Are communications skills portable?

When I left Reuters after 20 years in 2008, I was terrified. Was I irredeemably institutionalised? Would anything I’d learned be relevant anywhere else?

Let’s start with what’s unique to any company: its culture.

Reuters remained essentially journalistic long after the business expanded beyond journalism. You got nowhere if you couldn’t write and network, and business cases were much more likely to succeed if presented with eloquence, wit and imagination. Financial Services, my next sector, was much more hard-nosed. And when I arrived at HomeServe, I experienced the can-do, collaborative culture of a founder-led growth business. When you’re looking to move, learn as much as you can about the pink and fluffy stuff during the recruitment process. Culturally, you’re either looking for a productive match or impetus for change.

Never fear, core communications skills are essentially portable. In investor relations, if you’ve learned to think like an analyst, ask the right questions and work collaboratively with your colleagues, you can tell an organisation’s story without having worked there all your life. Use your honeymoon period well: a new perspective can be immensely valuable. If you’ve played the game with a straight bat, the investors and journalists you meet again when you move company will be pleased to see you in your new role. And in internal comms, building strong relationships across the organisation will help you work out how to add value. But remember, we work in a small world: the people whose shoulders we climb on on the way up will be the same ones who support us on the way down.