"No more bogus quotes!"

So you're reading a news-style internal article about a business win and you're feeling encouraged (maybe even engaged!) until you hit something like this pothole of a quote:

"There is a significant amount of trust that goes along with this agreement," said [the COO]. "Airlines enter into 10-year agreements with airports where they believe the cost structure, the capital approval processes, and the management of the airport all work together. We truly value our relationship with the airlines, and our openness, transparency and mutual respect has led us to this point."

Instantly the air goes whooshing from the ruptured tread of your morale. It occurs to you, though you can't put your finger on why, that this lone win may mean little in the context of your organization's immense challenges. What just happened?

OK, another: You're skimming a news-style article about the employees of the month, scanning for any friends' names, when you're walloped with this quote attributed to the CEO:

"Each of the employees listed below embodies the mantra of Mission, People, Leadership, Teamwork and Integrity that drives our operation."

It's easier to account for why this one stops you cold. Never mind the errant capitals or the confusion of "mantra" and "motto." The only way it could honestly represent the CEO is if she uttered those words while looking over the shoulder of whoever was doing the article's layout. (Otherwise how does the CEO know to specify "below" rather than above, left or right?) The implication is, of course, that she never supplied those words at all — and therefore, that employee recognition is maybe just a tad more rote than heartfelt.

That offers you a better handle on the COO's quote about the business win, which stings because it also represents untruth. Instinctively you know it's bogus because:

• People don't spontaneously talk so extensively in such a stiff style; in the unlikely event that it was uttered at all, it was heavily coached and rehearsed.

• People don't specifically laud their own openness, transparency and respect except to compensate for a lack of same.

But how did it come to this? If your organization is fretting about how engaged you are, why do its internal communications often work so hard to disengage you?

A brief (and oversimplified) history of the bogus

At least ostensibly, news reporters gather facts — including writing down or recording what relevant people said. The reporter weaves the facts into a coherent but maybe somewhat colorless narrative. A candid, spontaneous quote from someone who was actually there can make the story more vivid.

So far, so good. But as you know, news outlets generally haven't been doing so well these past couple of decades. They've let go many of their writers and reporters, some of whom got jobs upstream as in-house PR people. It's only rational for such folks to conclude that if they supply the quotes, they can save the remaining skeleton crews at the news outlets some trouble — and they might even get their stuff published as-is. From there it's a short leap to team-fabricating idealized but unlikely quotes and dubiously attributing them to the preferred organizational poobah — because why not go for the home run?

In short order, this became "the way we've always done it." Meanwhile, as organizations grow in size and sophistication, the need for mass internal communication weighs more heavily on those with mass-communication experience: the folks in PR (or marketing communications or what have you). Many of them execute internal communications the one way they know how, including bogus quotes, despite the change in context.

Internal comms ought to be different

Internal communications isn't about slipping past media gatekeepers. Rather, it should be about helping employees feel they are trusted to make decisions and supported with the best information. In that context, bogus quotes can only do harm. They might fool the least competent — but those are who a healthy organization most needs to remediate, not string along.

Instead of bogus quotes, internal comms could focus content and restore honesty by paraphrasing the intent in simple, direct language, like so:

[The COO] described 10-year agreements as evidence that the airlines trust the airport, and that all of us help foster that trust.

Of course, bogus quotes are just one internal-comms engagement killer; plenty more where that came from. But more broadly, maybe internal comms ought to be a partnership between an org's trained mass communicators and its HR folks — the better to impart some trust and support. If Liz Ryan is right that HR needs to be more a ministry of culture than a compliance enforcer, internal comms might be a crucial venue.

My name is Bill Walters and I am a scout bee — that is, an internal-communications consultant. I plan, deploy, write, edit and moderate. I'd like to help your hive find The Good Stuff.

This post builds on principles set out in The Associated Press Guide to News Writing, chapter 8, by Rene J. Cappon. The bad-example quotes herein are real, but the perpetrators shall remain anonymous.