Corporate Communications Strategies

When people talk about communications strategies, all too often the article or presentation takes one of two paths: launching into a hugely complicated discourse on the philosophies of management systems and their communication components; or taking an even more detailed stroll through the latest 'bits-n-bytes' of a gadget or technology system that will do it all for you.

Both of these routes are sometimes guilty of over-complicating things.

Getting it

There was once a senior management meeting where an executive spoke at great length, and in considerable technical detail, about the need for their organisation to communicate more effectively with its staff. He felt that the workforce just didn't understand the key messages. He was politely interrupted by someone sincerely asking, "What do you mean by that?" The irony and surrealism of the situation were apparently lost on everybody present.

Another, perhaps apocryphal story, relates to the CEO who said in a newsletter article that he was disappointed at his obvious failure to clearly articulate why he believed the company's communication strategies weren't working. Yes, the stuff of legend and laughter over a drink but what do these things tell us about communications strategies?

Keep concepts simple

The libraries are full of learned works defining communication strategies and offering advice but there are a few simple points that are sometimes overlooked:

• You have to have something worthwhile to communicate (we've all seen and binned the corporate newsletters full of irrelevant 'filler' and many press releases are widely ignored). If you've nothing to say then say nothing;
• You need a target audience that are willing (or have been persuaded) to listen or you'll be communicating and there will be nobody there to hear you;
• Your audience must believe they obtain benefit from listening or they won't do so again in future;
• Your messages must be consistent, integrated and release-planned/managed or they'll look like a patchwork quilt of mutual contradiction;
• You must have an over-arching objective (the real strategy) behind your communications rather than just shooting from the hip as something occurs to you;
• You must have gifted communicators to deliver the messages.

Now before you join a lynch mob and say this is trivialising and superficial stuff, yes, the science of communications strategies is complicated. It would be possible to have a huge debate about the difference between a strategy and tactical implementation, technology, PR integration, branding, multi-channel delivery, media management and so on, but that would be missing the point - basically much of this IS simple! If you haven't got the basic concepts in place, your expensively constructed communications strategies will be unlikely to succeed.

A brilliant shot to the foot

Consider the real example of one CEO that issued two open memoranda to all staff, confirming on the same day that:

• due to economic difficulties, staff were being asked to co-operate by noting that taxis between distant offices would no longer be available in bad weather and that public transport should be used;
• that the management ball would be held on such-and-such a date at a prestigious hotel.

Maybe hilarious in abstract, but the organisation also prided itself on having exemplary communications strategies in place. Well, perhaps it did but it's doubtful if any of its objectives related to driving staff morale and motivation into the floor!

Another company announced to the media a major outsourcing of work overseas that "would not threaten jobs" and within 24 hours then released news of large-scale compulsory redundancies to the same media. The result? Much understandable and value-destructive media speculation as to whether the company was a well-run ship that knew what it was doing.

Lessons

What are the key lessons from such debacles? It's too easy to dismiss these sorts of disasters as simple execution errors by press offices or HR Departments of what was essentially a sound communication strategy. What one may speculate in these cases is that there are very probably strategies in place but that these are overly theoretical, perhaps pre-occupied with technology and which are not incorporated into a day-to-day management system that translates them into practical (and simple) reality.

It's doubtful if any of these howlers (and there have been many, many more) could have happened had the very simple and earthy checklist mentioned above, been applied along the lines of:

• What are we trying to communicate here and why?
• Who is it aimed at and are they listening?
• How does it sit for consistency with our position(s) elsewhere?
• How does it dovetail into our key strategic messages and objectives?
• What is this really communicating as opposed to what we hope it's communicating?
• Has a duly qualified communications expert put this together?

It's not rocket science nor is it really about the esoteric elements of communications strategies - it's just a 'back to basics' that may help you avoid embarrassment or even disaster!

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