CEC Insider

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

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By Lisa Schievelbein

Here at CEC, the irony is not lost on us when we fail to practice what we preach to communicators.  For example, our team has produced some pretty cool insights about intranet management, yet few of us visit our parent company’s own “digital landfill” for anything but the cafeteria menu. (Like many CEC members, we wistfully covet information-sharing platforms like SabreTown and The WaterCooler.) But in the last few months, as Kayleigh and I shifted our primary focus from intranets to org structures, I’ve been encouraged by the potential for “human” solutions to make a real impact on information sharing.

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By Lisa Schievelbein

Deep down, every communicator is a voyeur.

 How do I know?  For the last few months, Kayleigh and I have been analyzing the organizational design of CEC member teams, and let me tell you—communicators just love peeking at org charts. They have different reasons for this, but I think one is particularly powerful: a hope that some formula for success can be found in the neat boxes and lines on a PowerPoint slide.  (As you can imagine, the let-down factor is inevitable.)
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