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.

 

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.

 

Answering the Why

While consulting with a Fortune 500 consumer products company, my client and colleagues and I conducted internal and external research as the basis for an internal communication plan. As we talked with employees in focus groups, one theme kept reappearing. Employees didn’t just want to know where the company was headed and what decisions management was making. They also wanted to know why.

Answering the why is probably one of the most overlooked — and one of the most powerful — aspects of employee communication.

We might do a great job of communicating strategic messages on behalf of business leaders. These might include new products the company is launching or new markets it’s entering, investments the company is making and policies that are changing.

We might do an even better job of telling compelling stories about a team’s innovative approach to solving a problem, an employee’s passion for her job or the unique culture at one of the company’s plants.

These might make for interesting content. Employees might enjoy reading these stories on the intranet or hearing the CEO talk about them in town hall meetings. Leaders might believe they’re doing their part to create an environment of open, transparent communication. And they might be right.

But ask employees what’s missing from the information they receive about the business and often they’ll say they want to know the reasons behind company strategy, leaders’ decisions and changes in company policy and procedures.

Why is the why so important? Because it strengthens employee engagement. Sharing lots of information about the business is a good start toward engaging employees, but you can knock the ball out of the park when you start to talk about why. It helps employees put the pieces of the puzzle together and to make sense of the organization’s complexities. It helps them establish “line of sight” between what they do and what the business is trying to do. It helps them understand the reasons for business decisions, even if they don’t like those reasons.

Why is the company acquiring this seemingly unrelated business? Because it provides an entry point into an adjacent market.

Why does the company have such a stringent social media policy? Because it has a strategy when it comes to engaging with consumers and it wants to speak with one voice.

Why is the company laying off 100 people at this plant? Because bringing its cost structure in line with competitors is in the company’s long-term best interest.

Many business leaders forget that employees are investors, too. Even if they don’t invest their money in company stock, they do invest their time, energy and skills in the enterprise. Business leaders would never communicate a major business decision to investors without explaining why they made that decision — at least, if they want investors to continue investing. The same is true of employees. If you want them to continue investing their discretionary effort in your company, answering the why is essential.

The Fine Line Between Proficient and Poser

I don’t like being the new guy in the office. After 12 years of self-employment, I recently rejoined the corporate workforce. While I like my new job, my co-workers and the company I work for, I can’t stand not knowing all the particulars about how to do my new work, where I can go for the information and expertise I need and how things are done around here.

That will come with time, of course — it’s only been three weeks — but I am impatient when it comes to these things. After nearly 25 years in this profession, I had gotten used to knowing how to get things done — or, at least, acting as if I do.

There is a fine line between proficient and poser and I have walked it successfully for many years now. Allow me to explain.

I know how to do certain things very well. I can write and edit other people’s writing. I know how to form strong relationships. I know how to analyze communication problems and suggest effective solutions. I know how to think strategically, to build a plan and to measure my work. I know how to teach others about my craft.

But when it comes to certain specifics, I know nothing. As a consultant, when I began working with a new client, I knew little to nothing about them. I didn’t know the culture of their organization. I didn’t know their processes and their internal politics. Often I didn’t know their industry or the products they made or the services they provided. I had to learn all of that fairly quickly.

This lack of knowledge used to rattle me. But early in my self-employment, a more experienced consultant advised me: “Never tell a client you don’t know how to do something. If they ask you to do something and you can’t do it or have never done it before, just say ‘Sure, I can do that,’ and find someone who can.”

That’s called “faking it ’til you make it.” Well, not really. It’s called providing total solutions for your client by assembling the right talent for the job and managing the project to successful completion.

Sometimes, the trick is to understand the real problem and apply your skills to it. One of my last clients, a large non-profit association, initially called about performing a communication audit. What they really wanted was for me and my partner to conduct in-depth interviews with staff regarding a difficult personnel situation involving one of their managers, to assess the problem and to recommend a range of solutions. Neither my partner nor I had ever performed this kind of human-resources work before, but we had the interviewing and analysis skills necessary to do it. So we did, and the client was pleased.

One of my new co-workers, herself a relative newcomer to the company, gave me some good advice. She encouraged me not to feel bad about not knowing anything. “Your job right now isn’t to produce, it’s to watch and learn.” I just need to get comfortable with that fact until I can start producing.

 

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.

 

Ask Yourself These Questions Before Choosing Social Media

In my research preparing for a presentation at PRSA West Virginia’s recent seminar on social media, I came across some interesting data about social media’s explosive growth. The numbers have probably changed already, but they’re still staggering:

• Facebook claims more than 500 million users of it service. The average user is connected to 80 pages, events or other communities.
• More than 30 billion pieces of content are shared on Facebook each month.
• Twitter has 175 million users; 56 million follow eight or more accounts.
• LinkedIn has 100 million registered users and is adding 1 million per week.
• There are more than 7.5 million Foursquare users.

There’s no denying that social media have attracted huge numbers of people. But, as I cautioned the folks who attended the seminar, you need to seek the relevance in the numbers. Astronomical numbers don’t make social media a communications panacea.

Before choosing social media as part of a communication plan, you need to ask yourself some questions, including:

• How many of these registered users are active?
• How often do active users log into the service?
• How long do they stay?
• What do they do while they’re there?
• What groups do they join?
• What brands do they interact with?
• To what extent do they share their brand experiences with others?
• Perhaps most important, are these people your target audience? And once you reach them, do you intend to engage with them?

I’m a big believer in social media as another way to reach people. Just as with any media, however, it’s critical to know if social media platforms will help achieve your organization’s communication goals. Primarily, social media are an effective way to reach your organization’s target audiences in order to engage in conversations with them. And those conversations should have a purpose. They must advance your plan’s communication and engagement goals in some way.

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.

Fight the Good Communication Fight

Should a communication professional quit if the leader of the business doesn’t buy into or support communication?

Some interesting discussions are happening around this topic on several blogs. I thought I’d bring it up here, too, so that readers of this blog can debate this critically important issue. (Props to Jon Buscall for the original post and to Nancy Myrland for bringing it to my attention.)

The two bloggers who previously raised the question put it in the context of social media. If a CEO doesn’t “get” social media, should the marketer responsible for social media stick around? A lot of CEOs don’t participate in Facebook or Twitter, watch YouTube or write blogs. Many, in fact, are intimidated by social media and perhaps a bit fearful of it. Despite its growth, social media is still a relatively new set of tools for marketing and public relations.

I would extend the discussion to communication in general. Amazingly, many business leaders still don’t see the value of a comprehensive, strategic approach to communication. They do it when they have to, but otherwise they avoid it at all costs. They especially don’t believe it’s important to communicate with employees because, heaven knows, they don’t want the people who work for the company to know too much about what’s going on. They might start questioning management practices or leak company secrets to the media or unionize.

I’ve encountered such attitudes many times in my corporate career and as a consultant. At times I’ve been so frustrated that I swore I was ready to give up and walk out. If someone hired to help the company communicate can’t do his job because the business leader doesn’t believe in communication, what’s the use in sticking around?

In her blog post, Nancy Myrland encourages communicators, specifically marketers who work in social media, not to give up. “It’s our job to do what we can to teach them, to get through to them, and to try our best to advance the ball,” she writes. “You need a much thicker skin that allows you to be the champion of these initiatives, or any initiatives that fall within your area of responsibility.”

Young communicators especially need a thick skin and patience. I’m afraid that digital natives, the generation that grew up with technology and social media, are too prone to impatience. They want things to change now. While I admire such high expectations, they simply are not realistic. Most organizations, no matter what they might claim, are slow to change. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to lead them to change leaders’ attitudes about social media or communication in general. It just means that it’s likely to take some time.

It’s time that is often well spent, too. When we have to work to bring business leaders around to the value of communication (and to engaging via social media), we are forced to think more strategically and less tactically.

Myrland continues with this case for strategic thinking: “If you’ve helped the company or firm by creating a thorough marketing plan, then all of the plan’s sections will logically lead to the right tools, or tactics, to accomplish what is set out in the goals section of that plan, whether they be social media or any other kind of communication and sales tactics.  At this point, you can then point out the right sites and tools to help accomplish what has been identified in the plan.”

That’s exactly how I helped convert an old-school plant manager from someone who eschewed communication to someone who embraced it. I used case studies, best practices and a strategic mindset to demonstrate how communication could help the business.

It took a long time and I often felt like giving up, but I’m glad I didn’t. I learned as much in the process as the plant manager did.

Communicators, I feel your pain when you’re stuck working for a business leader who doesn’t see the value in what you do. Don’t quit too soon. Stick with it and fight the good fight. You never know when that breakthrough will occur.

5 Ways to Put Communication on the Executive Agenda

Many of the communication professionals I know are passionate about what they do. Like any profession, there are people who just sort of ended up here and go about their work half-heartedly, simply doing whatever their boss tells them to do, and there are people who really believe what they do can make a big impact on their company’s success.

I place myself in the latter category and so do many of my friends in the business. Down through the years, however, I’ve heard even the most passionate communicators sing a familiar refrain: “The CEO/President/General Manager doesn’t know the untapped potential of what I do. He/she doesn’t understand communication and really doesn’t seem to care.”

I get this frustration. I’ve been there. Fortunately, many of my employers and clients have been believers in the power of strategic communication. Still, a good number of them have not been.

So, how do you get business leaders to pay attention to communication and make it a priority for the organization? Here are 5 things that can help.

1. Find a champion. Often, communication professionals are mid-level managers or lower on the organizational totem pole. Sometimes you don’t have the access or influence necessary to put communication on the executive agenda. This is where a champion can help — someone who buys into the gospel of communication and will help you proselytize the decision makers. In most cases, this is someone in your chain of command, but sometimes the higher-ups in your organization are responsible for communication though not formally schooled in it. You might first need to win their hearts and minds before you can win over the chief executive. I witnessed the power of a champion in one client organization. She wielded a lot of influence in the executive suite and won a lot of victories for the communication staff even though she was not a professional communicator.
2. Be an advocate. I’ve often said that public relations and communication professionals are the worst at publicizing and communicating about our own profession. Sometimes what is needed is an old-fashioned PR campaign for communication. That means first establishing a relationship with the target audience (executive management) and then seeking to influence their thinking about communication. If we don’t advocate for communication, it’s likely no one else will. I did this in a manufacturing facility where I worked for 8 years. Whenever I saw a relevant article or news item about how communication had helped a business, I circulated it among the management team. Before long, they were asking me how our business could get some of what communication had to offer.
3. Legitimize communication as a business function. Communication is often not on the radar screen of business leaders — or if it is, they see it as a tactical function, not a strategic one. Among the best ways to legitimize communication is to join a professional organization like IABC or PRSA. Even better, volunteer for a leadership role in it. Then make your senior management aware of your involvement (again, a champion can help with this). Accreditation is another way to elevate communication in the minds of executives. When I earned Accredited Business Communicator designation, the general manager of the manufacturing plant where I worked personally congratulated me on the achievement.
4. Measure the impact of what you do. I’m not just talking about “readership surveys” and web stats about how many hits the intranet gets. Learn how to measure the impact of your work and then make those results known. When that same manufacturing plant sought ISO certification, communication was a significant part of the effort because everyone had to be on board in order to be successful. The communication goal was the same as the business goal: to earn certification, not to publish X copies of a special newsletter or to hold a certain number of meetings. The project manager for ISO certification had the ear of senior management through regular updates on the process. Those updates always included the communication element. Which leads to the next point…
5. Get recognized for the good work you do. I submitted the communication plan for ISO certification in a statewide IABC awards program — and it won. That kind of recognition helped solidify communication’s place as a vital business function in the mind of the plant manager.

Showing up on the executive radar screen doesn’t happen overnight. It can be a slow chipping-away process and there will be times when you wonder if the effort is worth it. I believe it is. There is not much greater satisfaction for a communicator than knowing the leaders of your business understand and value what you do.

Fundamental Skills for the Profession

I just want to say this right up front: I had nothing to do with last week’s Twitter and Facebook outages.

But I could not have orchestrated a better example for the point I made in last week’s post about how communicators fawn over social media while allowing other fundamental skills and capabilities to languish for lack of attention.

What has our profession become when we are so reliant on one form of communication — for our own use as well as to carry out the work of our clients — that its failure cripples us? A reader of another blog shared a quote from a PR manager who “said she felt ‘completely lost’ with Twitter out because ‘it gives me all the breaking news I need.'” This kind of statement makes me fear for our profession.

As I wrote last week, I understand the tremendous impact social media have made on communication in general and on the communication professions in particular. I am not a Luddite; in fact, over the years I have embraced technology as a powerful tool for organizational communication. I use and participate in social media all the time. And there is no denying that social media skills are necessary to work in our profession today.

The thing that bothers me about social media is how so many communicators are so enraptured by it that we have lost sight of skills and capabilities that are more lasting and, I believe, ultimately more important to succeed in PR and communications. I am especially concerned that the next generation of PR/communication professionals will be well-versed in social media but will lack other fundamental skills.

What skills do I believe are necessary for PR/communication professionals? Here is my list. I’d like your reactions:

• Writing. This is the foundation upon which everything else we do is built. The ability to express oneself and to use our language correctly is important for anyone, but it is required of communication professionals. There’s no room for sloppiness. We wouldn’t hire a carpenter who decided 13 inches rather than 12 equals one foot. Neither should anyone hire a professional communicator who fails to uphold basic standards of writing. Our credibility as communicators is at stake and we need to know how to use this most basic skill.
• Strategic thinking/planning. The ability to put together a strategic communication plan is important, but the real value lies in possessing a strategic mindset. This is the ability to connect the dots between PR/communication activities and business goals. My mentor and friend Les Potter taught me everything I know about strategic communication planning and I believe his model remains the best.
• Problem solving. This is akin to research, but at a more tactical level. It’s the ability to break down a problem to its root cause and then to create solutions that meet the needs of diverse constituencies. Negotiation is part of problem solving.
• Research. Business leaders don’t base their decisions purely on gut instinct. The ability to research an issue on the front end in order to understand it and on the back end in order to measure it is vital. By the way, social media can be tremendous aids in research.
• Tactical skills. We must know how to use the tools of our trade — from how to develop a website to how to produce a publication to how to plan an event. Social media are among the tools at our disposal, but there are so many more of which we also need a working knowledge.
• Business acumen. PR and communication pros must know how business works, how to navigate organizational politics and how to speak the language of business.
• Relationship management. We must know how to build and maintain relationships with various stakeholders inside and outside our businesses and our clients’ industries. It’s also important for us to manage our personal relationships within our profession because they enhance our lifelong learning.
• Flexibility. We must learn how to be open to opportunities that come to us. We must be open to criticism, adaptable to changing circumstances and open to learning. This mindset is a skill that is learned; it does not usually come naturally.

What do you think of this list? Do you see anything being especially neglected while social media command our attention?