Putting it into Action: Leadership in Corporate Communication

Professor Anne GregoryCentre for Public Relations Studies

Leeds Metropolitan University

Chair Elect Global Alliance

A starter for 10….

The elevator test.

What is your role as a strategic communicator?

3 minutes only!!

Leadership in corporate communication

Strategic Role

Operational focus

Personal Presentation

Strategic role

Recent research on manager roles

Monitor and evaluator

Key policy & strategy adviser

Trouble-shooter/Problem-solver

Issues management expert

(Everett and Steyn, 2009)

And does some high level ‘technician’ work

Strategist Manager Technician

(Moss, Newman and DeSanto, 2005)

A point of strategic inflection

a new way of operating that has communications at its heart…. the key is authenticity

Digital commons

Myriad, empowered stakeholders

Global economy

Roles & responsibilities• Collaborate with stakeholders; create &

influence an ‘ecosystem’ of advocates• Shape strategic direction and brand• Clarify and disseminate values, shape

culture & behaviours • Empower employees as communicators• Deal in organisation focused measurement

Four new priorities and skills for which the ChiefCommunications Officer must now assume aleadership role in:

• Defining and instilling values

• Building and managing multi stakeholder relationships

• Enabling the enterprise with “new media” skills and tools

• Building and managing trust, in all its dimensions.

The ‘Authentic Enterprise’ report

How strategy is formed

• the first step in strategy formulation process• collect/interpret information on stakeholders• details of issues and events that are occurring• anticipation of trends• consider threats & opportunities

the lynch pin between the organisation and the stakeholder environment

How CEOs make decisions

• a collaborative decision-making framework• strategic thinking is conversation-based• the CEO’s and their senior colleagues…• …and specialist experts outside the inner

circle• such talent is highly valued by CEOs

So…

“Strategy is essentially concerned with a process of managing the interaction between an

organisation and its external environment so as to ensure a best fit between the two. From

this perspective it can be argued that boundary-spanning functions can play a key

role in the process of managing such environmental interaction.”

(Moss and Warnaby, 2003)

Those involved in decision-making

Decision-makers

Proposers

Experts

Decision-analysts

Facilitators

So what do CEOs think about?

Your CEO’s obsessions

The top five

Five minutes!

Lesson one

Attach yourself to the C Suite agenda

Operational focus

How do you spend your time?

• administration and finance• doing operational comms• analysing and campaign

planning• working with other staff• developing own

skills/knowledge• other activities

Our work?

Just do it (60%)

Thinking (30%)

Strategy (10%)

CEO’s expect

• Forward intelligence• Externally and internally

connected• Problem-solvers• Coaches and advisors• A narrative• Technically competent

Comms and strategic management

INTERNAL ENVIRONMENT EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT

Corporate & business strategies

PoliciesInternal Issues

Identify key strategic issues

Identify implicationsof issues onstakeholders

Prioritise issues

Strategic communication plan

Media planEmployee

Comm plan

Stakeholderplan

Crisis comm plan

Specific communication plans/campaigns/programmes

What must be communicated

Synthesis

How must it be communicated Analysis

Steyn, 2008

The strategic approach

Just do it (10%)

Thinking (30%)

Strategy (60%)

Lesson two

Attach yourself to the C Suite agenda

Personal positioning

Paint a picture of your ‘ideal’ communication leader

• What do they do?

• How do they behave?

The current context -crunch time!

When decisions about an organisation’s response to the environment become more novel and non-programmed,

communication practitioner roles change to become more strategic

(from technician to manager)

Think like a consultant

Why bother? Cynicism about consultants

“People who borrow your watch and tell you what time it is and then walk off with the

watch.”

Bob Stott, MD of Wm Morrisons

You already are one?

If you need to build relationships with people in your organisation; understand their business requirements; influence and present business solutions…then you are operating in an internal consultancy role.

A CONSULTANT’S TOOLKIT

The consultant’s role

Reliability Empathy

Independence Credibility

Key facets of the consultant

KnowledgeMindset

Process skills Competencies

Mindset differences

Consultant Employee

Client Employer

Project Job

Proactive Reactive

Impact Activity

Models of consultants

NurseUser-friendly;

establish procedures; hands on

TherapistDiagnosis of complex, ill-specified problems;

refers work on

PharmacistSupervision of low-cost delivery team;

established procedures; expert

input

Brain SurgeonInnovative solutions to one-off problems;Critical interventions

Customised Process Diagnosis

Standard Process“Doing”

High degree of client contact

Low degree of client contact

Models of consultants

Brains requires leading edge profession/technical knowledge; innovation/creativity; provided by highly skilled practitioners; one off.“Hire us because we’re smart”

Grey hair degree of customisation but less innovation; requirement not unfamiliar; experience & judgement.“Hire us because we’ve done this before”

Procedure familiar requirement; client could do but out-sources for efficiency.“Hire us because we can do this effectively”

Consultant roles

Brains Grey hair Procedure

Expertise Experience Efficiency

High intensity diagnosis

Highly customised

High client risk

Few qualified practitioners

High cost

High intensity implementatio

nFormulaic

Low client risk

Many qualified

practitionersCommodity pricing

Attach a value to what you do ……doing what counts

Value mappingWhat

you

value

What the organisation values

High

HighLow

Value winner

Value sleeperNo value

Value killer

Lesson three

Attach yourself to the C Suite agenda

This should be our time

when decisions about an organisation’s response to the environment become more novel and non-programmed, communication practitioner roles change to become more strategic…and important