Internal communication
has a nervous
system problem. >>>
Join The STEADY Work, a three-workshop series on how to reach people who are depleted, dysregulated, and done with another all-hands.
Business as usual is OVER.
The polycrisis is real. Employees are overwhelmed, uncertain, and processing information differently than they were five years ago. The frameworks we’ve been using — built for engaged, stable, trusting audiences — are failing the people they're supposed to reach.
The STEADY Work is what comes next. It’s a three-workshop virtual series built on Internal Calms’ STEADY Framework — six principles drawn from neuroscience, communication theory, trauma-informed organizational practice, and real-life experience leading global employee communications for a Fortune 100 company.
The STEADY Work doesn’t ask you to overhaul everything overnight. It asks you to take small, steady steps toward communications strategies that keep people grounded, even when the ground keeps moving.
You don’t need to be starting from scratch. You need a new lens.
The Three Sessions
The Arrival
The neuroscience of stress and communication — and how to design for today’s reality
Today’s employee experience begins with checking email at 6 a.m. and ends with doomscrolling at 10 p.m. Your employees aren’t ignoring your communications. Their brains are. This workshop is the neuroscience you won’t find at conferences — and the words you’ve been searching for.
The Anchor
Values, community, and honest communication when the future keeps moving
Business as usual is over. So is the strategy of waiting until you have answers. This workshop teaches you how organizations can prepare for one crisis after the next — and how to communicate when you can’t promise what comes next, and when no one can predict the future.
The Assembly
Building an internal communication ecosystem for humans who are already at capacity
More channels. More messages. More noise. This workshop helps you build a channel strategy that reduces cognitive load instead of adding to it — less content, more intention — and gives your employees the clarity and choice they need to actually receive what you’re sending.
THE OUTLINE
Each workshop has a singular focus, but together they build a complete practice.
The Arrival gives you the science — you understand the nervous system and start designing for it.
The Anchor gives you the foundation — you build a foundation of honest, values-based communication that holds.
The Assembly gives you the system — you redesign your channels and information architecture.
THE EXPERIENCE
Six-week virtual learning series for individual practitioners capped at 12 participants
All cohorts include three 90-minute workshops; weekly email reflections; two office hours with Ellen; and a member chat
Full series bundle: $899
Team and organizations: Contact Ellen for custom scheduling and group pricing
Sliding scale available for practitioners
The ARRIVAL
The neuroscience of stress and communication — and how to design for today’s reality.
Chronic stress doesn’t just make people feel bad — it physically changes how they receive, process, and remember information. Fight. Flight. Freeze. Fawn. These aren’t personality traits or engagement problems. They’re nervous system responses. And they’re happening in your audience before your message ever lands.
Most employee communications were designed for a workforce that no longer exists. We’ve been optimizing subject lines and A/B testing send times while our audiences quietly rewired. This workshop is the recalibration.
Drawing on the Internal Calms system and research in neuroscience, cognitive load theory, and trauma-informed organizational practice, we examine what’s actually happening in the brains receiving your communications — and redesign from there.
THIS WORKSHOP COVERS
The neuroscience of stress and what it does to information processing
Why current best practices are failing activated audiences
The six-principle STEADY Framework applied to real communications
How to redesign high-stakes moments
Language for making the case for trauma-informed communications upward
YOU’LL LEAVE WITH
A working understanding of how stress responses show up as workplace behavior and communication patterns
A framework for auditing your own communications through the Internal Calms and STEADY Framework lens
Hands-on redesigns of a high-stakes communication
Scripts and talking points for advocating this approach to leadership
You need this IF
Your communications are technically sound but something still isn’t landing.
Your employees seem checked out, avoidant, or resistant.
You’ve followed the playbook and the playbook keeps failing.
You suspect the problem isn’t your skills — it’s the framework you were handed.
The ANCHOR
Values, community, and honest communication when the future won't hold still.
Business as usual is over.
And yet most of us are still operating as if the old playbook is going to hold. Waiting for clarity before we communicate. Staying positive and on-message while our employees are watching the world catch fire. Hoping that if we just get the next all-hands right, trust will come back.
It won’t. Not that way.
Research on how organizations survive genuine uncertainty — from 9/11 to economic collapse to the polycrisis we’re living through right now — points to something consistent: When you can't tell people what’s next, you remind them who they are. You anchor them in values. You build community. You listen.
THIS WORKSHOP COVERS
Why strategy fails in polycrisis — and what replaces it
The research on values-based communication
Community as a communication strategy: building the webs of interdependence that help people stay steady
Honest communication frameworks for moments when you have more questions than answers
YOU’LL LEAVE WITH
A framework for values-based communication that works when strategy doesn’t
Practical tips for building community through your communications practice
Language for honest, trustworthy communication during ambiguity — including what to say when you genuinely don't know
Scripts for acknowledging uncertainty without undermining trust
You NEED this if
You’re being asked to communicate through something your organization hasn’t figured out yet.
You want to build trust but you don’t have the answers people are looking for.
You believe your employees deserve honesty more than they deserve polish.
You’re ready to stop waiting for clarity and start communicating with integrity.
The ASSEMBLY
Building a communication ecosystem for humans who are already at capacity.
You probably already know your channel strategy isn’t working.
Too many channels. Too many messages. Slack competing with email competing with the intranet competing with digital signage competing with the town hall no one watched because they were already in three other meetings.
The problem isn’t that your employees aren’t paying attention. It’s that you’re asking overloaded nervous systems to do sorting work, instead of giving people choice in how, when, and where to access information.
Every unnecessary message is a withdrawal from an account that’s already overdrawn. Every new channel added without intention is another source of ambient noise in a world that’s already too loud.
The Assembly is about building systems that give people back their capacity. Not simpler for its own sake — simpler because your audience is at their limit, and every design choice either honors that or ignores it.
THIS WORKSHOP COVERS
Cognitive load theory applied to channel strategy and content development
How to audit your current channel ecosystem through a trauma-informed lens
Listening as infrastructure: the systems that make values work real
Information sequencing for stressed audiences
The business case for doing less — how to make it to leadership
YOU’LL LEAVE WITH
A channel audit framework you can apply immediately
An information sequencing mapped to the STEADY Framework six principles
A listening infrastructure map you can begin building without a big budget
A cognitive load assessment for your highest-volume communications
Language for making the case for consolidation and simplification upward
You NEED this if
Your channel strategy has grown by addition rather than design.
You’re sending more communications than ever and getting less engagement.
You know something needs to change but you’re not sure where to start — or how to make the case for it.
You’re ready to do less, better, and with intention.
Not ready for this session? Stay in the loop for our next STEADY Work cohort.