How to Find Fulfillment as a Communicator

When I think about the times I’ve felt most fulfilled in my work as a communicator, several situations come to mind. One was when I managed a small team who really seemed to click, thus producing some excellent work for our company. At that same time, I was producing a monthly employee publication that allowed us to try fresh creative things. At other times, I’ve been fulfilled by the things I was learning or the fact that I was growing in my profession.

Hands down, however, the times when I’ve felt most fulfilled is when I knew my work was strategic.

Strategic is one of those words that seems overused but is truly important if you want your work as a communicator to be meaningful — and if you want job security. There is a lot of discussion these days about being creative in our communications, which is also important. In fact, the two are not mutually exclusive; corporate communications can be strategic and also be engaging and even entertaining. But without a connection to our organizations’ strategic goals, our communications are ultimately a waste of resources.

Connecting communications to strategy starts at the outset of an assignment. Ask yourself:

• What organizational goal are we helping to achieve?
• What initiative or project are we helping to advance?
• What are the messages we will communicate, how and to whom?
• How will we know we’ve succeeded?

That last question is vitally important. Failing to answer it correctly can derail the entire communication plan, or set it off in the wrong direction. I’ve always believed that the measure of success for strategic communication equals the measure of success for the projects and initiatives our communication supports.

I was the sole employee communications resource in a manufacturing facility early in my career. One day a process engineer came to me and said he needed me to join a team that was working on an important project for the plant — a plan to become ISO certified. ISO certification would mean that the plant meets stringent standards for quality assurance and cost effectiveness. Our customers demanded it, so failure was not acceptable.

We could only achieve ISO certification if everyone in the plant — from the engineering staff to support functions to production employees — were prepared for the inspection that was part of the certification process. The need for effective communication throughout the project was obvious.

My goal for the communication plan was not simply to produce information about ISO certification. My goal was ISO certification itself. If my communications reached the right people with the right information through the right channels, the chances of successful certification were much greater than if communications were ineffective. Of course, communication was not the only factor, but as the process engineer made clear to me, it was a critical one.

The plant achieved ISO certification on our first try. Customers were happy and our manufacturing processes were better than before. Clearly, communication had made a difference. That project remains one of the most fulfilling of my career.

What is the real purpose of your communication? Is it tied to a strategic goal for your organization? If it is, you can bet your leaders will take notice.

 

2012 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for “Communication at Work.”

Here’s an excerpt:

4,329 films were submitted to the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. This blog had 19,000 views in 2012. If each view were a film, this blog would power 4 Film Festivals

Click here to see the complete report.

A Wise Use of Measurement Dollars

Here’s some good news about communication budgets in organizations: the percentage of communication budgets spent on measurement and evaluation has more than doubled in two years.

According to USC Annenberg’s Generally Accepted Practices (GAP) VII study conducted late last year, the slice of the communication budget pie increased from about 4% in 2009 to nearly 9% in 2011. The study says not only are there more tools available for monitoring communication effectiveness, but organizations seem to be taking a more strategic view of communication.

This is great news for communicators, but it also increases the pressure on us to prove our value to the organizations we serve. Business leaders increasingly expect the communication function to positively affect the bottom line (and there are plenty of recent studies that indicate highly effective communication programs do just that).

One of the wisest investments you can make in communication measurement is to assess what is working and what needs fixing in your communication program. The best way to do that is through a communication audit, which uses quantitative and qualitative research to determine how your communication dollars are best spent.

Along with my partner Katrina Gill of Gill Research, I’ve conducted several communication audits over the years and our clients always tell us the audits were worth the time and resources required to do them. An audit gives you a clear picture of what your employees want and need to know, what your management needs to communicate, and the most effective and efficient ways to communicate with employees. In addition, there is great value in having a third party conduct the assessment. Sometimes communicators can’t see the problems with their communication programs — or the things they’re doing well — because they are too close.

Although communication is viewed much more favorably these days as a strategic business tool, budgets are still pretty tight. It’s a good idea to ensure those limited resources are allocated in ways that make the most sense. That’s what a communication audit can do for you.

If you’d like to talk with me about the communication audit process, send me an email at robert@hollandcomm.com.

Questions to Ask on a Communication Audit

It’s always interesting to see the search terms people use that lead them to this blog. One term that pops up fairly frequently is “What questions do I ask on a communication audit?” or some variation on that theme.

 The fact that the question regularly appears is encouraging. It tells me more communicators are interested in conducting audits of their programs, which is a worthwhile investment of time and money. However, it is an investment. You can’t really do a high-quality communication audit on the cheap. Or, you could, but the data you get from it would be minimally useful.

A communication audit is not simply a survey. It is a thorough, in-depth examination of a communication program’s effectiveness. A survey usually is part of an audit, but it is just one tool for gathering information. An audit also usually includes focus groups; interviews with stakeholders such as business leaders, employees and the communication team’s internal clients; and an analysis of communication vehicles by someone with deep experience and expertise in organizational communication. (I’m assuming the audit is being conducted on an internal communication program; an audit of external communications would be similar but involve different stakeholders and participants.)

 The decision about what questions to ask on an audit really depends on several factors, such as the organization’s culture, the role of communication in the organization, the number and variety of communication vehicles being used, the degree to which the organization uses those vehicles to communicate strategic messages, the frequency with which communication takes place, and many others. This is where an outside consultant to conduct the audit can provide a lot of value. Consultants who specialize in communication audits know how to help you identify the issues you want to explore through a survey, focus groups and interviews, and they can help you figure out what questions to ask. (Third parties also add objectivity to the audit process, but that is a subject for another time.)

Generally, however, survey questions should focus on getting a sense of what communication vehicles and processes are working effectively and what you need to improve. Questions might offer a scale of agreement/disagreement with statements describing the vehicles. For example:

• “The ACME intranet homepage keeps me informed about important things happening in the company.”
• “Quarterly town hall meetings help me understand the business strategy.”
• “’This Month at ACME’ provides information that helps me do my job better.”

Questions should be as specific as possible and should ask about strategic purposes of the communication vehicles. A question like “How much of ‘This Month at ACME’ do you read?” will not generate information that is useful. Whether employees read most of it or only part of it doesn’t tell you how well the magazine informs them about business strategy.

Focus group questions should be designed to get participants talking about the specific things they like and don’t like about communication vehicles. If possible, it’s a good idea to have copies of the magazine or to have a live connection to the intranet so that the facilitator can point to specific features and elements and ask questions about them. If you conduct focus groups before the survey, the qualitative data can help determine the questions to ask on the survey. If you conduct the survey first, that data may suggest areas to probe in the focus groups.

Interview questions should focus on obtaining senior management’s and internal clients’ views of communication as a strategic business tool. Again, the data gathered through interviews often informs the development of survey and focus group questionnaires.

Even if you hire a consultant to help you with your communication audit – and I strongly recommend that you do – understanding the kinds of questions to ask can help you save time and minimize costs. Although I am no longer in the consulting business, I have partnered with several good communication consultants who can conduct a communication audit at a reasonable price. A communication audit is not a simple process, so don’t expect to pay just a few thousand dollars for one. If you hire the right partner, however, the money will be well-spent and you will have a much clearer understanding of what’s working in your communication program and what isn’t.

 

The Rodney Dangerfield of PR

“Employee communication is the Rodney Dangerfield of PR.”

That’s the assessment of Bruce K. Berger, Ph.D., the Reese Phifer Professor of Advertising and Public Relations at the University of Alabama. While researching the latest literature on best practices in employee communication, I came across his excellent speech delivered in October 2011 to the PRSA International Conference. In it, Dr. Berger makes a compelling case that in spite of all the research proving the business value of employee communication — and there has been much in the last 10 years — it still gets no respect.

Dr. Berger argues that employee communication in most companies is “utter folly” because they “continue to act against their own self interests by perpetuating failed communication programs that drive employee distrust and
cynicism and reduce engagement and commitment.”

He adds: “We know what needs to be done to create cultures for communication, but too many organizations just don’t do it. They fail to move from KNOWING to DOING.”

I’ve chosen to make employee communication my career because I believe in its potential to change and drive organizations. I’m passionate about it (despite agreeing with Dr. Berger that employee communication is decidedly not as sexy as media relations or crisis communications). From the beginning, though, I had to dig deep for research that bears out employee communication’s value. Well, we have the research, so now there’s not much excuse for organizations that fail to actually do something.

Read Dr. Berger’s lecture here. It’s only 10 pages and worth every minute if you believe, as I do, that employee communication is the most important communication in which an organization can engage.

5 Things Every Communication Plan Should Have

I’ve been reading about strategic communication lately as I’m helping a client develop an internal communications plan. It’s a topic with which I’m deeply familiar, but it’s a good idea to go back and get a refresher now and then, just in case we become so focused on the work before us that we fail to remember the broader principles that guide it.

There are many models of strategic communication planning out there. The one I like to use is the one outlined by my friend and mentor Les Potter in his book “The Communication Plan: The Heart of Strategic Communication” available from IABC.

I won’t get into details of that planning model here. But as I’ve read and thought about strategic communication plans, I’ve noticed that successful plans must include these things:

• Clear, measurable objectives that align with organizational objectives. If you aren’t clear on the purpose of communication and if communication activities don’t support the business’s goals, there is no reason to waste resources. If the objectives aren’t measurable, there’s no way you’ll know if communication is providing any value.
• Research. Unless you understand the current situation, there’s no way to measure the effectiveness of a communication plan. You also must understand the audiences’ information needs, senior management’s expectations and current best practices in communication. All of this comes through research. I believe a communication audit is the best value in research.
• Executive support and involvement. You are developing a communication plan to support the achievement of business goals. Your organization’s senior management must believe in the value of communication for your planning to happen in the first place and they must play a role in the plan’s development. In addition, senior management must be willing to accept a significant communication role in the implementation phase.
• All-way communication. A successful plan must include strategies and tactics that promote all-way communication — up, down, and laterally. Communication today is about relationships and conversations that promote information and ideas flowing freely in all directions. This is a significant change brought about by social media.
• Trust as a foundation. No communication plan will succeed if trust does not exist in an organization. In the context of employee communications, senior management must trust employees enough to share business-related information with them. As employees demonstrate their trustworthiness (by using that information to improve productivity and business performance), business leaders must become more transparent and open. In return, employees will come to trust management enough to act on the information they are given. Trust takes time to build and only a minute to destroy. It is the most critical element of a healthy communication environment.

I believe these five things will enable a strategic communication plan to succeed. Do you have more to add? Please comment with your thoughts.

 

Communication Audit: What It Is and How We Do It

Over the years, communicators have emailed or called me to say they are thinking of performing a communication audit and they want some advice on how to proceed. Usually the questions are about the tactics and mechanics of a survey: What online survey tool is the best? How many people should they survey? How many questions should be on the survey?

Before I can answer those questions — which are legitimate when planning a survey — I usually back up a bit and ask the inquirer some questions. Do they want to conduct a readership survey or do they want to perform a communication audit? The two are not the same.

A readership survey may provide some insight into what kind of information employees read and what they want from communication vehicles. Some information about readers’ preferences is better than no information at all, but a survey alone won’t provide a complete picture of employees’ communication wants and needs, and it won’t help business leaders know where to invest their communication resources for the greatest effect.

A communication audit will provide those answers, but a survey is just one tool used in an audit. Here is how I approach communication audits working with my business partner, Katrina Gill of Gill Research.

An audit includes qualitative and quantitative tools. Typically, we begin by interviewing business leaders to understand their communication needs and expectations as well as deep background on the organization, its mission, goals and strategies.

Then we conduct focus groups with a broad cross-section of employees (all levels and job functions) to identify where things stand, to spot issues and to understand what drives those issues.

Focus groups inform the development of a survey questionnaire. Now we know what questions to ask and the right way to ask those questions. It’s important to use the language employees use in order to get the most accurate survey data possible.

Then it’s time to conduct the survey. Driving a high response rate is important in order that the survey data are statistically valid.

We generate reports from the interviews, focus groups and surveys, but the audit is not yet complete. An audit should also include a third-party assessment of communication vehicles that holds them up against best industry practices and provides honest feedback.

We usually meet with the communication team to provide an in-person report of the audit’s findings and to think strategically about next steps in how to improve communication processes and vehicles.

All of this takes time and, yes, money. But it is time and money well spent. The result is a top-to-bottom assessment of the organization’s communication effectiveness.  An audit indicates what an organization is doing well and reveals gaps in communication. Business leaders and communication professionals then have a clear picture of where to invest resources to get the biggest bang for their communication bucks.

With an economy on the mend and organizations freeing up some resources, it’s a great time to conduct a communication audit. Doing so will help ensure a leaner, more focused communication program that will help carry the organization through the next period of uncertainty.

Read more about communication audits on my website. I’ve posted several articles Katrina Gill and I have written on the topic:

• How to Conduct a Communication Audit — and Why
• Managing Measurement Costs

 If you have questions about communication audits, email me at robert@hollandcomm.com.

How to Manage Measurement Costs

Hundreds of communicators listened to a “rerun” of a Ragan Communications webinar on communication measurement on Friday, which was followed by a live Q&A in which I participated as a panelist. This came on the heels of a great discussion on Steve Crescenzo’s Corporate Hallucinations blog about whether or not communicators should conduct their own communication audits. My position is that a full-blown audit should be performed by an objective third party. Cost can be a deterrent when it comes to third-party audits or any kind of communication measurement, but you can do things to minimize the cost. Following is an excerpt from an article I wrote with my business partner Katrina Gill of Gill Research LLC in Chicago. It first appeared in IABC’s Communication World magazine.

Hiring a consultant is not necessary for every communication project, but measurement— especially in the form of focus groups, interviews and surveys—is a task in which consultants can provide great value. The main benefit is integrity of the process. Your organization wants the most accurate, reliable information with which to make communication decisions. Having a third party conduct the research, analyze results and make recommendations helps ensure objectivity.

Time is usually money when working with consultants, so taking care of these five preliminary tasks can help conserve both.

Begin with the end in mind. Stephen Covey, author of The 7Habits of Highly Effective People, gives advice about strategic planning that also applies to measurement. Know what you want to measure and why. Is it more important to measure the effectiveness of communication vehicles or the degree to which people understand the messages? It could be that you need information about a lot of aspects of your organization’s communication activities. However, we encourage you to focus your efforts on the issues that hold the greatest potential for impact on the business. If you try to measure too many things, you will end up with a long survey that limits participation or focus group discussions that are too scattered.

Use the right tool for the job. There are many measurement tools at your disposal. One might not yield the kind of information you need to link communication activities to business goals. It could be that qualitative methods like focus groups or interviews are adequate. Perhaps a survey is necessary. Often, a combination of tools is required. For example, focus groups can provide insight into the kinds of questions to ask on a survey or help you understand why survey respondents answered the way they did. Be careful not to use more tools than are necessary or to use so few that you come up short of information. Thinking ahead about what you want to measure and why should lead you to the right tool for the job.

Line up resources ahead of time. You can save time and money by doing a few things in advance of measurement. Create a measurement team that will help with survey administration or focus group and interview arrangements. If you choose a survey, decide if it will be a census survey (in which all audience members are polled) or a random sample survey (in which a representative sample of the audience is polled). Moderating focus groups and conducting interviews should be the work of a third-party consultant who is trained in these roles. Otherwise, the integrity of the information might be compromised.

Maximize participation. Communicators don’t need consultants to tell us how important it is to communicate! This is just as true when communicating about measurement. You can save time and money by already having developed a communication plan for whatever measurement activity you decide to engage in. If a survey is coming, let potential participants know what the survey is about and how the information will be used. Be clear about the process—when it will take place, how it will be administered and by whom. Send a reminder as the closing date draws near. After the survey, thank people for their participation. Most important, communicate the results and the actions you will take based on the results. Beware of the black-hole syndrome! Use the reporting of the research findings as an opportunity to model effective communication.

The same rules apply to focus groups, interviews, focus panels and any other method of gathering information. Help people know what to expect, remind them what you want them to do, thank them for doing it and close the loop by communicating results. Not only will this help ensure strong participation in the current measurement activity, it will also help drive participation next time.

By maximizing participation, you will get your money’s worth out of the measurement process. Higher participation yields greater reliability in the data. The margin of error decreases as participation increases. Your efforts to measure communication effectiveness are in vain if the reliability of data is questionable.

Ask the right questions in the right way. Writing questions for surveys, focus groups and interviews is an important step. Flaws in the phraseology of questions can lead to unreliable data. While a consultant provides value in helping to write questions, you can shorten the process by being clear on what you want to know. This tip goes back to beginning with the end in mind. You will be tempted to ask questions that either do not produce relevant information or that produce information you do not intend to act upon. Extraneous questions cost money because they make the process longer—from asking the question to processing the responses—which decreases participation.

There are three golden rules for deciding which questions to ask:

1. There’s no “nice to know.”
2. Only ask about things that can be changed.
3. Research findings must lead to solutions.

You should have a good understanding of what’s important to your specific organization. Do an analysis of the current situation. What issues and facts do you already have? What are the implications? What do you still need to know? This will lead you to the information you need and the types of questions you should ask.

Minimizing the cost of a consultant

In our work with clients on communication audits, we often find that they have given little thought to these five tasks. And who can blame them? Communicators today are stretched more than ever, yet we have more demands placed upon us, such as demonstrating a return on our organization’s investment.

This, in addition to the third-party objectivity we noted earlier, is a primary reason why hiring a measurement consultant is a good idea. Measurement experts have the experience and expertise to help you get the most out of the activity. As with any service provider, however, you should know what to look for. And there are some ways to save when working with consultants:

1.  Start off on the right foot. Provide consultants with as much information up front as you can, including background about your organization, the specific goals and objectives of the project, previous research findings and anything else that might smooth the way.
2. Do your homework. Educate yourself about research as best you can before the project begins. You’ll know what to expect and won’t waste time with things you may not want or need. You’ll also have a better understanding of measurement techniques.
3. Be clear about expectations. With the consultant’s help, decide what can be done in-house and what needs to be outsourced. Let them know the areas in which you want their help and the things you can do yourself. For example, your  IT department can pull random names for the focus groups or send out the survey link via e-mail. The benefits of a third-party consultant are the objectivity, expertise and credibility they bring to the table.
4. Tell the whole story. Don’t hide any information, including prior, less-than-stellar research findings or potential obstacles to the research process such as people who oppose research. The more the consultants know, the more they’ll be able to help you.