The Covid2019 crisis puts public communication skills in focus. And, they could end up saving the Earth!

If on 9 March 2020, just 30 days back, you had told me that the world will shut down, laid low by a virus, that government after government will put their citizens at home, restrict public movement; that planes will not fly and beaches would go off-limits; that more people than ever in human history will work from home and buses and trains will lock their wheels, that nations will close their borders to each other and restaurants close by the hundreds and thousands, I would have been incredulous. And, if you had added to that the closure of shopping malls, cinemas, sports events and the wheels of many industries, in short life as I have known since birth, I would have scoffed at you. I would have been so naive!

In fact, a rough timeline over the past two months would have never prepared us for the unprecedented stoppage that we are witnessing today. Around 9 February we were watching the greeting of ‘namaste’ go global as world leaders including Presidents Trump and Macron were spotted in public doing the social-distance friendly greeting. Around 29 February the world was being taught hand-washing and the importance of personal hygiene. Come March and the #lockdown that began in China’s Wuhan had migrated to Italy. On 22 March India, a nation of nearly 1.3 billion people, observed a 14-hour long day time public curfew, Italy announced the largest number of single-day deaths and New York was declared a major disaster area, while Californians stayed home. The #COVID2019 #pandemic had hit home!

Since then the times have got increasingly surreal. What would have been considered unreal, bizarre, and impossible just a few days back is now real. Billions of people worldwide are in lockdown, as #socialdistancing now stars in our lexicon. Heroes in healthcare have been mobilized to battle an unseen enemy round the clock and at great risk to themselves. Heroes in the media, law enforcement, essential services and bureaucracy are keeping the world ticking and aware. As somebody interested in the power and process of communication, I have noted how words, images, information and delivery have galvanized world populations. It is possible to pick a few salient points that have made this unprecedented mobilization possible. The art and science of public communication are together in this dance. Let’s take a look at a few, entrancing steps here, a few lessons for the communicators’ playbook. It's a dance of the 6Cs. Mind you, these lessons might have saved our life and that of billions around the world!

The first C that emerges in this study is the power of Context. In public communication #context is king (or queen!). It always is. Think back to some of the memorable public speeches and you will find the context – Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” was in the backdrop of the Civil Rights movement, Jawaharlal Nehru’s “Freedom at midnight” captured the zeitgeist of India’s independence movement and Winston Churchill earned his public speaking stripes in the backdrop of World War II. With the #coronavirus, the world is beset with a #publichealth crisis of gargantuan proportions, that is forcing lifestyle changes and public health practices that would, in their absence, kill. In public communication it pays to understand the context well; the more nuanced one’s understanding, the better. Watch Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau address his nation on the crisis here and you will know the power of context. In public communication ace communicators seize the context first.

(Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was among the first movers in world leaders in communicating with the public on the COVID2019 crisis, even as his wife tested positive for the virus. His speeches have rallied 'Team Canada' behind his government's strategy)

Next, Competence. An adage popular with #management practitioners, attributed to late management guru Peter Drucker, is “culture eats strategy for breakfast”. It affirms the power of culture, the habits-values-beliefs triad, in molding and upholding an #organization. How much ever democratic and empowered an organization might be, culture is always driven by the leadership, in the behaviors and decisions they model. This is even more so in the case of public communication. And, just as departments and functions within organizations also have an important collective role in saying it right, so have public institutions in a public communication context. In an article political commentator Swati Chaturvedi puts it in perspective. Writing of Indian state Chief Ministers, like Ashok Gehlot, Uddhav Thackeray and Arvind Kejriwal, who have been exemplars in the fight with the virus she says “their response to the crisis has been marked with daily communication to ensure there is no public panic, leading from the front...” They go right to the front-line and make the case for their actions. That's competence for you. These highly competent public communicators also know that communication is the carrier of their culture and public connection, the bee that disperses the pollen.  Public communication thrives on emphatic #competence. Just no two ways about it!

If the world as a whole is responding to this crisis with one beat, it is because of the competent communication by its leaders and institutions that conveys the sense of emergency without the panic. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s request to spend 5 minutes in our homes clapping for the medical, security, sanitation and other personnel working to serve the country in a dire situation met with an electrifying response as did his request to light lamps to show that we are united in our resolve to defeat this public health challenge.

(Sign of the times: Italian artist Salvatore Benintende's interpretation of fellow Italian Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa in the times of coronavirus - wearing a face mask and wielding a mobile phone for social distancing. Picture from Getty Images)

The third C is Clarity. Great public communicators know that they have to harness the public, harvest minds. Whether institutions or individual leaders, they all know that the secret sauce of public communication is facts and figures. If context is king/queen data is the youthful prince of public communication, the element that provides clarity to people and underlies strategy that is announced. Useful facts and figures make it more relevant to the public. Take a look at the announcement of a Twitter chat by Twitter in partnership with the World Health Organization on the coronavirus crisis.

This is smart, useful communication, allaying misapprehension that the public might develop in the face of uncertainty. Clear communication creates cosmos from chaos. This is highly visible in Prime Minister Trudeau’s address. Charisma and personal power in public communication will take a horse to the water, for sure and no one is denying it. But, if you would like the horse to drink and stay hydrated, serve them hard data, and appear granular. Few things in public life are as attractive as leaders and institutions that appear thoroughly in charge, on top of facts and figures and strategy.

The fourth factor is Craft. In public communication the message is the medium, not vice-versa. The world of 2020 is far removed from 1964 when author Marshall McLuhan coined the immortal line, “the medium is the message”, pointing to the differential power varying media (visual/print/audio) has in providing relevance and importance to the message. It might have been true in the Sixties and Seventies or earlier. But, rising education and affluence, accessible technology, social media and the entrenchment of #democratic principles in most societies have now stood that adage on its head: the message is now the medium, especially in the social media. If anything demonstrates how things have changed it is the rise of ‘fake’/viral news or content in social media channels that is accessed almost in real time by billions of consumers, who also engage with the message and become co-creators. The media's control over content has been negated, especially when it is no longer being created by a few powerful individuals or institutions but by billions of global citizens across continents. In public communication, therefore, how one crafts the message and where one posts it are the most important determinants now of success. Successful public communicators know this truth in the perception battle. They craft their message with facts and figures, imbue it with clarity and deliver it with flair and competence!

Fifth, public communication demands and rewards this one C- Courage - almost instantly! I have just finished watching a Youtube broadcast by the intuitive guide, Lee Harris, on his channel. Called ‘Are You Ready to be Seen?’ the video talks with insight about the power of ‘putting oneself in public view’, to be seen and heard, with the intention of making a difference. Coincidentally, I read a piece around the same time in the online journal theprint.in by veteran author Kaveree Bamzai. Titled “What if the coronavirus crisis had hit India under Manmohan Singh, not Modi”, the veteran journalist writes incisively on the theme. On differences between the two she writes, “Manmohan Singh’s greatest weakness was always his inability to communicate effectively, something Modi is able to do brilliantly”. Quoting communication and PR expert Dilip Cherian she writes, “We should remember that UPA’s biggest failure was not economy at all, but communication. Today, those who get teary eyed comparing India’s economic growth under the Manmohan Singh disposition to the Modi sarkar‘s should also recall that the UPA governments he led were deemed weak and seen as lacking the courage to take hard decisions”. It just puts into perspective how important it is to be “seen”. To be seen is synonymous with courage, ability and power. In public communication, these are traits that hold the high ground with those who really matter - the masses!

And finally, Conviction. Effective public communication begins with the end in mind. Beginning with the end in mind is one of the ‘Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’ as the late author, Stephen Covey, says in his book of the same title. It works for effective public communicators and for effective public communication. Think of where you are in these surreal COVID times: in lockdown, careful about your health, washing hands regularly, staying away from company, working from home, making do with sparse supplies. Life as you knew it, just a month or two back, has been suspended and you have voluntarily gone along with the transformation. You could be anywhere, New York, Brussels, Rome, Islamabad, New Delhi, Bangkok, Vanuatu. This is what all public communication from leaders and institutions have stressed, that self-isolation, quarantine and containment are essential to beating the virus. Every speech, tweet, post delivered by public figures has stressed this necessity. Where the leader was not convinced, the toll has been heavy, like in the USA.

(The Chief Minister of the eastern seaboard Indian state of Odisha, Naveen Patnaik, today became the first leader anywhere in the world to extend the coronavirus lockdown till April 30, for his state, the farthest so far anywhere in the world by any leader)

Contrast it with the way a small state in India, Odisha, has gone about dealing with the crisis and you will see the difference. The Chief Minister of Odisha, Naveen Patnaik, became the first state leader today to extend the state’s lockdown till 30 April, prompting ace marketer Suhel Seth to exclaim in a tweet “What Odisha thinks today, India thinks tomorrow”. The power of public communication is enhanced when one is convinced about the outcomes one seeks, be it to create motivation or action, to provide information or solace, to mobilize or to pacify.

Communicating in and with the public puts these unique demands on leaders, institutions and, indeed, on every one who has something to say to the wider world on any media platform. These demands are clearly different from the intimate and engaging nature of inter-personal and social communication. As we get through this crisis together, as one world, context, competence, clarity, courage, craft and conviction are leading the way in the war with #COVID2019.