The Communications & Public Affairs Search & Selection specialists Ellwood & Atfield have published a report entitled ‘Communications: A view from the Board’.
Broadly speaking the report holds no great surprises. CEOs expect their communications directors to be good sounding boards and a sanity check but don’t want them too closely involved in strategic planning.
Inevitably the two go hand in hand. If you want a good strategy then it helps to know what the communicator thinks about the viability of the message. But it appears that many CEOs don’t want their comms people to get that close.
Instead they prefer them to be good at functional skills, whilst practical communications skills are taken as read. More and more the CEO expects their comms chief to have good business and financial literacy. Sounds like they could do the CEOs job as well!
Unsurprisingly the report suggests that CEOs are unsure how to take the new communications challenges presented by social media. The report talks about CEOs wanting more proactive media monitoring but doesn’t mention that they should also be addressing how to be proactive in engaging with these social media stakeholders.
Whilst many CEOs see media relations as becoming less important, they do recognise the value of building relationships with other stakeholders such as investors, employees and government. No surprise with the latter group (government) regulating more and more industry sectors and tinkering in areas about which they know absolutely nothing.
Overall the CEOs and Chairmen do seem to recognise the importance of the communication function. That is why about two thirds of those interviewed estimate that they spend at least 30% of their time communicating. They don’t say if they keep their comms director in the loop when they are busy communicating.
And, oh yes, they think internal communications is important, especially during periods of change. Now that really is interesting because I have yet to come across a change process where the employees felt that they had the first clue about what was going on!
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Listening is an important part of any communications process. It means you value the message of the other person and suggests that you may benefit from what they have to say.
Therefore it comes as no surprise that political parties like to use listening campaigns in the lead up to elections. I have advised a number of politicians and governments on listening campaigns over the years, including organising the mailing of a questionnaire to over 2.5 million households, telephone and internet campaigns.
The Labour Party prior to the 1997 general election went on the offensive with a big listening campaign. The Conservative Party did likewise in the run up to last year’s general election, although they did theirs through policy groups.
The latest, and cleverest, example of a listening campaign comes from the overheated political atmosphere in Ireland. As a result of all the economic turmoil last year the Irish government has been pushed into promising an election in the very near future, the likely date is late March.
Fianna Fáil the party of government appears to be in terminal decline (at least for this election) as they drop in the opinion polls; as MP’s choose not to stand again and as calls get louder for a new leader to replace the current leader and Prime Minister (Taoiseach) Brian Cowen.
On the other hand the main opposition party Fine Gael looks upbeat and is doing well in the opinion polls. Cleverly they have chosen to run a very public listening campaign. If you go to http://finegael2011.com/ you will see what I mean.
The website is bright, airy and easy to view. On the right hand side there is a continuous scroll of messages from people who agree to have their comments published.
The site has three sections:
‘What do you think of Ireland’s current problems?’; a perfect opportunity to build up a stockpile of ammunition to fire at the government party come the election.
‘How can we improve the country?’: an opportunity to tell people what they have been telling the party and hence reinforce policy statements in the lead up to and during the election.
‘How can we earn your support?’; an interesting and sneaky approach to building support. Those people that register and say ‘you have my support’ can quickly be recorded as supporters, giving a valuable database once the election has started. Those people who say what Fine Gael needs to do will be bombarded with emails and letters directed at the precise policy area they mentioned in their email.
Most people are bright enough to work out that pre-election listening campaigns have little to do with wanting to find out their views and more to do with grabbing their votes. But at least Fine Gael is doing it in some style.
The Fine Gael approach is an interesting example for others to learn from, both politicians and businesspeople.
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