By Laura Newman

Communicators worldwide, do these comments sound familiar?

• “My CEO only cares about Rand [maybe you would say Dollars, Pounds, or Euros] and cents. If I can’t truly quantify the value of an activity or investment, he/she doesn’t bother to listen.”
• “I don’t want my team to be perceived as post-boxes, editing managers’ e-mails and updating distribution lists.” [Perhaps in your case it’s press releases, events, the intranet, or your internal publication.]
• “If I push back on requests and don’t simply do what I’m told, leadership will start asking about the purpose of our Communications team.”
• “My leadership is so ‘old school’ – they just want to count the number of articles in which they’re profiled, to build their political capital.”

This past week I’ve had the pleasure of spending time with the CEC’s South African-based members. Beyond the gorgeous Johannesburg sunshine, delicious Stellenbosch wine (the Hartenberg and Simonsig estates are my favorites), and tasty steak and venison, I led a number of conversations around business partnership, where the above quotes were surfaced.

I’ve been traveling to visit CEC members long enough now that you’d think I wouldn’t still be surprised, but on almost every trip I make, I am struck by the similarities in the challenges Communicators face worldwide.

My recent discussions have centered on defining and documenting the value of Communications, with the goal of being seen as a strategic player by business partners.

These conversations have driven me to review some of the CEC’s work on “Creating a Must-Have Value Proposition” and “Boosting Communications’’ Value to Business Partners.” In that process, I’ve been reminded of a few key lessons that a number of Communications teams have yet to apply:

1)      You may have great intentions when you attempt to build a relationship with your business partners by asking the question, “What are your priorities and how can Communications best help you achieve these?” However, this question relies on a fundamental assumption – that your business partners understand your role and the types of activities and consequently the value, you can provide. It is natural for them to request the type of support you have provided them in the past. If you are seeking to reposition your function, then asking for a business partner’s assessment of what you could provide isn’t going to do the trick.

• CEC members, you might want to try the Business Partner Alignment Survey to first identify what areas of strategy execution are most important to business partners (e.g., building understanding, sustaining commitment, minimizing obstacles to execution), and then obtain their assessment of the Communications function’s impact in those areas.

2)      When you’re defining your Communications strategy, don’t overlook the importance of linking your priorities to the company’s strategy. In a concise, visually-compelling way, lay out your corporate strategy, your mission in Communications, and the specific objectives and initiatives you will manage across the year in support of the business. I bet you’ll be impressed by how much it will help guide your thinking, motivate your team, and educate the business on your role.

• CEC members, check out the way the Royal Bank of Canada conducts their business strategy-centric planning and how they’ve laid out the business and Communications strategy on one page (ok, fine, it’s double-sided!)

3)      As a critical thinking exercise and an educational lesson for your business partners, try to map a clear link between your company’s business targets and your Communications activities. How specifically will your team’s day-to-day work impact your business’ goal of growing revenue, for example? If you are able to clearly link these top and bottom-line business goals to what you spend your time doing, imagine how powerful it would be. Even if you don’t change your portfolio of activities, your partners may begin to see the influence and impact of effective Communications.

• CEC members, check out the way American Express has “deconstructed” their business objectives by asking “how will our company achieve this goal,” until they reach something that Communications can impact.

4)      As critical as it is to formally define a strategic plan of support for your business partners, don’t neglect the importance of incorporating and documenting what you won’t support.

• CEC members, check out the way ING has partnered with the business to define service-level tiers, explicitly outlining the level of support Communications will provide for projects that meet strategic and organizational need, and where the business will be expected to own their own communications, with the right safeguards and support structure in place.

What lessons have you learned in building an effective and strategic relationship with your business partners?