The transition from "a pair of
hands"
to strategist-technician
IABC International Conference
9:30
- 10:45 a.m.
Hyatt Regency Hotel
Chicago,
Illinois
Presenter:
Roland L.
Draughon
Consultant - Internal
Communication
Gavin-Hodges Associates
An audio tape of this entire presentation, including the question and answer segment after the presentation, is available from Convention Cassettes Unlimited at (800)776-5454.
Draughon ranked #1
among IABC Chicago Conference speakers
Part 1 of 3
In 1854, Henry David Thoreau wrote a letter
to a friend and said: The monster is never
where we think he is.
We'll come back to Hank--and some of the
other stuff he had to say--a little bit later.
I hope that each of you has had a very good,
exciting conference this week. I hope that
you've attended some inspiring sessions, gotten
re-charged, learned new stuff and re-thought
some of the old stuff.
However, ladies and gentlemen, none of what
you have experienced this week will make any
difference to you, or to your organization, if
you go back home and climb back into "the
invisible box." I'll explain the invisible box
in a few minutes.
What it takes to transition
This
morning, we're going to talk about what it takes
to make the transition from being merely "a pair
of organizational hands" (whose only purpose is
to produce media)--to a communication
strategist-technician who adds strategic,
creative, purposeful organizational value.
Let me state the obvious: Strategic means
thinking. We must learn to think, not just
take orders.
Whether or not you want to be an
organizational communication
strategist-technician-consultant, that is what
you are--if you're a communicator in your
organization. Either that's what you are-or
that's what you must become. Otherwise, you're
"a pair of hands" that your organization can get
along without.
Your organization can hire somebody off the
street to be the pair of hands that many of us
believe makes us so special and indispensable.
Pairs of hands are less than a dime a dozen on
the street.
Get passionate about your job!
I
hope that you are, or that you will become,
passionate about your job as the internal or
external communication process expert in
your organization. If you can not get passionate
about the communication process in your
organization, I really think that you need to do
something else for a living.
Communicators who are not passionate about
what they do in their organizations,
communicators who hide out in the invisible box,
play it safe and follow orders, create corporate
gorillas for the rest of us and live their lives
making no sound, no fury, doing nothing.
Rope and ride the career monster
A
couple of decades back, an organizational
development guru named Charles Krone said that
an organization's success depends on: (1)
improving the quality of thinking of an
organization's members; (2) improving
individuals' thinking; and (3) better blending
the thoughts of organizational members as they
focus common principles on a common purpose.
Krone, not unlike Dr. Frankenstein, created
what we will refer to today as "the three-legged
monster."
But 20 years ago, when all this was commonly
discussed in your organization and mine,
somebody forgot to include organizational
communicators in learning and using Krone's
maxims.
Has anybody on your job told you to
upgrade your thinking about
communication's role in organizational
management?
Why did they forget us? They forgot the
communicators because we were/and are still very
much viewed as technicians, not strategist. What
impact, they reasoned, can communicators have on
an organization's effectiveness?
Upgrading our value, and our
contribution to organizational success, is
our personal responsibility.
Your monster tags along
Do you know
that your personal career monster goes
everywhere with you? Every morning when you
leave home for work, your three-legged monster
tags along.
Every organizational meeting and interaction
that you experience during your work day finds
your three-legged monster perched in the corner
of the room either applauding the really
well-thought out comments that you've just made, or
snickering with derision at what you've just
said--or has been too chicken to say.
Every idea, action and accomplishment branded
into your on-the-job record are products of how
well-disciplined and obedient you've made your
three-legged career monster.
The Question
Earlier this spring, I
led a session for IABC in Washington, DC. The
session was designed for senior communicators.
So, I opened the session with a question to the
group. I thought the question would get a quick
answer. What I heard surprised me. Here's the
question that I asked: ^Top