
what this administration needs!
2. A Consistent Message
Like I mentioned earlier, it seems
like President Trump and his different Press Secretaries have not always had
the same message. The Press Secretary would say one thing in a press conference,
but then the President would have a different message on his Twitter! Which source
are we to trust in this situation? It is important for the President and his
Chief of Staff, and the Press Secretary and their staff, to listen to each
other and present a message that is consistent on all fronts.
Without constant communication within
an organization, the message can get muddled. According to a blog
from the Brandon Hall group, an organization needs to have repetition and
reinforcement to have effective internal communication.
Why is internal communication so
important, you may ask? Will it really make me trust the government more? I do
not think that better internal communication will fix all of the trust problems
with our government, but I do think that it can make an impact. I believe that
it will help them present a united front, both in the administration and their
message. One thing that we have been learning about a lot in my class is the
importance of listening. It can really help an organization if the leaders are
listening to the employees.
I believe that good communication
within any company is very important. In my small office, we regularly meet as
a team to make sure we are on the same page. I can’t imagine trying to do my
job without knowing what my supervisor was thinking. It seems like Sarah
Sanders has this same problem with President Trump; she says one thing, he
tweets another.
I’m not saying the I think the President
should have a weekly staff meeting with his administration as a whole, but I do
think that something can, and should, be done to get everyone on the same page.
What do you think the government could do, internally, to create more trust in
this administration?
Bhardwaj,
R. (2016, April 11). Why Effective Internal Communication is Critical to an
Organization's Well-Being. Retrieved from
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/273838
Lu,
D., & Yourish, K. (2018, March 17). The Turnover at the Top of the Trump Administration.
Retrieved from
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/16/us/politics/all-the-major-firings-and-resignations-in-trump-administration.html
Public
Trust in Government: 1958-2019. (2019, April 11). Retrieved from
https://www.people-press.org/2019/04/11/public-trust-in-government-1958-2019/
Three
"C's" of Internal Communication. (2013, August 13). Retrieved from
http://www.brandonhall.com/blogs/three-cs-of-internal-communication/
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