As soon clock struck midnight a few weeks ago on January 1^st, many of us vowed to change ourselves for the better. We thought, “Ah January, a fresh start to a brand spankin’ new year. 2011 is out and 2012 is IN BABY!”  We vowed to lose weight, eat healthier, and take that trip we’ve been talking about for years. We made a COMMITMENT to self-improvement otherwise known as a New Year’s Resolution.

Yet as WeightWatchers programs and gym memberships increase this month, we all know how this story ends. Right about now, we start to forget our resolutions and revert back to our old habits. “Better luck next year, thanks for comin’ out.” Usually, I’m as guilty as the next guy — but NOT this year. This year is different. This year, I’m taking a new approach starting with these steps:

1. Define the goal – It’s tough to accomplish any goal if you don’t know what it really is. For example, instead of trying to “lose weight,” chose a definitive amount you want to lose.

2. Be realistic – Baby steps, guys. Most people become discouraged and ditch their resolutions because they set the bar way too high. Set realistic acheivable goals.

3. Create an action plan – Once you know what you want to achieve you need to consider how you will get there. You need to understand the actions necessary to accomplish your goal.

4. Write it down – This is the most important step of all. Putting goals on paper makes a resolution more tangible, more real. When you physically see a goal your chances of staying the course improve.

In my experience, resolutions don’t stop at improving our personal lives. We also want to improve professionally. If you’re reading this blog post, chances are you want to improve as a communicator. As we know, simply saying, “I’m going to improve,” won’t get you anywhere. Use the system that works with personal resolutions and apply it to your professional life. Take your personal development one step further and use CEC’s Individual Development Plan. 

Now is the time to set clear expectations for your career and discuss a direct approach to improvement with your manager. Here are a few resources you can use to create a solid IDP:

• Skill Development Grid - Use grid to define your goals - Where do you want to go with your career? What are you trying to accomplish? You can think big with longer-term goals. But understand that it takes a series of short-term, realistic goals to get there. Use our to set CLEAR expectations for different levels of skill development.

• Skills Maturity Assessment - Not sure what skills you need to improve? Use this assessment to find your development areas.

Mangers – if you want individuals on your team to improve, use this IDP to set concrete expectations and a plan of attack. Communicators – if you want that promotion, use this IDP to go get it. Trust me, defining your goals, understanding what it takes to get there, and writing it down will get you there. To see what this looks like in practice, take a look at these four examples:

Individual Development Plan: The Presenter

Individual Development Plan: The Influencer

Individual Development Plan: The Consultant

Individual Development Plan: The Coach

Related CEC Resources

Skills and Roles Topic Center

Modern Communicator’s Skill Set webinar

How to Guide Your Career in Communications

Own Your Professional Development

This blog is part of our Building a Global Mindset series to help communicators increase their own cultural awareness and global perspective.

CEC members often talk about the challenges with communications strategies in China – anything ranging from understanding the culture, to working with local agencies to identifying the influential media players, to building the company brand in the market. This interest in China is hardly a surprise as many companies either operate there already and are learning from their mistakes, or are considering entering emerging markets for new sources of growth (and especially China, which is the fastest growing among them, and one of the most important global economies at the moment).

China remains a challenging environment to do business in for many western companies, as Chinese culture and the socio-political nuances of the country are very different from home markets. Arguably, the Chinese PR landscape is one of the trickiest aspects for a communicator. As part of CEC’s A Communicator’s Guide to China, we looked at some of the key trends in the PR industry there, including: Read More »

Corporate Communications often finds itself at the mercy of the organization to sets its agenda for the year. While Communications’ efforts should certainly support company strategy, consider these 5 Communications-specific trends that will influence the function’s ability to have a real impact in 2012.

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

We all know that the effectiveness of what you write depends in large part on how well you speak the language and values of your audience.  This is doubly so in today’s socially networked environment, where your audience is also the messenger – if they choose to be (CEC members click here for more on that).

So it’s no wonder that the 850+ participants in the CEC Skills Maturity Assessment have indicated a real interest in improving their ability to create engaging content and – as a necessary precursor – to listen to audiences and learn what they care about.

There are many ways to learn about your target audience, all featured in a new CEC member resource center dedicated to developing this skill.  I want to call attention to a tool we’re adding to the mix, thanks to a partnership between CEC and Iconoculture, the leading syndicated provider of up-to-the-minute, segment-level insights into consumer values and trends: audience understanding in less than five minutes.  This series of one-page outlooks – grouped by industry, demographic segment, and geography – gets you quickly up to speed on key values, trends, and language.

I’ve mined these for three trends to watch in 2012, as they cut across many countries and demographic groups:

1)      Idealistic youth + social networking technologies = higher standards.Young adults expect institutions (both government and private) to do good, not just seek profit or power.  Most – especially in Asia – remain quite optimistic, despite macroeconomic challenges.  And all are quite ready to mobilize.  In many ways, this isn’t brand new – earlier generations of young people have felt the same way.  But modern social networking technology let them share information and ideas faster and wider than previous generations (think “Arab Spring”).  This means that unflattering information about your organization will be discovered in the blink of an eye and that “social responsibility” initiatives had better be more than lip service.   Read More »

Listening to audiences is important to any communicator. But how often do you sense that what people say is different from the way they actually behave? Nod your head if you agree that there is a need to observe audience behaviour firsthand, understand their reasons for irrational behaviour, and do this in the most efficient way possible.

While ethnography has traditionally been used by marketers for understanding consumer behaviours and more recently by companies like Intel to inform strategy and planning, communicators can use ethnography to uncover the underlying behaviours and values of their audiences.

Thinking about how to apply ethnography? While it may sound like a daunting academic exercise, anyone can do some version of an ethnographic study without necessarily needing to use outside resources.   In the CEC ethnography tool, we propose that you consider a combination of participation, observation, and interviewing to find out more about your audience.

Here are three key steps to help you become a better ethnographer:

1. Design Ethnographic Study – Select the location, audience, duration, and observers.

2. Prepare Field Observation Guide – Develop questions and focus areas of investigation.

3. Conduct Post-study Debrief and Analysis – Analyze, and interpret the information gathered.

Sound complicated? Use our Ethnography Toolkit  to learn how to navigate each step.

Case in Point: How Southwest Airlines Uses Ethnography for Stakeholder Listening Read More »

We sit at the center of a global network of over 350 Heads of Communications and their teams. This privileged position gives us a unique vantage point into the shared challenges and priorities of executives who, regardless of industry or company size, all aim to boost the function’s performance in a wildly complex business and communications environment. Our daily conversations, executive retreats, workshops, and Q&A session on webinars, have yielded tremendous insight into the future of the function, but none quite like these!

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 Read More »

As communicators, we like to think that we’re good at listening. But, how often do you see messaging and communications strategies that don’t really resonate with audiences? We’ve discussed how the Outcome-Focused Communication Plan can help to improve your performance. Now, let’s talk about how you plan to listen to your audiences in a timely and productive manner. One effective way is through a focus group discussion aimed at gaining in-depth knowledge, insights and multiple viewpoints on a situation or initiative.  

According to Wharton’s Americus Reed: “A focus group is like a chainsaw. If you know what you are doing, it’s very useful and effective. If you don’t, you could lose a limb.” While our market research colleagues are experts at running focus groups, we as communicators probably feel like we’ve been handed a chainsaw with no instruction manual if we were asked to run one. CEC has created a quick guide to help you make the process easier.

Here’s how you can use a focus group to better listen to your audiences:

1. Select the type of focus group you will run based on your objective for listening: The right type of focus group choice depends on your resources, team capabilities, and what you’re aiming to learn. Focus groups vary widely based on your objectives. They differ based on the people moderating it, the type of interaction that occurs and the kind of conclusions produced. Understanding that communicators operate under various restraints, select the group most appropriate for your situation.
    CEC Tool: Look at some tips on how to find a moderator within your comms team. Read More »

Today’s the day that CEC has been counting down to all year… No, it’s not the renewal date of your CEC membership – it’s our Christmas party (at least, it is in our European HQ, where I’m based). I must say, I’m looking forward to it, and most of the CEC crew assures me that they are as well. However, in speaking to several of my friends from other companies, I’ve been struck by their negativity, cynicism, and trepidation at the prospect of navigating an event that one of them described to me as “the most socially awkward of the year”.

Of course, for CEC’s audience of loquacious communicators, “social awkwardness” isn’t an issue – we’re good socially! But remember – not everyone else is. What happens at one of these parties when you’re stuck between the weird lady from the IT help desk who’s pushed past you at the coffee machine all year, the social recluse  from Finance who prefers spreadsheets to his own family, and the spotty graduate whose name no one can remember, but is irritatingly keen to impress?

This, of course, leaves you with two options. One is to politely excuse yourself and head for the bathroom, the bar, or – if things have got really bad – home. The other is to use your skills as a communicator to enable some social interaction between your colleagues.

Building Social Connections

And funnily enough, this is something that CEC can really help with. One of the things we often get asked is how communicators can encourage peer sharing among employees. As companies become more complex, organizational barriers increasingly prevent employees from connecting, sharing and learning with each other. And, interestingly, the same principles that will help a couple of socially inept guys from IT to open up at a Christmas party will also apply to creating an organization in which peers open up and share their expertise with each other. Read More »

Deciding how to prioritize our efforts in a way that best supports our business partners has always been challenging. Expectations have evolved and it’s time to break perceptions of communications as merely a service provider. Through our research into the communications skills set needed by the ‘modern communicator’, it’s clear that you and your team must not only excel at the classic communication skills but also non-traditional competencies such as business acumen and building consultative partnerships.

Over the past few months, hundreds of communicators have been reevaluating the critical skills they consider essential to effective performance in this environment. And many teams have improved planning templates, invested in development workshops, and hopefully dug into the CEC resources to identify skills gaps and improve their effectiveness in these areas.

We know only too well how difficult it is for central communications teams to carve out time for their own personal development. So think how hard it must be for colleagues in local offices or dispersed business units, who are ‘out there on their own’ and are often forced to wear a number of different hats. With this in mind, better visibility into the skills of local communicators and improved collaboration between corporate and affiliate Communications has never been so important, and it really is in our best interest to invest in our local affiliates’ development.

When the CEC was putting together its work around Managing Communications in Global and Dispersed Organizations, a notable approach we came across in improving this central-local partnership comes from fellow CEC member Novo Nordisk, one of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies. Novo Nordisk has implemented a simple yet highly effective 3 step process, leveraging what they refer to as a Communications Effectiveness Reviews (CER). They use this as a dialogue-provoking and development tool, which identifies skills gaps of local communicators so they can better align their activities with business needs.

To summarize these 3 steps:

Read More »

The end of the year is often thought of as a time for reflection — and getting things done.

As you close out the year and get revved up for 2012, check out some of our top tools and templates. In the last year, your CEC internal communications peers have been using these guides to do their jobs faster and more effectively.

You can also check out our top external tools.

CEC’s Top Four Internal Communications Tools

1. How to Conduct Focus Groups

• What it is: This three step process will show you how to effectively run focus groups to test planned campaigns and gauge audience perceptions on communication strategies.
• Why it’s cool: Focus groups can be a highly effective listening tool to understand audiences, but are usually the domain of market researchers or vendors who charge a lot for something you can do yourself. Read More »