By Laura Newman

Do you have a good sense for what you stand for as a business? Your mission or vision statement, if you will? Yes? Good. Now hold that thought.

Last week we had the pleasure of hosting 26 companies in our London office in Holborn for a discussion on “Driving the Strategic CSR Agenda.” It was fascinating to hear the various perspectives on how to define Corporate Social Responsibility, focus a CSR strategy, enable internal adoption, and mobilize employees around these goals.

One theme rang loud and clear: What we say is not nearly as important as how we act. Many in the room were not interested in communicating (or at least over-communicating) their CSR efforts. In their minds, actions speak louder than words and CSR (or whatever they call these efforts) should be first-and-foremost about how they conduct business, i.e. in a responsible, ethical, and sustainable way.

Although I don’t disagree that it is essential to be “walking the talk,” I would argue that “how” is only half of the equation. The activities our organizations choose to pursue in support of joint business and societal value is a critical element of a strategic CSR approach. Without this strategic direction, you could be involved in diverse and non-aligned CSR initiatives, even though they are conducted in a responsible way and even though they aim to ensure long-term sustainability. Read More »

I’ve never been in the military.  That’s a good thing. For me…for America…for mankind.  If World War III ever breaks out, I hope they need a decent bugle player — ’cause that’s the only vaguely Army-ish thing I can do that wouldn’t result in some kind of horrible friendly-fire tragedy.

But one thing I remember hearing from my Dad, my uncles, and other true patriots who are better-suited for cammo and ammo than I — is a lesson some progressive Comms practitioners are beginning to realize:

No battle plan ever survived the first shot.

Hey, sure…you can do all the planning, plotting and strategizing you want — if it makes you feel better. But if you seriously think that anything prepared at the beginning of the year will carry your Comms strategy all the way through the next 12 months, then perhaps you’ve been standing a little too close to the bomb range (as my Uncle Benny might say).

Some of the smartest Heads of Communications I know are asking themselves, “What if — instead of working so hard to create the perfect Comms annual plan — we honestly admit that the most strategic thing we could do is to work WITHOUT a formalized plan?”

Now that’s radical. Read More »

By Laura Newman

Communicators worldwide, do these comments sound familiar?

• “My CEO only cares about Rand [maybe you would say Dollars, Pounds, or Euros] and cents. If I can’t truly quantify the value of an activity or investment, he/she doesn’t bother to listen.”
• “I don’t want my team to be perceived as post-boxes, editing managers’ e-mails and updating distribution lists.” [Perhaps in your case it’s press releases, events, the intranet, or your internal publication.]
• “If I push back on requests and don’t simply do what I’m told, leadership will start asking about the purpose of our Communications team.”
• “My leadership is so ‘old school’ – they just want to count the number of articles in which they’re profiled, to build their political capital.”

This past week I’ve had the pleasure of spending time with the CEC’s South African-based members. Beyond the gorgeous Johannesburg sunshine, delicious Stellenbosch wine (the Hartenberg and Simonsig estates are my favorites), and tasty steak and venison, I led a number of conversations around business partnership, where the above quotes were surfaced.

I’ve been traveling to visit CEC members long enough now that you’d think I wouldn’t still be surprised, but on almost every trip I make, I am struck by the similarities in the challenges Communicators face worldwide.

My recent discussions have centered on defining and documenting the value of Communications, with the goal of being seen as a strategic player by business partners.

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By Kirsten Robinson

“Who wants to be working on things that are low-value added? Nobody.” – Marie Uhrich, SVP Communications at Thrivent Financial

With this thought in mind, Communications leaders should be asking themselves—Is our team working on tasks that are valuable resources to the business? Are we using our time efficiently? And how can our team demonstrate the value we are adding to our company?

Process improvement relies on information taken from workflow data, but the effectiveness and value of the Communications team isn’t measured by metrics like other company functions—making it more difficult to uncover inefficiencies, as well as show partners value being brought to the business.

Thrivent Financial’s communications team realized the importance of workflow data, but also saw some obstacles—such as collecting data from a staff resistant to time and activity tracking; organizing disparate sets of data; and understanding what type of analysis is most appropriate in a given situation. Read More »

As we are all recovering from a period of over-indulgence and TV re-runs, it is that time of year for a spot of reflection and a look forward at the year ahead.  My long list of resolutions for 2011 range from the practical (avoiding drowning in the mounds of paper on my desk) to the aspirational (learning to cross-country ski so I can take part in an Arctic biathlon for charity).  Beyond personal goals, I think there are also a few things that should be on a list of professional resolutions for 2011.  Here are some ideas for communicators, along with how we plan to help you along in 2011:

1. Make competency development a priority.

Why it’s important: As the demands on the communication function evolve to be less about simply creating and delivering communications to the desired audience and more about “managing the debate” and providing consultative support to business partners – a new competency set is required.  Whether it’s for your own professional development or standardizing and building the skills across your team, few Communications team have a formalized plan for skill development and it’s now more important than ever. Read More »

By Laura Newman

The London snow has certainly gone a long way to getting me into the holiday spirit, but it was watching The Nutcracker ballet in the London Coliseum on Friday evening that really sent me humming and twirling into the holiday season. The English National Ballet’s 10^th interpretation was full of sparkle and dazzle (thanks, in part I’m sure, to their partnership with Swarovski!).

Although I have seen The Nutcracker a number of times, I continue to discover new magic. On Friday, in addition to the beautiful music and breathtaking décor, I kept an eye out for the storyline itself. I was familiar with the basic premise – the young Clara receives a nutcracker doll for Christmas and, as she sleeps that evening, she dreams that he becomes a prince, her prince, and they dance across the world. What I hadn’t remembered from my childhood were the subtle clues to Clara’s waking life sprinkled across her dream: the rat, hot air balloon, and soldiers all made appearances at the Christmas party before she sleeps.

Those of you who have read my blog post on the movie Inception will recall my interest in the psychology of dreams and memory. The Nutcracker’s subtle references to Clara’s memory got me thinking of how much one’s point of view is dependent on prior experience.

A similar lesson seems to be creeping up in my conversations with Communicators. In the past month or two I have had a number of discussions about providing business partners with efficient and effective communications support. With increasing business demand and resource constraints, Communications Heads are thinking hard about what skills and structures will allow their teams to have the greatest business impact. Read More »

Thanks for the comments and notes about our utility industry blog within a blog.  I appreciate the individual e-mails and encourage folks to use the comments as a source of ongoing conversation as well.  One of the common threads to your feedback was the complexity of messages involved in your space.  Indeed, when I review the questions that come to the Council from our utility members, we are confronted with difficult issues such as rate increases, renewable energy vs. clean coal generation, a massively complex energy bill (at least temporarily stalled in Congress), and regional economic development packages.   To make life even harder, utility communicators must simultaneously address both low-information residents and high-information advocacy groups or legislative committee staff members.  In other words: It’s Complicated!  Read More »

With only 31% of communicators having a formal dashboard, many of you are reading this blog title and probably saying, “Woah, let’s start at Dashboards 1.0.  We’re just beginning to invest more in measurement.”  While we at the CEC are happy to help guide you through the building blocks of how to create (even a 1.0) dashboard…your senior leadership team likely isn’t going to hold your hand in the same way.

End of year reviews are quickly approaching for many of us, and your CEO will be asking, “Did your work this year matter to the business?” And you, communicator, are looking for the easiest way to say, “Yes! Let me show you why…”  Yet so often the communications metrics that we show to demonstrate the strategic impact of the function are things like: click/attendance rates, number of media hits, followers, etc.  While these can be impressive in their magnitude, they just don’t carry the weight we’d like them to.

Essentially, communicators often begin with transactional metrics and attempt (unconvincingly) to make a leap to translate those metrics into business outcomes.  See below:

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As economies went into freefall roughly two years ago, executives across different functional areas converged on a short set of priorities.  In fact, you might say just one priority – survival.  That meant shedding costs and doing anything possible to drive cash flow, quickly.  But as markets pulled back from the brink, functional heads returned to a (more normal) pursuit of their individual agendas, from social media adoption to staff development.

As we talk to heads of Sales, Marketing and Communications about 2011, I see a swing back to handling a common enemy – this time, ongoing uncertainty.  Uncertainty isn’t terribly attractive to most, but executives seem to be accepting it as part of the new normal and are trying to figure out ways to live alongside it.  That presents a little differently depending on your role in the organization. 

• In Sales for example, the problem is that deals are getting “stuck” with customers whose response to uncertainty is indecision. But it looks like most sales teams aren’t doing enough to make deals easy for customers, abandoning them prematurely in the sales cycle.
• For marketers, the challenge lies in figuring out – and then using to their advantage – changes in the way customers think about purchasing (triggered by the uncertainty customers face).  Coping mechanisms like in-the-moment comparison and peer feedback are driving psychology few companies fully understand, but must.
• Communicators are trying to help their organizations deal with uncertainty.  Specifically, as companies try to become more agile and responsive, the premium on moving information and aligning the organization increases.  But those are new-ish areas to most Communications teams.

How is uncertainty affecting you and your organization?  What are you planning to do about it?  Our research makes it clear that early movers in moments like this stand to gain disproportionately. I hope you’re one of them.

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 »