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Prioritize, plan, perform

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Damn obvious, I hear you say. In fact, it’s the simplest of action plans for any function, but it’s also one which is often overlooked or forgotten. As in really often.

Communications, like any other function, is a job with never-ending jobs; updating the intranet, writing articles, preparing speeches, finalizing strategy documents for business units, updating social media accounts, running team meetings, finalizing annual reports, helping colleagues with their presentations, updating templates, and the list goes on and on.

Quite frankly, I enjoy doing all the above – it’s fun, which is why it’s sometimes hard to say no to the constant and persistent requests that come our way.

I also believe in a healthy work balance, and frown upon people’s claims that they are “too busy” – I also wrote a blog piece about that.

However, I appreciate that people face very challenging targets and many companies expect their employees to work that extra bit to prove that they can do it in higher positions. If you ask me, it’s a convenient way for a company to pay less for more. I know – I did it for the greater part of my working life.

Now, I believe that while I should give my utmost, and also work day and night in certain exceptional cases, I also think we really need to prioritize and do the most important jobs first.

I love alliterations, so Prioritize, Plan, Perform is a no-brainer.

  1. Prioritize

‘Ask the comms guy’ is something that has followed me around for some time. I’m mainly to blame as I like helping people. But there are company priorities that need to be respected, which means that if I prioritize uploading a yammer post on the company party (because colleagues want to see the photos…) rather than deal with finalizing the annual report, something is wrong.

  • Plan: The comms goals should also align with and contribute to functional and company goals. This is why you need to plan properly and block your calendar to make sure you get the important things done first. Also, planning helps manage expectations.
  • Perform: Once you know what your goals and, you know what you need to do. It sounds simple because it is. A cluttered desk, figuratively speaking, means you’ll probably do the things you see first rather than what is important – or you’ll do nothing at all because you have no idea where to start from. Planning takes two forms – yearly and weekly. The former involved more generic operational planning, while the latter deals with more detailed work on what’s to be done.

It’s easy – no prioritization means an inability to plan (or follow a plan) and hence perform. And remember, other people’s priorities are just that. You will find that people thrown in seemingly super important facts that may make you think that their priorities are more important than yours. That’s rubbish.

Incidentally, if you are organized, you’ll find there is more time to be able to help colleagues with their comms tasks. Start today.

Thoughts

Corporate communications – what’s that about?

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The other day, an acquaintance compared corporate communications to the unruly cousin who gets invited to the party just because he’s family.

“Corporate communications – what’s that about?” he asked, dismissively. I tasked myself with explaining it to him for the next few minutes and the importance of the function for any company of any size, but he just shrugged it off before adding that his department increased sales by 17% compared to the previous quarter.

“Beat that,” he stated as he walked off. I must admit that I was annoyed and would have removed him from my Christmas card list if I had one.

This encounter made me think – it is, indeed, very hard for corporate comms to show why it is such a critical component of any corporate structure. CEB (now Gartner) describe this as Measurement Envy, and the picture shows exactly what this is.

Measurement in corporate communications is extremely important, and it’s also very hard to do, as highlighted in this great must-read article by Wendy Marx on Fast Company.

Ms Marx also highlights the dangers of underestimate corporate comms, highlighting that “we’re already familiar with the damage an out-of-place tweet by a CEO can do in the age of social media”.

Big companies excluded, many corporate communication teams are really one-(wo)man bands, or have it added on to somebody’s title as an after-thought. Looking through vacancies nowadays, it seems that (corporate) communications is always preceded by an ampersand.

That’s a pity because it’s such an important function – and here’s why.

Corporate comms is both an internal and external function. Internally, corporate comms builds a story for staff, and helps breaks down the ivory towers that higher management sometimes (inadvertently) build.

We reach out to colleagues and give them the opportunity to speak to their top management and, maybe even more importantly, to each other by providing them with the right tools. Intranet is the best example, but there are also internal social media platforms, bulletin boards, widgets and apps, and the often-overrated face-to-face discussions.

In my current role, we introduced Yammer and it has been hugely successful with virtually the entire company joining and more than half actively contributing (this is something we can measure, and it’s growing).

Communicating the company mission, vision, and strategy gives staff direction and support. It also helps quell any company’s nightmare – rumors. Often, they are untrue or grossly exaggerate a truth, and this often results in the uninformed taking ill-advised decisions.

Externally, corporate communications has many functions, be it building reputation, issuing press releases, upholding corporate identity, thought leadership, supporting the c-suite in public appearances, public relations aimed at supporting company products, publicizing the company’s mission, vision, strategy, and values, and providing communication expertise in a crisis situation, which includes telling executives when they should speak and what they should say, and when it’s better to not say anything.

And the list for both internal and external comms is far from exhaustive.

The result is that corporate communications contributes to everything a company does, maybe in a more indirect manner. The function gives the company that added value, that edge over competitors.

I’m still not sure how I can convince my acquaintance of its value, though. I guess he’ll find out the day his company decides that they don’t really need corporate comms, although by then it may be too late.