When I was a kid, we had a piano in the house. It was an attractive piece of furniture in our family room. I say that, cause no one in our family knew how to play it (beyond say, “Chopsticks”).

But (for reasons which still elude me), we once had it professionally tuned. Now, I’d seen pianos being tuned before. It’s done electronically with a device that analyzes each note and indicates whether it’s flat or sharp. But the guy who tuned our piano had no device — cause he was totally blind.

Think about it. A blind piano tuner (watch the video). Born without sight, this guy’s hearing was so super-sensitive, he could immediately detect the slightest imperfection in each note, and adjust it back to pitch-perfect just by listening.

To him, an out-of-tune note is like a physical discomfort, and he’s the doctor who relieves patients of their pain.

In some ways, that’s what we communicators do. Only not with musical notes, but rather, with words. When we hear something that’s not right — we just know. It gets under our skin, and makes us uncomfortable. In some cases, it triggers our gag reflex and makes us wanna lose our lunch. And we’ve gotta fix it. Read More »

“Hope for the best – plan for the worst.”  I’ve heard this saying many times in my life, used in a wide range of contexts.  Most recently, it came up in a conversation with a CEC member in the Financial Services industry who was referring to his company’s approach to crisis communications.  He emphasized how little room for error there seemed to be these days, mentioning that, despite prudent business practices over the past few years, the public still considered his company “guilty by association,” simply due to a general loss of confidence in the industry.  Trust had eroded and scrutiny was on the rise.

Data from CEC’s sister program, the Corporate Ethics & Leadership Council (CELC), confirms that this is not an isolated perspective.  A recent study of corporate leaders reveals that 77% believe media scrutiny has increased, while 82% report a proliferation of new risk types.  These developments combined with the continued rise in citizen journalism and fluid information flow are making communicators feel more vulnerable to crises.

Faced with such a risky environment, it might seem difficult to truly “plan for the worst.” After all, this assumes that your company can create a comprehensive list of potential crises as respective plans. And while I won’t recommend that you don’t plan for individual scenarios or try to prevent crises from happening (check out our latest resources on avoiding crisis), I do think there are some things that companies should do to ensure that they are prepared to respond effectively when a crisis hits. Read More »

If every corporate Twitter account was deleted tomorrow, what would happen?

Social media has come to define the way many people use the internet. But even two years ago the terrain looked much different (RIP MySpace) and it’s anyone’s guess what the next two will bring (good luck, Google+).

Twitter is currently the third most popular social media platform, so it provides a huge potential audience for companies. But realizing that potential may take more effort than we’d hoped.

That’s why we’ve been investigating what best-in-class Twitter strategies look like. CEC members we’ve spoken to so far have had some interesting things to say about the evolution of their Twitter strategy and plans for the future.

Let us know what you think in the comments.

What’s the value of followers?

• CEC Hypothesis: The size of your Twitter following is not important; the degree to which your followers share your message is. Followers are a crude metric of popularity but we have an inkling that winning the Twitter game really won’t have much of anything to do with how many people click ‘follow’ on your profile. How do you value your followers? Do you have monthly objectives to increase your followership? How do you do that? Read More »

I can teach you how to swim. It can be any stroke you want. You probably know some freestyle and you’ve heard butterfly is hard, right? Butterfly it is. You probably won’t be as good as Michael Phelps or win any gold medals but you can swim butterfly. Because I’ll tell you a secret; butterfly is easy. Sure, it’s probably the most tiring way to swim from one side of the pool to the other, but there isn’t anything mechanically difficult about it.

As with learning any new skill, it might sound impossibly daunting at first. But then I’ll show you how to kick like your legs are stuck together and use your arms to pull in tandem. We’ll put it together in a full-body rhythm that will probably feel like you’re trying to do the snake in Jell-O — except less graceful. And that will be it. A little practice, some gentle reminders to breathe when it’s most natural to the stroke and you’re done. You can swim butterfly.

Learning most things is a matter of willingness, aptitude, and finding a competent teacher. As we talk about the importance of Communicators as enablers, it’s clear that this coaching function is more of a ‘when’ than an ‘if’.

Breaking down a communications strategy to make it more accessible is the first step in teaching a new communications skill to noncommunicators. The soft skills — a.k.a. interpersonal skills — that communicators deal in can be intimidating because they aren’t often thought of as something that can be taught. More often than not, people have developed a static perception of their own soft skills and will get anxious if they think they are being pushed beyond their comfort zone. If Communicators are going to help them improve, the first step is to convince them that it’s easy.

Professional communicators can help demystify these skills by breaking them down into easily actionable components. Though basic guidelines may seem overly simple to the pros, they can overcome the greatest hurdle for many to unlocking their soft skills — the perception that they can’t improve. Read More »

Most crisis communications plans that I see are robust when it comes to controlling the things that companies can control.  For example, most plans comprehensively outline escalation rules, crisis team org charts, calling chains, initial holding statements, etc.  These are the resources whose applicability can be predicted with relative certainty, regardless of the crisis.

But after your Communications team has gathered the facts, called together the crisis team, and issued the initial response, what do you do next?  The short answer is – “a lot.” And while I’ll admit that it’s difficult to plan in advance for every crisis permutation, there are several things that you can do to better prepare yourself for managing the ensuing stakeholder debate and impact on reputation.  Here are four strategic activities that I think will help your organization:

(1) Listen to how stakeholder conversations are taking shape.  We all know that the world of communications has become increasingly complex in recent years.  Gone are the days when organizations had significant control over when news would be released to the masses and how the subsequent conversation would evolve.  Now, information flows to stakeholders through their own complex web of influencers.

These principles remain true in a crisis situation, making it critical that companies closely monitor how conversations are taking shape.  CEC members can take check out our profile of different Social Media Listening options to see how to improve non-traditional media monitoring. Read More »

The media are always after a good story. That is of course unless they already have one that is too big for them to handle.  And sometimes, you may think that an unfortunate piece of bad press can do great damage to your company’s reputation only to have it never gain traction in the press.

Certainly when I worked for a major TV news broadcast organization, the aim was never to damage a company’s reputation, but if that happened as the story unfolded, that in itself could make the story more compelling.  So if you think you need to get the media involved, consider the following:

1. Context is everything: If the media is already covering something big, chances are that it may actually pay no attention at all to the event that involves your firm.

2. The media’s attention is relatively short: Just as your company’s unfortunate piece of bad press pushed something off the headlines, in most cases the next big thing will push the event affecting your firm down the pecking order. Read More »

In our recent toolkit for Managing Communications in Global and Dispersed Organizations, we looked at a flexible governance framework to help communicators make decisions in the moment about escalating situations centrally or handling them locally. Many of the activities that local communicators have to manage are pretty straightforward and low sensitivity.  As such, the corporate communications team doesn’t need to get involved with these decisions – things like handling a local media enquiry, creating a local press release, or organizing the regional office’s quarterly volunteering event. In these situations, the best solution is to equip local communicators with tools and support so they can “get on with it” and are not sitting around waiting for help from corporate.  This way, corporate also doesn’t need to get bogged down with minor decisions and can focus attention on bigger issues.

How can local communicators become self-sufficient so that corporate only gets involved in those most critical or ambiguous/sensitive situations? Below are four tips for effectively supporting local communicators:

1. Understand local communicator needs

• TIP: be an active listener – ask smart questions to understand what local communicators need and what kind of support they currently lack
• CEC Tools: check out these Quick Tips for How to be a Quality Listener and our other Dialogue Self-Service Tools Read More »

Traditionally when we (and our business partners) think of Communications tools we think of the various forms of messaging that we create and disseminate through our suite of channels.   This blinkered focus on the outputs that communicators create is undermining our ability to influence our audiences.

We talk at CEC about the distinction between “Big C” and “small c” communication.  Big C are the messages that come from the communications function – presentations, memos, newsletters, videos, posters and the like. Small c is the communication that is happening between stakeholders all the time. It is the small c communication that is 99% of what stakeholders are exposed to – the everyday back and forth people have with their networks.  So why aren’t we equally weighting this in our communications planning?

Big C communications feels more comfortable for a lot of communicators– we are in control of what is said and how it is distributed. The output is also visibly attributed to Communications so people can see what we’re doing and we get credit for it.  While these are fair justifications they mean many communicators are limiting their potential to drive real business value.

As part of communications planning you should pay equal consideration to the three different roles we as communicators can play:

1. Create Messaging: develop and share communications that is driving a specific audience outcome (i.e., what do we want the audience to think/feel/do as a result of receiving this communication).

• TIP: listen to the audience first to make sure you understand the language they use and current perceptions they have to maximize the chances of the message resonating. Be audience-centric not company-centric in your communications.
• CEC Support: Write in a More Engaging Way (resource center)

2. Enable Others to Communicate: coach or support others to communicate more effectively with the audience. This could be leaders, managers, employees, external advocates or the media. Read More »

It’s the look.  The facial expressions give it away every time.

I’ve spent the past few months traveling the globe presenting our newest CEC study “Building a Change-Ready Organization” and as I talk to communicators around the world, I’ve personally witnessed the rapid change in expressions as virtually everyone simultaneously reaches the same three conclusions:

• In the decade ahead, the biggest difference between success and failure for most companies is the ability of their employees to adapt to change. (Yeah, I kinda knew that was true)
• The most important quality required to be change-ready is agility. (Sure, that only makes sense)
• Most companies are not really that agile. (I was kinda thinking we’re agile, but if we’re being honest with ourselves, we’ve actually got a-ways to go).

But rather than just taking my word for it — decide for yourself.  We’ve come up with (and by “we,” of course, I mean our excellent senior research analyst Kayleigh O’Keefe doing all the hard work, with me just making a bunch of annoying word-suggestions) a brand-new CEC Agility Quiz.

Read More »

Some companies seem to have an edge.  Whether their industry is doing well or struggling, they always manage to outperform.  This phenomenon prompts an endless array of business books and consulting-firm studies explaining why.  “Green Companies Do Better,” says A.T. Kearney.  “Corporate integrity” drives superior share performance and employee productivity says our sister program, the Compliance and Ethics Leadership Council.  Numerous studies point to “customer focus” as the key to competitive advantage.

With most of these sources of advantage grounded in corporate identity and culture, it’s no wonder communications professionals work so hard at strengthening the corporate brand. But what brand attributes matter?  Should all companies try to be known as green, responsible, and customer focused?

In collaboration with our members, the Council has looked at this issue in depth. Our conclusion: these attributes are very likely good ones, but defining your brand around them is just as likely a losing brand strategy. Read More »