⛅ What Sesame Street Teaches us about Internal Communications and Careers
5 Emotional Intelligence Lessons for Lifelong Learning
During difficult times, I turn to childhood memories for comfort. Over the past few weeks, I’ve found myself asking way too often — what would Mr. Rogers say to us today? He helped many children and adults grieve after September 11th with his heartwarming message.
Currently, it’s challenging to continue with business as usual so I’m pausing to turn my attention to the lessons I learned from my other favorite former public television icons at Sesame Street. I hope this step back to “sweepin’ the clouds away” can help all of us remember what matters and bring a bit of a “sunny day” to work. I hope you’re all doing okay and taking care of yourselves and your communities.
From the moment I set eyes on Big Bird as a kid, I fell in love with Sesame Street. As an adult, I continue to be inspired by Sesame Street with the introduction of new characters to teach children and adults about important topics — autism with Julia, homelessness with Lily and different abilities with Ameera.
In each of the characters, I find myself relating to their unique personality traits — Elmo’s laughter, Cookie Monster’s focus (and love for chocolate chips) and Grover’s energy. On many Monday mornings, this is exactly the way I feel when working from the East Coast with West Coast colleagues:
The lessons Sesame Street taught me as a kid are still applicable today to work and to internal communications. 5️⃣ Here are five reasons why:
💕 #1 Be Kind
In life and at work, it’s important to treat each other with kindness. After all, empathy is one of the top skills needed to succeed in internal communications according to featured leaders on The Switchboard. This kindness comes through in our writing, how we help leaders respond during crises or the ways we communicate well-being and benefits.
There will be ups and downs in life and our careers, but through it all, work friends can make all the difference — “A good friend can help you weather any storm.”
🎉 #2 Celebrate Diverse Communities
Internal communications collaborates with Diversity, Equity and Inclusion to ensure employees feel welcome. When it comes to special gatherings for holidays or heritage months, we often craft invitations that bring people together and contribute to a meaningful experience, whether that’s Lunar New Year, Diwali, Hanukkah or many other moments.
Sesame Street reminds us that we are all different, but when we share those differences with each other, we learn and grow together. Here’s to more years of celebrating almost every holiday, it’s certainly taught me a lot about other cultures and myself.
🦄 #3 Embrace the Unique
Every team member brings a story to their work — our role is to find it and help them share it with others. As internal communicators, we elevate people’s superpowers. At work, we encourage people to “be your authentic self.” This influences internal communications in the ways we share employee stories and how our leaders talk to employees.
🕥 #4 Make Time for What Matters
As we focus on getting work done, it’s important to stop to smell the roses or in the case of Sesame Street, stop to make bubbles. There’s scientific evidence that this can make people happier and find satisfaction in life, and hopefully work. Courtney Seiter, Former Director of People at Buffer and current VP of People at Hologram wrote “The Science of Taking Breaks at Work.” She offers recommendations on re-thinking your time.
Taking a bubble break is a reminder that not every minute has to be scheduled, and that we can encourage employees in our hybrid work worlds to take a walk in the middle of the day if working from home or a tea break with a colleague if at an office. Internal communications helps communicate this message to teams so that these moments actually happen.
🖍️#5 Collaborate with Others
As internal communications, we partner with different teams — writing emails for executives, coaching colleagues for presentations or creating campaigns to inspire action. Collaboration is central to success in internal communications as we partner with leaders, managers and team members to share information and connect colleagues with the information that matters.
Sesame Street reminds us that our teamwork begins with the way we played together as a kid — how we shared, included others’ ideas and created a magical experience: “Teamwork makes the dream work!”
🏢 Bonus: Navigate Office Life
Sesame Street also offers suggestions when it comes to adjusting back to an office with this wisdom:
“When returning to the office, don't forget your headphones. Your co-workers (and roommate) will thank you!”
“Back in the office for the first time since ... how long has it been? Don't worry, we're in this together!”
What a great idea to use Sesame Street characters to teach workplace lessons! Even though my workplace is now my home, I can definitely relate to turning to childhood spaces where you found comfort for solace now. We definitely need some of that, especially right now, no matter where we work or play.
Julia! This is such a great article - I love the lessons and connection to such a wonderful brand. Thanks for the thoughtful reminders.