I never cease to be stunned when professional communicators explain and announce that their organizational communication job is to "tell something to make sure that somebody knows something."
I hear communicators describe, with great pride, that they "tell employees" or "tell customers" or "tell stockholders."
Gentle ladies and men, let's get clear on something. Organizational communicators are not in the profession of 'telling something to make sure that somebody knows something.'
Wanna know the origins of this "tell" syndrome? Organizational management. The order comes down in this form: "Make sure that you tell everybody that..."
Too often, managements assume that, 'If we tell everybody, everybody will know what to do (to make whatever is needed happen).
Not true! Management's job is not only to formulate organizational direction (the operating plan) but also to identify the behaviors needed from stakeholders groups who are critical to the plan's successful execution.
Our job is to not collude with management's 'tell syndrome.'
Our job is to help management identify needed stakeholder behaviors. Our job is to help our leaders communicate with target audiences so that those audiences take desired actions--actions that our organization needs in order to execute the operating plan. Communicators don't add value by merely taking orders and producing media.
The organizational operating plan is the 'say' side of what the enterprise is trying to get done. A communication strategy, when anchored to and wrapped around the operating plan, becomes the behavior identifications that are critical to the 'do' side of executing the operating plan. The 'say' side is easy. Ah, but the rubber meets the road at the 'do' side.
Gavin-Hodges' public seminar on matching the 'do' with the 'say' is "Planning Communications to Support Organizational Objectives." See the Registration Form.
How do you do your job? Do you help managers identify desired stakeholder behaviors? If not, what are you doing? Why are you doing it? Who asked you to do it? What value do you think is added to your organization by what you do?
The view from here is that we (organizational communicators) are a long way from getting our strategic thinking and counseling skills in gear so that our managements can value what we bring to execution of the operating plan. What do you think?
Feel free to 'tell' me what you think.
Go in peace.
E-mail: Roland L. Draughon
