The end of corporate communication (as we know it)
Posted on Wednesday, June 27th, 2012 at 8:53 amGiven recent trends in stakeholder engagement, leadership behavior and reliance on technology, Mark Schumann, ABC, asserts that communicators should take a hard look at what we are doing.
In a practical, sometimes alarming, but refreshing closing workshop today at the IABC World conference in Chicago, Mark suggested we need to be prepared for a change in our roles. Why? Because corporate communication as we know it is already dead.
How did he discover the obituary?
Mark recently conducted a study of 75 CEOs, HR leads, heads of communication and over 2500 employees across the United States –and uncovered some insight into the challenges that communicators are facing.
He discovered while belief in the importance of communication is higher than it ever has been, belief in professional communicators’ ability to manage that experience is not very high at all. So, in short, our role as we do it today is not valued.
So what were the specific problems that Mark discovered that would lead him to such a harsh conclusion?
The CEOs Mark studied expressed a lot of frustration about how communicators like us are doing our work. They complained that we were so focused on media, the rules, process, and acting like police that we were losing sight about what communication is all about.
The HR leaders he talked to expressed frustration at how we communicators are conducting ourselves too. How we are so focused on getting or keeping a seat at the corporate table that we get distracted by this game—and don’t get involved enough with other people.
The heads of communication he studied admitted that they were so overworked and focused on doing things that they couldn’t see the forest for the trees. They were losing sight of what communication really needs to happen to help the organization succeed—and they knew it.
The most alarming fact Mark uncovered is that our stakeholders no longer need us. They have found other ways to connect and engage without us. The alarming truth, Mark asserts, is that “we are no longer relevant to the people we are trying to reach.”
So where do we go from here?
Mark asserts there is still hope. While our profession was originally founded on three “c’s”:
1. content,
2. channels (that we keep endlessly filling), and
3. control
Mark wants us to add a 4thc—conversation.
So how can we save our jobs? Mark suggests that this process starts with making room for a new work and roles. The first step is to “de-clutter”—basically to review everything we do, eliminating the unnecessary, the duplications, and the inefficient processes so we can make room to focus on what we need to: what our stakeholders need. Second, we should take a closer look at that engagement survey that has been collecting dust and find out how we can help.
We also need to map out, very clearly, the relationships we need to manage. We need to look through the eyes of the people we need to reach. We need to free ourselves to talk about the relationships that are essential. We need to step out of our offices and talk to people.
So how will we deliver our work in this new model?
Mark says that we must simplify. We must work at ending our perception of being overworked, over-stressed individuals. We must start being better sponges. We should be the people who have more informal conversations than anyone. We must start asking employees what they want, how they want it and how they would organize it. We must start being the masters of conversation—open, and approachable, so we can help everyone be heard.
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Great post and thanks for the summary of Mark’s session.
This is so true! I find that my client – an internal IT organization at a Fortune 100 company – most appreciates me when they see me make immediate changes or iteration to something based on instant feedback. Gone are the days when we survey our clients and readers/audience once a year and make massive changes to our vehicles. People want to see IMMEDIATE changes and improvements based on the conversations we’re having and what we’re hearing.
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Such a timely post! I am just in the process of dusting off our stakeholder matrix and building plans for engagement with targeted stakeholders over the coming year. You are so right when you say that the best insight can be gleaned from informal conversations. It’s when I invest the time to get out into the operation that I see the gaps and am truly inspired with new ideas for building communication bridges.
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Sadly, my default is to approach comms from the POV of our ‘end users’ – and that gets shot down a lot by senior management who get overly focused on what they want to push down rather than what people want to know about and how. Most of my job is now educating senior communicators and reminding them that the top of the organisation is much smaller than the bottom!
Instead of the death of corporate communications, I prefer to think of it as a “transformation” or “evolution.” Developments in information and collaboration technology are changing the way all of us work, not just communicators.
You’re right, it’s time to ditch the overworked persona, get with the program, and embrace the new ways and tools we have to communicate – and communicate better – with our stakeholders and audiences, .
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