Three Trends and One Winner

1. Ubiquitous and Unique Hash Tags
Advertisers made sure that the entire experience—from pre-game “leaks” to the in-game 30 second spot to online chatter—united around one theme. The use of clever hash tags was no exception. Audi carried its Vampire theme over to its hashtag #solongvampires. GE tried to get people talking about #whatworks after showcasing how its people and factories create great, useful stuff, like the turbines that create beer.

While the hash tags were fun to comment on in real time, did they have an impact on the conversation around the brand? Somewhat. Cute or complicated hash tags may have just made it a bit too tricky for Tweeters to make use of it. For example,  mentions of Audi were 50% higher than that of its hash tag. So what have we learned here? Clever hash tags might be fun to brainstorm, but for the “Big Game” where buzz around the brand is key, it might make more sense to just stick with your brand or company name.

2. Employees as the Voice of the Company
Employees—and factories—took center stage in this year’s crop of Super Bowl ads. Eager to demonstrate a commitment to America’s people and products, companies like GE, Best Buy, Turbo Tax, and even NBC Sports let their people share why they love the work that they do and how it contributes to improving the American way of life. Here at CEC we say “Bravo!” Why not tap into the passion of your employees (that passion must exist, of course, before you can harness it) and share an authentic message?

3. Fellow Consumers and Cool Experiences Tap into our Emotion
An emotional connection with the company—be it in the form of shared values or some other feeling of ownership or investment—is the number one driver of a stakeholder actively supporting your company by sharing that positive sentiment with their friends (CEC Influencing Stakeholders, 2010).

Companies tapped into this emotional connection to drive conversation around their brand in two ways. First, Doritos, as it did last year, handed over the commercial-creation reigns to its consumers. The wildly funny Doritos “Slingshot Baby” by chip eater Kevin Wilson and the number-one ranked “Man’s Best Friend” by Jonathan Friedman showcased the fantasies of Doritos lovers. Second, other companies, notably Cadillac and Chevrolet showcased their car operating under “extreme circumstances.” Cadillac featured its ATS driving circles around competitors on Germany’s “Green Hell” while Chevy let boys be boys and take the Chevy Sonic bungee jumping, sky diving, and making a music video with OK Go.

Taken together, each of these trends bear witness to the maturation of Marketers and Advertisers continued navigation of   the labyrinth of online vs. TV, social vs. promotional, and entertaining vs. informational. Given the complexity and the cost, what do you think the future of Super Bowl advertising looks like?

And the winner is…

Honda CRV

Why it works:

• Stakeholder-centric: This ad didn’t so much as target a demographic as it did a psychographic: anyone  who’s feeling a bit antsy about taking the next “big leap” in life and worried that they won’t get to do all those fun things before saddled with life’s obligations.
• Integrated with social…in a way that people want: So lots of ads (if not all?) were designed to get viewers participating in online conversations about the company or product, especially via Facebook. The site for the CRV wins, in my opinion, because it invites visitors to share something we love sharing anyway: our dreams. “Before I make the next leap in life…” makes it easy for people to share and fun for those visiting the site to see what their peers are dreaming of. Unsurprisingly, trips to Europe, running a marathon, and learning a new language top the list.
• And yes, Company-centric: Most of us remember the commercials, but not the names of the companies behind them. In both the Ferris Bueller-inspired (mimicked exactly?) “Matthew’s Day Off” spot and others, I thought Honda did a good job of showcasing the car that is designed to help each of us fulfill our leap lists.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=VhkDdayA4iA

So what’s your take? What other trends did you notice? Which ads were HORRIBLE? Which ones made you laugh?

Other Favorites:

• Cars.com “Neck” had me singing “Ooh, baby I want that car” all evening. Can I download it on iTunes?
• M&M’s “Just my Shell”: it was fun and funny, and I like the song. A good, happy moment in some otherwise “heavy” ads.

Worst Ads:

• Coca Cola’s Polar Bear spots seemed wildly out of touch with this year’s mild winter in North America.
• Bud Light Platinum. Looking just like the Bud Light you buy in an aluminum bottle at a Nats game, Bud Light Platinum missed a huge chance to differentiate itself. Wouldn’t you like to know it has 2% more alcohol than Bud Light? Or that it was a blue glass bottle on the screen?

CEC Related Resources

• Boost Your Audience Understanding
• US Stakeholders: A look behind behaviors
• Global Stakeholders: A look behind behaviors

CEC Related Blogs

• 2011: Lesson from Super Bowl XLV Ads: Americanize Your Message
• 2010: Boost Your Advertising Impact: Lessons from the Super Bowl
• Don’t Just Allow Office Pools, Encourage Them!
• I LOVE Beer! Unfortunately, So Do Teenagers.

1. Stakeholders have (even more) power.

The age of individual control over what, when, and how to consume information continues in 2012.  New devices, like the Kindle Fire, new services, like Spotify, and new mobile apps, like Zite, that took off in 2011 will further enable people to act in ways natural to them. Chances are, reading/viewing/listening to dry corporate messages isn’t something most people like to do naturally! As a result, Communications’ approach to everything it creates must be stakeholder-centric, not company-centric.

Smart teams will kickoff the year by asking themselves, “Do we know where our key stakeholder groups go for information?” Determine how your stakeholders consume information with CEC’s audience listening guide, and then use that information to develop a stakeholder-centric communication plan.

2. Communicators look to build their business partnership skills.

In 2012, the Corporate Communications function grows up. Once just the PR-engine for the company, Communications is now expected to impact business results in a much different way by coaching leaders to communicate more effectively, developing internal communication systems for employees to connect with one another, and feeding stakeholder insight to business leaders, to name a few roles.

A new set of skills is required for communicators to live up to these new expectations. Clear writing and a solid understanding of channels won’t cut it, but a focus on business partnership skills such as critical thinking and negotiation will enable communicators to grow into the position of consultative business partner.

CEC members, we can help you: See how your skills stack up compared to peers; develop a plan for your skill development in 2012; and equip yourself with smart tools to build skills in the moment.

3. A global mindset pervades the function.

Communications execs are asking two things of their teams this year: 1.) partner with colleagues in remote locations and 2.) customize messages for local audiences in other countries. At the root of this global focus in the function is the simple fact that emerging markets are key for corporate growth. Communication teams that spend time in 2012 building an awareness of cultural differences of local audiences will discover new solutions to age-old collaboration challenges (e.g., Why does no one use our intranet portal to share information?) and deliver messages that are more resonant.

Visit our Global Management Topic Center to take the stress out of collaboration or download communicator’s guides to India and China to get up to speed on cultural trends that impact the function’s communication efforts.

4. Blanket trust-building to strengthen corporate reputation is called into question.

Tight budgets over the last few years have forced communicators to think hard about where they place their investments, and dollars spent tracking high-level reputation measures are being scrutinized more than ever before. One communicator sums it up nicely: “We have done reputation measurement for several years and I have not taken any radical, meaningful decisions as a result of any of the data we’ve got.”

In 2012, we expect to see leading communicators focus reputation efforts not on building an even bigger bank of goodwill through high-level reputation tracking, but instead on sharing information that influences a small set of targeted stakeholder decisions that drive business outcomes. Contribute to our 2012 research on Building an Outcome-Focused Reputation.

5. Agile workforces meet the challenges of uncertain environments through strong communication and a focus on learning.

Much remains uncertain and unsolved in 2012. And yet, the show must go on. Companies will attempt to grow. The smart ones know that employees who proactively adapt, seek to learn from peers, and feel a personal connection to the company are excited by and contribute to these fast-moving companies.

Communications, then, must support the development of an agile organization by helping leaders to share key market context that helps employees to make decisions in line with strategy, partnering with HR to connect employees to one another, and supporting a culture that empower employees.

CEC Related Resources

• 2012 Strategic Priorities for Communicators
• 2011 Communications Budget Benchmarks
• What’s in the Works from CEC in 2012

CEC Related Blog Posts

• 4 Comms Execs Priorities in 20123 Stakeholder Trends to Watch in 2012
• Top 3 Insights from Communication Gurus in 2011
• Top 5 CEC Blogs of 2011

Here are three top insights from CEC members that portend a very different posture for Communications in 2012 and beyond.

1. Communications as Business Partner, not Trusted Advisor

“A trusted advisor is someone who might know media relations or the Communications business cold, but they don’t necessarily know the business cold. A business partner is someone who really understands the organization’s business, reason for being, and goals and objectives.”

–Teresa Paulsen, Vice President, Corporate Communication, ConAgra, The Modern Communicator’s Skill Set webinar.

We would agree that it’s no longer enough to be an expert communicator; business partnership skills are paramount. This is mostly due to the dramatic shift we’ve witnessed as the function moves from acting as a message creator to an enabler of business outcomes. Yet despite many communicators’ desire to be a consultative partner with a “seat at the table,” seniormosts of the function lament that their teams lack the confidence and skills to meet business partners’ heightened expectations.

In 2012, we’ll look to help the CEC network build their confidence in consultation and business partnership through resources and training opportunities on critical thinking, being outcomes-focused, and business acumen.

2. Communications as Roadblock Remover for Leadership Communication

“Leaders are talented and intelligent people who would perform communications perfectly competently if the organization didn’t push them in a different direction. Beyond a basic “leadership means good communication” guidance booklet, our focus has been to look at what’s getting in the way of them having normal relationships with their people and sharing what they know.”

–Communications Consultant, Financial Services, CEC Employee Communications Forum

We love this idea. How can Communications use its expertise in audience understanding and active listening to understand why information is not shared between leaders and employees? Where are there perception or expectation gaps? One team at ITT has already moved in this direction. They conducted a variety of listening techniques to help redesign communications processes at plant where miscommunication was preventing the team from hitting their performance goals. The impact of their efforts? A decrease in rework and an increase in on-time delivery—two metrics not often attributed to the Communications function!

To get started you can follow this 3-step process to conduct short focus groups with leaders and employees to identify potential barriers to quality communication.

3. Communications as a Real-Time Information Interpreter

“Communication is not about sharing information. It’s about locally interpreting messages in a timely manner.”

–SVP Corporate Communications, Financial Services, CEC Thought Leaders Meeting at Johnson & Johnson

What if you spent more time on fewer messages that are more locally relevant than spending less time on more messages that are less locally relevant? Information shared is only as good as information heard…and then acted upon. In 2012 we’ll be exploring how the function can provide “just in time” information to stakeholders during key decision points.

It’s hard, of course, to be both consistent and relevant. But, that’s really not the issue—it’s about alignment. Your company needs to have both a strong central position and the flexibility to enable local communicators to adjust the message for local stakeholder interests. Follow these 3 tips for customizing global messages.

It’s a fascinating time to be in Corporate Communications. As executives increasingly begin to see the value of effective communication to drive performance at their organizations, the Communications function has a huge opportunity ahead of itself. It’s the collective goal of the CEC team to help you seize this opportunity in 2012.

CEC Related Resources:

• Building an Outcome-Focused Reputation
• Identifying Communication Roadblocks to Cultural Realignment (ITT)
• The Modern Communicator’s Skill Set

CEC Related Blogs:

• 3 Tips for Customizing Global Messages
• 3 Leadership Communication Hurdles
• The One Person You Want on Your Comms Team

As a result, the goal and type of support that Communications provides leaders must evolve. As I argued in a previous post, it’s no longer enough to craft polished speeches for an executive. Your role as communicators must move beyond just speech writing to include activities such as building leader comfort with informal dialogue and everyday communication.

Help Shape CEC’s Research on the 3 Most Common Challenges of Leadership Communications

It’s difficult to help convince and coach leaders to make the shift from commanding and controlling to facilitating and enabling. And while we can’t solve every problem overnight or with this lone post, we can debate where to focus CEC’s research efforts across the next month!

Here’s a look inside my mind right now as I think about where to direct CEC’s resources to supporting communicators’ biggest challenges related to leadership communications. Which question are you struggling with most? Which product idea would you find most valuable? Share your thoughts in the comment section or email me to set up a conversation at kokeefe@executiveboard.com.

1. Engaging Stakeholders

• How do I help leaders to engage with stakeholders? Should we start a CEO blog? How do we make town halls more of a two-way dialogue versus an hour-long strategy presentation? Which communication channel would be best given a leaders’ style, the audience, and the intent of the communication? Leader stakeholder engagement encompasses a wide range of challenges for communicators.

CEC Potential Support: What if CEC created and shared a database of the best tactics communicators are employing for the specific purpose of building leader-to-stakeholder? Here are a few basic principles to follow at your next leader town hall to build engagement with employees.

• How do I build a leader’s external profile? Whether organizing an executive speaking engagement or hosting a conference, communicators are struggling to devise thought leadership strategies that raise both the executive and company’s presence.

CEC Potential Support: What if we clearly mapped out the key elements of an outcomes-focused thought leadership strategy? Would that help you know how to get started and measure impact? In the meantime, consider the difference between inside-out and outside-in thought leadership strategies.

2. Communication Skill Building

• How do I enable leaders at all levels to communicate more effectively? We’ve heard countless stories of leaders who think that they’ve communicated once they’ve hit send on an employee-wide email.

CEC Potential Support: What if we created an easy-to-use one-pager “Communication Channel Guide for Leaders”? This guide would lay out all of the communication channel options available to a leader with criteria to select the best channel given the desired outcome of the communication. It would be similar in layout and content to our CEC Channel Selection Tool.

• How do I help leaders see the need for communication coaching and support? Leaders often overestimate the effectiveness of their communication. Others simply don’t see the need for communication at all.

CEC Potential Support: What if CEC helped you create a compelling business case for the value of communication? What would it take to convince your leader to adopt a communication style that is less “command and control” and more “facilitate and enable”? Many CEC members have already been using our work on Building a Change-Ready Organization to help executives recognize the important of their communication style in creating a more agile workforce.

3. Onboarding New Leaders

• How do I help a new leader refine his communication style? The communication style that worked for a leader on his small team may not be the same needed to take on his new role as the head of a business unit.

CEC Potential Support: What if CEC created an Audience Understanding Diagnostic that would allow you to assess how much the leader understands his key stakeholders (their priorities, their preferred methods of communication, etc.) to help you prioritize the type of support to provide? If you want to help your leader today, we’re a fan of GlaxoSmithKline CPSE’s efforts to build leader self-awareness of leader communication signals that stifle agility.

• How do I help a new leader communicate her priorities? You only get once change to help a leader make a first impression. What tone should the leader set? Which venues should they appear in?

CEC Potential Support: What if you had a Market Context Checklist where you made sure that your new leader was not simply justifying decisions made but sharing the type of competitor or market information influencing the company to spark dialogue and encourage employees to think about how their role is likewise influenced. What information would be helpful? Get started with ConAgra’s simple questions to share market context with employees.

Which of these ideas struck your fancy? What’s missing from my brainstorm to help you out?

Save the Date: We’ll be hosting a webinar in March on Leadership Communications for the Agile Organization. Reserve your spot today!

CEC Related Blogs

• Speech Writing Isn’t Enough to Impress Your CEO
• Redefining Leadership Communication
• What to Ghost Write for Your CEO’s Blog

CEC Related Resources

• Dialogue Training Module for Managers
• See if Your Leaders Display Communication Competencies
• Executive Communications

Going mute, however, isn’t the healthiest way to enjoy the upcoming holiday. Practice these three communications skills from the 16 skills of a modern communicator to get the most out of the words that you do say.

Dialogue Enablement: I enable dialogue and facilitate peer-to-peer interactions in my communication strategy where appropriate. I can spot—and help others spot—opportunities for creating a narrative around a given message.

On Thanksgiving, family members travel from near and far to convene in one place for a decadent meal. Shortly after the initial hugs and requisite statements that, “You look so good,” each person turns his attention back to their device of choice. Your brother flicks his finger on the screen of an iPad to dictate the trajectory of AngryBirds. Your mom asks Siri on her iPhone, “How do I make cranberry sauce without cranberries?” Maybe you all just have less to say now that you can monitor each other’s movements on Facebook?

Don’t let this scene happen to your family! Someone’s going to have to facilitate conversation, and that person can be you. To get the family to drop their device and start to communicate with one another, I recommend that you take a topic of shared interest—let’s say your family’s last vacation together to the beach—and follow these simple strategies:

1. Ask open-ended questions. For example, “What was your favorite part of our trip to Ocean City this summer?”
2. Make sharing safe. Show genuine interest in everyone’s perspective. Avoid a critical or dismissive posture. Don’t say, “Dad, really? You liked those oily boardwalk French Fries? That’s disgusting.” Instead try, “That’s interesting, Dad. Can’t say I loved the fries, but I did have a delicious crab cake one night.”
3. Forge connections. Point out links or contrasts between family member opinions. Aim to cultivate a “network effect” of communication among the family rather than a series of direct exchanges with you. For example, note “Mom, it’s interesting that you and <brother> both commented on the large crowds on the beach. Where would you want to go next year to avoid the crowds?”

If this approach sounds far-fetched for the dinner table, give it a shot back in the office with the help of CEC’s Dialogue Self-Service Tools.

Negotiation: I take time to understand business partners’ views and find “win-win” solutions. I stand strong when faced with pressure to perform non value added activities.

There’s less of a need to facilitate conversation at the dinner table. Each person is focused on consuming the 4,000+ calories Americans are granted on such a day.

As the best dishes get gobbled up, the need to practice negotiation kicks in. “Can you pass me the mashed potatoes?” you might ask your brother. “I was going to have more myself, actually,” he responds. “There’s only a scoop left, not enough for the both of us. Sorry.” And so begins your crash course in negotiation. Your options:

“Have you tried the sweet potatoes yet? They are sweet and delicious, almost like a dessert.”

Your Goal: Get to know what else your brother is considering for leverage.

“I see you’ve already had a whole bowl of potatoes. Why do you want more? Are they that good this year?”

Your Goal: Understand what it is the your brother really wants (e.g., He wants to  deny you because he holds a deep grudge; to  show his wife that he really liked her potatoes even though they taste chalky.)

“OK, I understand. I really want to have a bite of mashed potatoes today since it is Thanksgiving and all. If you give me the last scoop, I’ll open up my 1970 Bordeaux that I’ve been saving for a special occasion.”

Your Goal: Determine how important the potatoes are to your brother given that he is also a wine lover.

The best communicators don’t back down. They are direct and forceful, but never rude.

Oral Presentation: I listen with empathy and seek to understand the intent and subtleties of others’ communication. I deliver compelling verbal communication—even on contentious topics – with confidence and sensitivity.

In many families, it’s impossible to get a word in edgewise. To get your story told this year, I recommend that you take a cue from leaders in oral presentation:

• Actively listen to your family. What stories have been “hot” all afternoon? Which stories are people sick of talking about? Adjust your story to account for what’s already been said.
• Keep your story concise. Only very old relatives get a pass on this. You do not. Allow your facial expressions, tone, and gestures to build your story, not your lung capacity.
• Adapt to your audience. The story that you can get away telling after the bottles of wine have been opened might be different than the one you can share during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. Be aware of your family’s mood and share accordingly. Before you open your mouth, ask yourself, could what I’m about to say be misinterpreted?

If you can master these skills among your family, I promise you can use them to improve your effectiveness as a professional communicator. Good luck!

CEC Related Resources:

• Responsibilities and Competencies of Key Communications Roles
• The Modern Communicator’s Skill Set
• How to Guide Your Career in Communications

CEC Related Blog Posts:

• The Communicators’ Guide to Professional Development: Part I
• Public Speaking Pet Peeves
• 3 Ways to Be More Assertive with Clients

Tiered Communications Service

Can you relate to the following statements?

• My team has a difficult time saying “no” to routine or low-impact partner requests.
• My team spends too much time supporting tactical projects and too little time on high-value initiatives.
• My team is concerned about allowing non-communicators to “self-serve” their communications needs.

If you nodded in agreement to any of these statements, it might be time to reevaluate (or create!) your existing service level agreements. The truth is all of us in Communications have felt exasperated at times when business partners ask us to complete low-value work. In recent years, this frustration has been compounded as Communications budgets remain flat while business partner requests increase.

Of course, you likely already have some tacit agreements in place with business partners or have agreements tucked in a dusty file cabinet somewhere. In theory these SLAs are great, in practice they are harder to implement because it’s hard to: a.) assign value to individual activities, b.) shift partner perceptions of what Comms can do, and c.) ensure consistency and quality of communications pushed back to the line.

When we explored this challenge, ING Insurance Americas tiered service-level framework stood out. What made it better than your typical SLA? Three things:

1. It was co-created with partners to prioritize their business needs and the related communications support most critical to those needs.
2. It clearly defines and articulates Communications’ responsibility in different service levels.
3. It provides guidance and guardrails to enable partners to take responsibility for routine or lower-value communications projects.

In short, deliberately skewing resources to activities with the highest economic impact is a foundational part of any support function’s positioning as a business partner as opposed to a service center. If you’ve conducted this exercise informally, by yourself without input from the business, or just a few years ago, it’s time to develop a new agreement to guarantee that the work you’ll do in 2012 will be your most impactful yet!

CEC members, see ING Insurance Americas’ tiered service-level framework and follow their process to collaborate with business partners in its development.

CEC Related Resources

• Increase Value through Selective Communications Support
• Resourcing Decisions to Equip Communications for the Future
• Set Service Levels with Internal Clients
• Tiered Services Breakdown Template

CEC Related Blog Posts

• 3 Ways to Be More Assertive with Clients
• Are You An Order-Taker Or Value-Creator?
• Communicating Communications’ Value

Increasing business complexity, continued social media channel explosion, and employee change fatigue have made your job as a corporate communicator all the more challenging. To help you redefine your role to succeed in this environment, we’ve mapped out (and shared with you at length) the 16 competencies of the modern communicator.

While each competency is critical, it’s unreasonable to improve all 16 at once.  You need a tailored plan for action! We’ve uncovered how key skill strengths group together and how these groupings create four distinct Communicator skill profiles:

• The Presenter—Knows What to Say and How to Say It
• The Influencer– Builds Relationships Across the Organization
• The Consultant– Solves Business Problems
• The Coach– Helps Others to Communicate

These profiles emerged from our analysis of 600 communicators’ responses to CEC’s Skills Maturity Assessment, a self and manager diagnostic of communicators’ proficiency across the 16 competencies. The value in knowing which “type” of communicator you are is two-fold:

1. Spot additional opportunities to use your strengths to deliver greater impact on your projects
2. Make deliberate efforts to build less-developed skills through specific projects, responsibilities, or roles

Today, I’ll share a bit more about The Presenter; we’ll cover the other profiles in subsequent posts right here!

The Presenter
The Presenter is skilled at crafting messages that are crisp, clear and resonate with key audiences. The CEO trusts this person to make boring and bland strategy messages sound engaging and compelling. The Presenter—as much as they enjoy writing—doesn’t always want to just write great content, she wants to deliver it! She is skilled at speaking and presenting. She can understand when to use certain channels—including emerging media and other people—given the desired intent of their communication.

The Presenter, while strong in core communications skills, is less adept at business partnership skills. She lags behind other communicators in her ability to advise and influence skeptical business partners. Moreover, rooted in a strong communications background, presenters tend to default to past experience versus hunt for new solutions using critical thinking skills.

The Presenter in a Nutshell

• Represents 35% of communicators
• Transforms jargon-filled speeches and memos into simple, memorable messages
• Master at motivating audiences to take action in live presentations
• Most likely to come from a formal background in Communications or journalism

The Presenter’s Key Strengths

• Purposeful Writing
• Oral Presentation/Professional Posture
• Channel Management

The Presenter’s Development Areas

• Strategic Agility & Judgment
• Interpersonal Influence
• Critical Thinking

If this person sounds like you, use The Presenter Skill Development Pack to create an individual development plan tailored to your needs as a presenter. If this doesn’t sound like you, have no fear! In coming posts, we’ll explore the other communicator skill profiles. To get a head start, learn how to guide your career in Communications.

CEC Related Resources:

• How to Guide Your Career in Communications
• Communication Skill Development Pack: The Presenter
• The 4 Communicator Skill Profiles Webinar Replay

CEC Related Blog Posts:

• The One Person You Want on Your Comms Team
• 3 Skills to Ensure Your Job Security
• Strongest and Weakest Skills for the Communications Profession

But what if I told you that what got you that seat won’t necessarily help you keep it, especially given a change in CEO? Allow me to propose that being a solid speech writing is no longer “enough” to be an effective supporter of CEO communication.

Hear me out. What if today’s best executive-level communicators are those that act more as coaches than true speechwriters? Imagine. In this capacity, you would spend less time writing and editing drafts to get to “the perfect speech” and more time feeding insights and perspective from the front lines to challenge executive thinking. You would spend less time orchestrating major presidential-like events and more time hosting small discussion groups among employees.

Help Execs in the “In Between” Moments
Now why would you, an executive communicator, lessen your focus on your bread and butter activity? It sounds crazy! Well, you might if you believed that executive communication today is a lot less about formal “wow” presentations at the typical “big” moments like the annual strategy kickoff or the quarterly investor relations call and is a lot more about what’s happening in between those major moments.

Many of you tell me that you struggle with closing the say-do gap at the executive level. It’s painful to write a speech that focuses on being more flexible as an organization only to see the CEO enforcing red tape or pressing for more analysis to make decisions. So how can you help executives help themselves by aligning daily behaviors to momentous speeches?

For starters, think like a coach. Ask yourself:

• Are you challenging executive assumptions with feedback and perspective from the frontlines by both employees, customers, and other stakeholders?
• Are you building executive comfort with handling uncertainty? Are you leading efforts to train executives not only in media relations basics, but also in dialogue scenarios with stakeholder groups?
• Are you helping the executive recognize the inadvertent signals—the eye rolls, the glares, the tell vs. ask mentality—that might prevent open communication around the company?

Move beyond Your Comfort Zone
Of course, chances are you haven’t been given the latitude to act less as speechwriter and more as executive coach. That said your own tendencies and preferences might also be holding you back from considering this expanded responsibility. If I had to guess, most executive communicators fall into The Presenter skill profile cohort. This means that you are great at creating simple, memorable messages and motivating audiences to take action. You’re less great, however, at strategic agility & judgment, interpersonal influence, and critical thinking. Taken together, I think that these three skills “under development” are essential to focus on to not only complement your existing strengths, but also to propel you to delivering different-in-kind impact for your executive.

A few companies that we’ve come across are broadening the type of support they provide executives. As a result, these communicators counsel is becoming increasingly sought after and appreciated. For example, the Communications team with a business unit at GlaxoSmithKline has lead sessions with the company’s leaders to help them develop the self-awareness of their communication habits necessary empower their staff.

I admit that speech writing isn’t likely to go away any time soon, but even your approach to this common activity could be improved!  Intuit, for example, outlines every executive speech with “bumper stickers”—short, catchy phrases that are repeated throughout a presentation and meant to be tweeted!

Get in Touch

Are your expectations changing? Do you need to vent about your CEO’s communication style? If you’d like to set up a conversation to share your opinion, email me at kokeefe@executiveboard.com.

CEC Related Resources:

• CEC Best of: Executive Communications
• Support Effective Leadership in Times of Change
• Coach Senior Leaders

CEC Related Blog Posts:

• Why Your Leadership Communications Support Misses the Mark
• What to Ghost Write for Your CEO’s Blog
• Coaching Leaders: 10 Tips for Effective Presentations
• Improve Executive Visibility with Employees

1. What is the desired stakeholder behavior change?
2. How will this behavior change impact the stakeholder?
3. What information should we share with stakeholders about the change?
4. How do we help leaders and managers to drive stakeholder behavior change?
5. How do we sustain change over time?

These questions will help you craft a change communication plan that builds your employee’s agility—their ability to adapt to any change—because as you plan to communicate about one change you are really:

• Creating communication systems that connect employees to people and information
• Equipping leaders and managers with the skills to help employees make their own decisions
• Enabling employees to lean in to change (rather than simply process and accept that change is happening to them)

Let’s take each question in a bit more detail.

1. What is the desired stakeholder behavior change?

This isn’t the typical first question a communicator asks when a business partner seeks help in “communicating a change”. Usually, communicators respond with, “OK. We can help. What’s the main thing you want to say about the change?” Business partners immediately default to telling communicators about why, from their perspective, the change is justified and beneficial.

Your responsibility as a communicator is to make sure that you understand, from the stakeholder’s perspective, what behavior change is being asked. There are two sub-questions you should discuss with business partners to identify the business problem that the behavior change is intended to solve for:

• What are the current behaviors of stakeholders?
• What is the desired set of stakeholder behaviors after the change?

Embed Toyota’s consultative process into your change communication conversations.

2. How will this behavior change impact the stakeholder?

Remember, not all audiences will be equally affected by the change. In order to maximize your chances of driving this behavior change you need to really understand your audience—what they currently think and feel about the change, and who and what is most likely to influence them.

Some sub-questions to consider:

• What is the stakeholder being asked to do differently as a result of the change to support the business?
• Which people and functions will the stakeholder need to work with to support the business after the change?
• How does the change impact the expertise and capabilities the stakeholder needs to get the job done?
• How might the change impact stakeholder’s attitudes and beliefs about their individual purpose and future at the company?

Use these tools to assess your stakeholders’ change-readiness.

3. What information should we share with stakeholders about the change?

Here’s the part where you finally think about the message. But, instead of explaining to stakeholders why the change is necessary and good, your messages need to contain information that helps stakeholders to make decisions in line with the change. For example, ConAgra Foods asks business partners a series of specific questions to surface what information employees need in order to adopt change behaviors in support of company goals.

A related challenge this question poses is which channels, exactly, should we share this information with stakeholders. Remember to think about who influences your end stakeholder. Who are their trusted sources? Where do they reach out instinctively for information and social cues? You can use CEC’s channel selection guide to reach stakeholders via their preferred information channels.

Equip employees with the information, people, and resources to lean into change.

4. How do we help leaders and managers to drive stakeholder behavior change?

Stakeholders often turn to company leaders and managers not only for information, but also for behavioral examples of how to act in line with a corporate change.

Help Leaders: You can help leaders share the “big picture”. During a time of change, leaders should help employees see not only what is happening at the company, but within their industry and the world at large. That’s because the key to helping employees embrace change is to broaden their perspective. See, employees are conditioned to think only about what matters in their current job and scope. This becomes especially problematic as companies roll out new strategies across the organization—staff with a narrow day-to-day perspective don’t see how changes apply to them, or why they should take part.

Help Managers: As the primary source of communication for employees, line managers have the greatest influence over employee behavior during change initiatives. However, they don’t often have the skill (or desire) to contextualize change initiatives in a relatable way for employees. We suggest following Nordea’s lead by capitalizing on a change-specific moment to change-specific event to host dialogue prep session with managers to help them dialogue with employees about the change.

5. How do we sustain change over time?

Too often companies believe that once a change has been communicated, the desired employee behavior change will occur. You’ll want to measure and monitor to change through an integrated listening approach to determine, in real-time, where change is stalled and how to adjust your tactics.

Good top-down communication isn’t the key to sustained behavior changes. Social norms, otherwise known as “peer pressure,” do help to sustain desired change behaviors. Employees who see the desired change behavior in their peers and those that they look up to within the organization are more likely to adopt the change behavior themselves. Your efforts should connect employees to one another and create “safe spaces” for them to share ideas and learn from one another well beyond the official “change period.” For example, TD Bank uses a web-based platform that provides an easy and appealing way for peers to support colleagues by recognizing good, goal aligned performance.

CEC Related Resources:

• How to Develop a Change Plan
• How to Roll Out a Change Plan
• Change Management Topic Center
• Building a Change-Ready Organization

CEC Related Blogs:

• Rethink Your Approach to Planning
• Where Kotter’s 8 Steps Gets it Wrong
• Effective Leadership in Times of Change

Our sister program, the Sales Executive Council, made this bold statement on Harvard Business Review’s blog last week, creating a firestorm of divisive comments.

To sum up their research, every sales person falls into one of five types. The highest performing “type” is the challenger, the salesperson who uses their deep understanding of their customers’ business to push their thinking and take control of the sales conversation. The other types, the relationship-builders, hard workers, reactive problem solvers, and lone wolves don’t match the challengers’ performance.

In this post, I propose, what if communicating wasn’t about relationships either? What if your focus on developing strong personal and professional relationships with your clients and generously giving your time to meet those client’s every need was a misguided, and likely draining, approach to your job?

Let’s give this a try.

In the HBR post, the SEC researchers describe the three traits and skills of Challengers. What if, just for fun, we replaced “Challengers” with “Communicators,” “customers” with “internal clients,” and “sales conversation” with “communication request”? Here would be the definition of a challenger communicator and their three key attributes:

Communicators use their deep understanding of their internal clients’ business to push their thinking and take control of the communication request. They’re not afraid to share even potentially controversial views and are assertive—with both their internal clients and bosses.

1. Communicators teach their internal clients. They focus the communication request not on the channels but on insight, bringing a unique (and typically provocative) perspective on the internal client’s business.
2. Communicators tailor their message to the internal client. They have a finely tuned sense of individual client objectives and value drivers and use this knowledge to effectively position the communication opportunity to different types of internal clients within the organization.
3. Communicators take control of the communication request. While not aggressive, they are certainly assertive. They are comfortable with tension and are unlikely to acquiesce to every internal client demand. When necessary, they can press clients a bit.

How did reading those statements make you feel? Did they make you:

• Cringe—“I just don’t see myself acting that way with my internal clients. We are here to serve them; to help them meet their objectives through effective communication. This stance is crossing the line.”
• Wonder—“What if I pushed back a bit more on my internal clients? Would I evade that email campaign I know won’t work?”
• Chuckle—“I like the idea, sure! But it’s absolutely impractical and not the way to get things done at my company.”

I suspect that many of you cringed. It’s against our communicator nature to want to create a little controversy with our own clients. I asked Matt Dixon, one of the primary authors of the post and forthcoming book The Challenger Sale if he thought the Challenger model transcended the Sales function and should be applied to all functions across the company. He suggested that for some of the more service-oriented parts of the business, think customer contact centers and likely Communications falls into this bucket at most organizations, the challenger approach may not be the best. After all, do you want to be “challenged” when you phone your cable company to voice a complaint?

Yet, in the spirit of being a challenger, I am challenging you to imagine what it would be like to be a bit more assertive with your internal clients, to guide them through provocative questions to the best communications solutions given their desired business outcome. I’ll leave you with a few resources aligned to the Challenger attributes to help you get started:

• Communicators teach their internal clients. –> Bring a sophisticated understanding of your audience to business partner conversations.
• Communicators tailor their message to the internal client. –> Use these functional overview and interview guides to recognize the pressures your clients are under.
• Communicators take control of the communication request. –> Use questions to brainstorm alternative approaches to solving their challenge.

CEC Related Resources:

• Business Partner Interview Guides
• Increase Value to Business Partners
• Help Business Partners Create Effective Communications Plans

CEC Related Blogs:

• To Communicate, First Question: 4 Tips for Asking Good Questions
• Comms & HR: Partners in Employee Engagement
• Questions to Surface Employee Information Needs
• 6 Questions for More Effective Central/Local Communications Partnerships