Like many Communications functions, we at the CEC are in the midst formulating our 2011 plans.  We begin our planning process not only by polling and interviewing our members, but also by looking at broader topics on the corporate agenda.  Communicators’ input and the broader corporate agenda came together this year in a very interesting way.

(A quick aside – in doing this, we take our own advice, and ensure that our agenda is derived from corporate strategy.  CEC members, if you’re not familiar with our Communications-specific work in this area, check out the Strategic Planning Resource Center.)

Back to what we learned as we scanned the agenda of communicators + other C-suite execs – we heard from a number of leading communicators about how they are transforming the role of Communications from being creators of messages like press releases, speeches, newsletters, and articles, to being enablers of others’ communication.  This transformation brings with it a number of interesting challenges, such as identifying the areas of greatest potential leverage for Communications and improving the team’s consultative skills.

Next, we heard from senior business executives that they perceive a number of barriers to intelligent growth for their enterprises, and many of those barriers have their roots in communication breakdowns.  Read More »

One of the most frequent questions that we hear from our members is around demonstrating the value of communications.  The reason behind this is that typically members’ communications focus on long-term perception changes and messaging “about” the business.   Both of which are notoriously hard to link to short term business results.

We’re not saying that longer term outcomes such as employee engagement and reputation are bad (far from it).  It’s just that in defining ourselves by traditional roles, we can restrict our thinking and miss opportunities to add value.  Many of these opportunities are right in front of us.  Look around you – communication breakdowns are likely happening all over your organization.  You can probably think of them within your own team!

An example of such an opportunity: CEB’s operations practice found that culture was the single biggest driver of risk reporting – companies with a culture of integrity outperformed their peers by 16% in shareholder returns!  Now that is a result I’d like to be attached to!

Some leading companies are jumping on these opportunities: one company who has done this to great effect is ITT Corporation.  Courtney Reynolds, Head of Internal Communications at ITT, partnered with Jim Shaffer and one of their regional plants to increase performance, showing a 40% reduce in scrap and 20% increase in on-time delivery, in just a matter of months. Read More »

According to CEC’s 2010 Resource Allocation Benchmarking survey, most communicators anticipate budget increases in 2011.  While the average department will experience only a modest increase (just over 4%), this stands in marked contrast to the flat budgets communicators were forecasting last year for 2010 and the greater-than-10% cuts they experienced in 2009.   You may remember this image from our CEC Insider post last week:

So where should that money go?  Human nature prompts us to restore what we so recently cut, to regain what we used to have.  I know that’s my temptation, if I can increase my budget next year!

Looking over the 2007-2010 time period, our surveys show that corporate advertising and corporate social responsibility programs were cut disproportionately.  Some areas, like government relations and the corporate intranet, actually saw budgets increases despite overall communication budget declines.  So, will 2011 be a year for CSR programs and corporate advertising to bounce back?  Should it be? Read More »

Downturn.  Recession.  Unemployment.  These terms may be just as associated with 2010 as they were with 2009.  But what will 2011 look like?  Will we see an unemployment rate back near 6%?  Will fewer houses sit on the market for months and months?  Will consumer confidence be higher than we’ve seen in the past two years?  Will we start to see more “good” in the news?

The latest business barometer scores show that senior executives’ perceptions on revenue growth and cost pressures over the next 12 months remain slightly negative.

However, the latest 2010 resource allocation benchmarking results show that Communicators may have a slightly more positive outlook when they think about their own resources for 2011. Read More »

Companies are struggling with talent issues across the board — high disengagement among employees and decreasing intent to stay year on year (latest figures from our sister HR program show an 8.7% drop relative to Q2 2009).  However, heads of Communications face their own talent challenge.  As the function becomes more of a strategic business partner – enabling communication between stakeholders to drive greater productivity and execution against company goals – the competencies of the professional communicator are also changing.

The Council believes that there are 5 core skills required of this new communicator role:

1. Listening: to learn about our stakeholders across many different channels
2. Analytics: to derive insights from the stakeholder data we collect
3. Project Management: to manage to key outcomes, yet be nimble about getting there
4. Training and Coaching: to make others more effective at communicating directly with stakeholders
5. Social Media Aptitude: to capitalize on new communication tools and behaviors in building stakeholder relationships Read More »

At CEB, mid-year performance review time is here.  Seven busy and slightly hectic months of 2010 have flown by (how is it already August?!).  I have lots of stories to share.  A few things I’m proud of.  A few goals to achieve in the next half of the year.  But how do I put the right story together to truly demonstrate my impact to my manager, let along my manager’s manager???  I doubt newsletter metrics or download numbers for my research pieces will do the trick.

Communicators, have you recently tried to demonstrate your team’s effectiveness?  One of the top cries for help we hear from CEC members is: “Metrics!  We need help with metrics… how to define them, how to present them, and how to link them to the business goals that senior leaders actually care about.”

In a recent poll about Communications dashboards, only 31% of communicators said they have a dashboard they present to senior leaders to demonstrate Communications’ effectiveness.  Of those, only 50% said they are satisfied with their current dashboard. However, this “satisfaction” is questionable if you look more specifically at these respondents’ satisfaction with their dashboard’s ability to do the following: Read More »

I’m a strong believer that Corporate Communications should lead a company’s intranet strategy.  Unlike other possible leaders in IT, HR, or the business units, communicators highly value—and are measured on—employee engagement.  The intranet has quickly evolved into a key instrument to achieving this engagement through functionalities that promote connectivity, collaboration, and productivity among employees.

That said, in most organizations, the Communications function has yet to embrace the mindset and activities necessary to transform the intranet from “digital landfill” to “employee productivity tool.”  Communicators may say they want the intranet to boost employee productivity and engagement, but then focus on superficial fixes, primarily improving the intranet’s function as an internal news distribution service.   Sharing internal news is important, yes.  Optimizing the intranet to do only that, however, is short-sighted.

How do you know if your heart is in the right place, but your activities are not? Ask yourself, “Do we…

• Focus improvements on the “look and feel” of the intranet—such as logos, layouts, typefaces, buttons, boxes, menus, etc.?
• Rely on annual “intranet satisfaction surveys”?
• Track and depend on broad metrics such as clicks and views on news stories? Read More »

By Mike Wellman

How great would it be to have the title of Chief Communications Officer and a 200+ team of able communicators to help you create an impact at your organization?  How about a fleet of Ferraris while we’re at it?  It sounds nice, but sadly many of the Communications professionals we work with continue to feel under-resourced and underappreciated.  That doesn’t mean that we need to always sing Rodney Dangerfield’s tune, though!  (Am I the only one who loves this video?)

The good news is that the communication demands of today are accelerating positive changes in the structure and skill set of many Communications teams, and job titles are evolving to reflect the nature of the important work we do. Smart communicators are asking CEC for help in making the case for more resources now, in a time of great change, when they know their organizations are more likely to listen.  Here are three useful tips on making an effective case for more people, money, or, access: Read More »

By Lisa Schievelbein

Working with cross-functional partners is a common source of woe for Communications. Though the circumstances vary quite a bit, I’ve discovered a pattern over time in the villainous caricatures I hear most about:

• The party poopers
  Crime: Vetoing Comms’ best-laid plans to try new things
  Usual suspects: Legal, IT
• The land grabbers
  Crime: Asserting dominance—and taking all credit—in areas of overlapping audiences/interests
  Usual suspects: HR, Marketing

Read More »

By Rebecca Canan

Springtime means new energy, new chances, and a fresh outlook.  I’m a sucker for spring cleaning—and pretty much any opportunity for a new start.  (Case-in-point: I was the Catholic school kid who actually looked forward to going to confession.)  Spring in DC especially brings out this tendency in me—the cherry blossoms are in full bloom and the sun is finally shining after a very snowy and cold winter!

I think spring is also a great time for Communications to do a bit of cleaning and starting-over. To inspire your spring cleaning spree, I wanted to give you a few tips and ideas:

Spring Cleaning Checklist

• Clean out your list of projects. If you’re like many communicators, you have a habit of piling on activities and to-do’s without asking yourself, “Is this just clutter?  What’s the value of doing this?”  To strip out the inessentials, just copy this easy idea from PepsiCo.  Each year PepsiCo‘s Head of Communications challenges staff to fill out a worksheet with activities that they believe no longer merit Communications’ support.  This simple exercise has “turned off” ~15% of work volume for their function.  CEC members can access that worksheet here (page 15). Read More »