Do You Want a Seat at the Table?

The communications discipline is frequently maligned. People call us spin doctors, mouthpieces, PR junkies, or worse. Yet, we often bring this animosity on ourselves.

Communications isn’t about flying around the world with the CEO or hobnobbing with the company VIPs, which I know many who want to get into the discipline wrongly believe. Though there are some in the profession who probably still think this. It’s also not about delivering content or messages from on high.

It’s about cultivating business reputation, improving trust and awareness with all target groups and providing the tools and the content to make this possible. These are all the basis for a company’s success (note to business executives, if one of you is reading this: if people aren’t aware of your company or don’t trust you, it doesn’t matter how great your products are)                                                                              

But as a communicator, you are useless to the company, if you don’t really understand what the company you work for does.

Yes, I know this is a shock. One would think a communicator would know what their employer does in detail, but I’ve unfortunately often heard

“Oh, [core company product] doesn’t interest me”

But what does this mean?

As a communicator, you must:

Deeply understand business strategy, i.e. what the company actually does

Again, no, communications is not about leveraging synergies or flying around in the corporate jet. You need to spend a lot of time, particularly when first joining a company, to do a deep dive in corporate strategy, goals, values, products, solutions and people.

You first need to understand and find answers to the following questions: 

• What is the core of the company?
• What is its history?
• What are the current business challenges?
• What are the biggest opportunities?
• Who are the biggest competitors?
• Who are the employees and what are their needs?

Never propose a communications strategy or project if you cannot connect it directly to business strategy

Communications in a silo will fail. If you want to propose a communications strategy or have an idea for a project that will improve communications for the company, it starts with business strategy. If you can’t connect it to a goal of the business strategy or a company value, don’t even bother starting.

Your idea won’t make any sense to any decision-maker if it is built in a communications bubble. To them, you will just be trying to sell them something.  

Network with as many people as possible in the company

Build a broad network right from the beginning. No this does not mean coffee with all the executives. Meet people from all possible jobs: production, sales, HR, legal, marketing…

Particular in larger companies, I’ve had some wonderful encounters and conversations with people on the shop floor or in labs. People at the top often forget these are the people doing the actual work, dealing with the actual problems and you can learn a lot about the reality of the company by talking to them as often as possible.

Be the glue that holds marketing and sales together

In most companies, sales, marketing and communications act as if they are completely separate working for completely separate companies. Competing for attention, they often torpedo each other with siloed (or worse conflicting) content, which is deadly to the company’s reputation.

In reality, all three must work together toward one goal: the company’s success. In my experience, communications can often be the glue that holds them together: helping to build one strategy and one content plan.

Measure, measure, measure

Besides connecting any and all proposals directly to company strategy, you always need to have a clear (read: business-relevant) way to measure success. The best measurement process will not only measure success after implementation, but will benchmark the status before even starting to show progress and improvement.

A word here on digital communications: while it is great to have a ton of followers, this alone doesn’t help the business. You want to cultivate conversations that can lead to a better connection to your company, more trust and awareness and ultimately to sales.

I don’t know how many times I’ve heard “Oh, we need a viral video” or “Let’s get a thousand followers on [latest overhyped social media channel]. ARGH.

Seat at the table?

Many communications complain about wanting a seat at the table. Well, you have to earn it by showing you have a deep understanding of the business rather than just the communications discipline.

If you are interested in learning more about my thoughts on leadership or communications:

• Check out my website for more on me, my insights, and my consulting offering
• Connect with me on LinkedIn or XING
• Follow me on Twitter
• My book “The Accidental Change Agent: A Fresh Take on Organizational Change”