When does the term ‘internal communication’ first appear in the archives in the UK? When can we say as business historians that a new managerial and organisational practice has been born? Whilst this sounds like a relatively straightforward question, it is much trickier that it would seemingly first appear. Finding the use of a term is one thing, detecting evidence of a systematic and institutionalised practice across organisations based on this term is a different kettle of fish altogether.
One of the earliest references we initially found was from the Midland Bank in HSBC Group Archives in London. This was from 1960 and 1961 which confirms our theory that internal communication developed in the 1960s in the UK. The following source found in a report dated to 1960 from Midland Bank is highly interesting:
HSBC Global Archives Internal Comms General File UK 0161-0001. Reproduced with kind permission of HSBC Global Archives.
What this clearly suggests is that internal communication was a foreign import from the USA. British retail banks, through fact finding missions and overseas agents regularly reported on activities amongst their peer retail banks in the USA and imported and copied practices and strategies which they thought would be of benefit. This report was an appendage to a draft memorandum entitled ‘Note On Communication Within The Bank’ dated to December 14 1960. This memorandum stated that communications within the bank were generally satisfactory but could be improved. It noted that the primary communication channel were circulars. These circulars could be improved by the provision of enhanced communication on policy and general information to branch managers. It also suggested the establishment of a Head Office Manager’s Club which would be open to membership to regional managers and officials from the branches. A report on ‘Internal Communications’ appeared in April 1961 which listed current communication channels within Midland Bank and reported on the establishment of a committee to improve communication within the bank. Apart from the establishment of an internal management gazette called Intercom, little is known of the activities of this committee and there is no further mention of internal communication in the Midland Bank until 1975 when a Group Internal Communications Committee was established.
Further research on British Rail at the National Archives and the Post Office at the Post Office Museum confirmed our view that internal communication first emerged in the 1960s. British Rail in the 1960s established an internal relations committee under its Chief Public Relations Officer Eric Merrill, to support its Industrial Relations and Staff Department. Merrill was highly active in developing internal communication at British Rail, including the establishment of a vertical cascade system of communication within the corporation, the introduction of briefing groups and the publication of a Management Quarterly journal for managers. A memorandum entitled ‘Internal Communication’ to the General Management Committee of British Rail’ in 1968 clearly outlined the principles and practice of internal communication that had been established at the nationalised rail corporation. Similarly, the Post Office established an ‘Internal Communication Study Group’ in 1972 to research and advise on communication. Its report, published in July 1972, made references to the establishment of internal communication within the Post Office in the latter half of the 1960s and to the practice of internal communication by a number of major British companies that included Ford, the National Coal Board and ICI.
We were therefore surprised to discover references to internal communication in the BBC at the end of the 1950s when we began research at the BBC Written Archives Centre in Reading, Berkshire. The 1950s was a period of major change at the BBC. It witnessed the rise of an affluent consumer society, popular culture and mass ownership of television. This led to a re-focusing of the Corporation on television (while still retaining a large footprint in radio which it continued to develop) and the building and opening of the iconic BBC Television Centre in White City, West London in June 1960. It also saw the rise of competition with the establishment of commercial television in 1955. Television led to growth in the BBC, an expansion of its workforce, and the establishment of more systematised processes of management.
In the late 1950s the BBC established a system of formal management training as a pathway for middle management into senior management positions. This was based on two-week courses at Uplands, a residential conference house near High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. The course consisted of a number of lectures from prominent figures inside and outside of the BBC and the pioneering system of ‘syndicate studies’. The latter consisted of participants being placed into syndicate groups. These were given detailed briefs based on issues and complex problems facing the BBC, brainstormed and analysed these briefs, and wrote reports which developed policy and proposals on how these problems could be solved. This was an ingenious system which promoted team work and ideation, developed strategy capacities within BBC management, and generated fresh ideas and insight which were discussed by the Board of Management, which consisted of the Director General (DG) and senior directors. This led to the development of new policy within the Corporation.
A problem that the syndicates at the First Upland Management Conference in October 1959 had to discuss was internal communication at the BBC. Failure to communicate objectives and policy by senior management to middle management and down to staff was felt to be impeding efficiency and strategy at the BBC. Lack of two-way communication was also seen to be a major issue, particularly in relation to production, creativity and public image. The issue of internal communication was a central theme of the Second Upland Management Conference in June 1960. Issues relating to internal communication such as meetings, visibility of senior management on the shopfloor and the responsibility of management to communicate continued to be discussed at Upland in the 1960s. Extensive details of syndicate reports, discussions and memos from the Board of Management and the Director of Administration and Controller of Staff Administration, and steps to improve internal communication at the BBC, including the establishment of a management committee, can be found in the extensive file at BBC WAC R49/1070/1 Communications – Internal.
Our primary source of the month is the summary of the three reports on internal communication from the First Upland Management Conference in October 1959:
BBC Written Archives Centre. Memo from Assistant Controller, Staff Administration to Director of Staff Administration 26 October 1959. WAC R49/1070/1 Communications – Internal. BBC copyright content reproduced courtesy of the British Broadcasting Corporation. All rights reserved.
This remarkable document reflects thinking, theorising and practice that we have found on internal communication in the archives of the Industrial Society, the Post Office, British Rail and Midland Bank in the late 1960s and 1970s when the practice began to spread and institutionalise. It clearly shows that the new concept of internal communication is a management responsibility, it is oral and two-way, its primary channel is meetings, written communication should be used to support oral communication, internal communication should communicate policy and information to staff, and effective internal communication is as much about organisational and managerial attitudes and behaviour as it is about communicative machinery. This documents tells us that internal communication is older than we originally thought. While it certainly began spreading and institutionalizing in the 1960s and 1970s, the concept of internal communication was well established in the 1950s in the UK.
Our source of the month is also highly historically important in relation to the origins of internal communication. It tells us that internal communication was not only a top-down organisational historical phenomena that was used by management to communicate to staff and to control this communication for the sake of enhanced organisational efficiency and managerial authority. It also reveals that it was a bottom-up phenomenon that was demanded by staff and junior/middle in order that organisations in the UK provide more communication, furnish opportunities for employees to have their say and to criticise senior management for their inability to do this. The history of internal communication from its origins in company magazines in the 1880s to its use and focus on digital channels and AI is as much about employee voice and empowerment as it is about managerial control and organisational efficiency.