Getting online engagement: platform strategy, coaching, and managing up

Executive overview

Most internal online platforms fail not because of the technology but because there's no strategy, no champion, and no compelling reason to return. The same principle applies across leadership challenges: clarity on the desired outcome must precede any tool or tactic choice.

This episode answers five listener questions spanning internal community building, low-cost coaching, executive communication, managing up, and leading former peers.

The platform is never the problem — the missing strategy and ownership always is.

Choosing the right internal platform

• Define the outcome before picking a tool: "stay in touch" and "build relationships between locations" require different solutions.
• Most corporate forums are ghost towns because no one owns making them useful.
• Assign a content champion — someone who posts regularly, answers questions, and gives people a reason to return.
• Give users a compelling reason to show up: how-to videos, answered pain points, live Q&As, or contests.
• Twitter is a public news platform; it is poorly suited for private internal community use.
• Check what intranet or knowledge tools the organisation already has before building something new.
• Slack works well for real-time conversation; it is less suited for archiving and searching documents.

Affordable alternatives to formal coaching

• HR or organisational development departments sometimes provide internal coaching — worth asking.
• Co-mentoring: pair with someone further along in some areas, where you are further along in others.
• Mastermind groups: four to six people with similar goals, meeting with structured sharing and mutual accountability.
• Marshall Goldsmith's Feed Forward model: proactively ask colleagues what you could do more effectively, then build your own 360.
• Read targeted leadership books and write a personal development plan for the year.
• Doing this consistently puts you ahead of most people without any formal coaching spend.

Reaching employees across geographies

• Face-to-face still cannot be replaced; senior leaders should visit remote locations at least occasionally.
• Live video conferencing (Zoom, GoToMeeting, WebEx) has reached a quality where it builds genuine relationships, even without prior in-person contact.
• Recorded video from senior leaders is effective when produced with intention and strategy.
• Build a communication channel inventory: list every channel, its strengths, and its weaknesses.
• Cascade messages across multiple formats — text email, short video, audio, long-form deep-dive — to match different audience needs.
• A simple "communication plan" template search surfaces usable frameworks quickly.

Coaching up to a difficult manager

• Focus on behaviours, not attitude — attitude is subjective and easy to dismiss or deny.
• Ask permission before giving feedback: "Would you be open to hearing something I've been noticing?"
• Confirm the problem is real before acting: compare turnover rates to industry benchmarks and similar stores.
• Pick the single issue most likely to get traction, not the full list of complaints.
• Own the observation — "here's something I've been noticing" lands better than "six people who left told me X".
• Test receptiveness with one small thing; if there's movement, the door opens for more.
• If there's no response, you have your answer and can decide on next steps accordingly.
• Resource: Peter Block's The Empowered Manager — especially the chapter on managing up.

Leading former peers

• Episode 257 of Coaching for Leaders (with Tom Henshaw) covers this topic in full detail.
• Also relevant: episode 302 with Kim Scott on Radical Candor for giving direct, caring feedback.