What do communication leaders see as top opportunities right now - as we begin to look beyond the Pandemic?

This is the first in a multi-part series based on the results of the #WeLeadComms/Changing The Terms Communication Leaders Perspective Exercise - with profuse thanks to all who have participated and shared their views.

Last month, I asked communication leaders globally the question: 'What do you see as the top three opportunities facing the communication world?

54 participants responded to a largely open-ended set of questions looking at big challenges and opportunities facing the overall communication world, also including questions about the internal communication space specifically, and the operating environment for communication associations.

The participants covered 14 countries, in a mix of agency and independent roles and corporate positions in medium to massive companies. They belong to one or more national, international and online communication associations and networks.

Responses covered a wide range of topics - traditional communication topics like reputation, culture and people issues, a lower-than-expected set of mentions for workplace location issues, three categories accounted for more than half of the 158 responses to this question.

• Strategic value - how can we make a better case for the strategic value of business communication 
• Role definition - how can we specifically re-define our role so it makes better sense and creates more value
• Digitalization - how can communicators and businesses make better use of digital transformation, and specifically, new digital tools

Surprises and openings

In qualitative, open-ended research, the big stories don’t necessarily come from the most popular answers. They often come from what is downplayed, left out or largely absent from other current discussions.

Noisebreaking - a surprise entrant

One surprise involved some mentions about the potential of “noisebreaking” as an emerging opportunity - the ability to reduce organizational overload and channel noise away from critical conversations.  

“Cutting out the crap / mindless chatter (making communication really count - valuable and meaningful)”

“Consolidating activity (channels) for the new ways of working”

“Cutting through the clutter”

“Making sense of the ever growing number of channels”

The emergence of noisebreaking as an opportunity dovetails well with pre-pandemic research I did with C-level executives saying that their main desire for their internal communication functions is to “cut the noise.” 

While I have seen little said about noisebreaking in the post-pandemic conversation in the comms world, its emergence in this research demonstrates a persistent and distinctive opportunity.

Workplace location - is it only about remote and hybrid?

In the middle of the pack of categories was “workplace location”, a category looking at shifts in the placement and relationship between employees and their workplaces.  

As this part of the research included both internally and externally focused participants, it’s not totally surprising that workplace location wasn’t in the top three.  

What was interesting is that the responses all addressed potential opportunities coming from hybrid and remote work - and none addressed anything pertaining to “returning to the office.”

This struck me as a massive “missing.”  

There is a lot of talk about “hybrid” working arrangements, but a lot of corporate leaders are publicly urging a return to more traditional “work-from-office” set-ups. 

Movement toward fully remote, fully office-based and hybrid approaches will all require massive communication efforts and a fair degree of cultural and organizational adaptation, not just the less restrictive remote and hybrid approaches..

ESG - an imperative, but not an opportunity?

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues have had a breakthrough year in the public media - and activist groups in the communication professions have aimed to raise their profile as an imperative as well.

But do communication leaders see ESG as an opportunity? Only four responses addressed sustainability issues and only one named diversity. 

While this could be an issue of the participant sample - participants were self-identified “communication leaders” from 14 countries and, for the most part, association members and correspondents of mine, the low penetration clearly indicates a view of the ESG agenda as being something other than an opportunity despite the intensity of the ongoing conversation in the culture and in the business community.

Standards - on the back burner?

Only one respondent mentioned “standards” as a top opportunity - despite years of effort on the part of IABC and other communication organizations to move standards to the top of the global comms agenda.  

With IABC ramping up its references to its Global Standard in the run-up to a major strategy redefinition in June, it raises questions of whether IABC intends to double down on a concept that lacks urgency as the profession moves through turmoil. Stay tuned.

The top three

Looking at the top categories against the backdrop of the more surprising findings, and one sees this group of communication leaders looking particularly at ambitions of elevating their own value to their organizations and clients, optimizing the ways they and their functions work, and how best to leverage technology for communication and in the larger business.

1. Demonstrating Strategic Value

The largest group of responses focused on the opportunity presented by the impending end of the pandemic and the shifts in the workspace landscape as opportunities to demonstrate strategic value to business decision makers. 

This desire is not new - it translates roughly into communication pros’ years-long plea for a “seat at the table.” But the way in which some respondents phrased this desire reflects the urgency of the current situation and specific approaches to demonstrating this value.

“Taking advantage of renewed visibility and of being seen to have had a 'good' pandemic”

“Leaders recognise that they can ill-afford to leave communications to chance”

“Relevancy when everyone thinks they are a communicator to show our ability to be strategic” 

2. Communication Roles

In light of the momentum to position communication activities as strategic and valuable, it's natural (logical?) that there's also an emphasis on defining communication roles though there is considerable disagreement about what the desired roles of comms in this environment should be.

“Get the basics right once and for all (incl. understanding your 'audience' needs; meaningful measurement; strategic & business thinking; and proactive, planful and purposeful communication) and develop our business leader consulting muscles.”

“Peeling the technology back to get to the core message to balance between transformation and hype”

“Reinventing ourselves from specialists in 'traditional' comms (media/channels/sales) to specialists in relations (mobilisation/broad knowledge)”

“The Lewin model (structures and assumptions are at their most malleable in a generation). Seize the opportunity.”

“Shift from one-way communications to getting employees finally on board”

3. Digitalization as Opportunity

The third of the “big three” is that of digitalization and its impacts both on business as a whole, and on the delivery and management of communication activities in particular. Of those two concepts, however, the participants spoke far more of an upgrade in the role of digital in enabling communication activities:

“(Becoming the) front runner in digital innovation 

“Getting ahead of evolving communication/collaboration technologies” 

“Digitalization bringing people closer”

“Leveraging AI and big data”

“Grasp the possibilities of technology (AI, AR etc.) and collaborate with the tech/IT departments to improve the reach and effectiveness of communication and impress the hell out of business leaders!”

“A clear vision for the digital ecosystem and people tech stack”

Looking ahead

There’s more to the research as we dig deeper into what internal communication leaders are saying, how communication leaders perceive the need for associations and networks in the coming years, and what kind of insights we’ve heard from millennial communication leaders.  

Expect to see the next report towards the 20th of May.

And if you want to talk about the future of communication and the opportunities where you can find advantage and win - schedule a 30 minute conversation: https://calendly.com/changingtheterms/30min

Mike Klein is Principal of Changing The Terms, a consultancy practice focused on internal and social communication. Founder of the #WeLeadComms initiative to recognize leadership and encourage thought leadership among communication professionals, Mike is an MBA graduate of London Business School and the author of From Lincoln to LinkedIn, the 55 Minute Guide to Social Communication. He holds dual US/UK citizenship and is based in Reykjavik, Iceland.