I also assume that you already know that our organizations’ managements own the communication management process in our organizations.

          I assume that you already know that employee happiness and employee morale can not be improved through better or more communication.

          I assume that you already know that there’s a false belief among too many organizational leaders that “If I tell you (employee) what the strategy is, they will know what to do to make it happen…”

          I assume that you already know that you are not just a pair of hands, with no brain attached.

          And… my last assumption about all of you in this room is that each of you comes from an organization that operates with a documented business plan and that your organization’s documented operating plan is the source of your communication plans and strategies.

If any of those assumptions are not true for you and your organization, strategic communications and your opportunities to develop communication strategies, may be a lost cause.

Organizational leaders who don’t know what they’re trying to get done or achieve, can never ever communicate anything of value with the people who are needed for organizational success.

Desired target audience behaviors
Let me say another way, what I just said. Communicators can not develop communication strategies without understanding identified, desired target audience behaviors.

Who does the identifying of desired target audience behaviors?

We just discussed that our leaders do (are supposed to do) that.

Sometimes they do it overtly and consciously. Sometimes they don’t do it at all.

Sometimes we have to help them identify desired audience behaviors.

If we are to be effective communicators in our organizations, all of us must learn how to help our leaders identify desired target audience behaviors.

How do we do that?

Try this. Every time you are asked to “produce a communication about…” figure out how to ask the owner of the request this question, “So (vice president/manager/supervisor), what we really need everybody to understand about this subject is x and x and x, so that they will do (describe exactly the ‘do’) y and y and y and the organization achieves z and z and z. Right?”

Ladies and gentlemen, helping organizational leaders identify desired behaviors for target audiences is just that simple, and just that difficult until your organizational leaders learn to always connect communication management with “what it looks like.”

0.0 Influence Carrier
(Read that zero-point-zero Influence Carrier.)

I want you to think about communication management and developing executable targeted communication strategies, the same way that epidemiologists deal with outbreaks of deadly diseases among human populations.

Epidemiologists investigate the origins of disease outbreaks in terms of where the outbreak started. They call the original disease carrier “patient zero.”

I want you to anoint yourself “0.0 Ifluence Carrier”

It all starts with you. Infect everybody in your organization with ‘what it looks like’ communications.

As 0.0 Influence Carrier in your organization, your leaders (even it they don’t know it!) need you to create and maintain executable targeted communication strategies that influence, communication strategies that stir targeted audiences to behave in ways that help the organization succeed!

What can you do as 0.0 Influence Carrier?

You can help your managers define a “teachable point of view” (a TPOV).

TPOV is a common term in talking about what are called ‘learning organizations.’ Do your homework on the subject. But basically, the information will tell you that organizations today must be “teaching organizations.”

Everybody in the organization must be “smarter” every day. That happens, the experts say, when all members of the organization are teaching and learning from each other.

From the teachable point-of-view that we help our leaders create, communicators can create communications around each of the 'who we are, where we’re going and how we’re going to get there' elements. These teachable point-of-view communications can carry concrete ideas about the values of the organization and what the organizations need employees to do (what specific employee behaviors will support who the organization is, where it’s going and how it plans to get there.

You vs. The Three-Legged Monster
Let’s talk some more about us, you and me, as organizational communicators and our own usual behaviors on the job.

Question?
How is your mental energy these days?

Mental energy is a popular subject in looking at organizational effectiveness. One theory/belief is that mental energy is increased as one's capability to visualize the future increases.

Developing, maintaining and using an executable communication strategy demands that we continue to increase our capacity to visualize our organization’s future.

Theory also has it that mental energy is continually required to maintain a continually growing mental level.

That means that the creative strategic communication thoughts that you and I have today, morph into automatic, less value-adding strategic communication thoughts tomorrow, unless we continually apply mental energy that extends our thinking capability. Let me show you something that I call The Three-Legged Monster.

Think about your own mental energy. Where would you say that you normally function on a scale that ranged from automatic to transcendental (with transcendental being out there with Einstein)? No answer is required.

Where do you normally function in your level of thought? Do you immediately think strategy or actions? Is your behavior normally one of 'reacting' or acting with 'purpose'?

Do you see the axis of the three legs in the diagram? There’s an invisible Box at that axis. Communicators like to live in The Box.

When challenged by a leader with more power than they, communicators like to jump into the box, flip on their Romulan Cloaking Device and hideout.

Why is that?

'The Box' is a safety zone. We communicators think that we can’t get hurt if we stay in The Box, take orders and stay on automatic for everything that we’re asked to do.

Let me tell you, your Romulan Cloaking Device is not working. They-can-still-see-you.

It is far better to “Burp Your Monster!” Get out of The Box and propose the communication strategies that are needed for what your organization ‘looks like', instead of continuing to produce the non-targeted messages that somebody else orders.

Let me tell you how to 'Burp your Monster.' You ‘Burp Your Monster’ by mentally letting the air out of The Box to the degree that it is really uncomfortable inside The Box.

I asked a communication manager once when I was working with a client here in Kansas City, “Are you still in The Box?”

He replied, “Roland, I think that I’m still in The Box, but I think that my Box is getting bigger!”

That was progress. I think.

The Formula
How do we construct an executable communication strategies that ‘stir’ desired behaviors and do not leave us ‘shaken’ from being denounced by our leaders as ‘those communication people who screwed up the messages?’

First:
Get a copy of the Organization’s or organizational unit’s Business Plan document.

Second:
Determine what the Priorities are in the Business Plan (short and long term). How do you determine what is priority and what is not? Budget allocations. Time allocations. Project leaders names. Talk to the owners of the operating document.

Third:
Analyze how your current communications support/don’t support the priorities identified in the Business Plan (long term and short term).

Fourth:
Define desired behaviors for the operating priorities of the identified target audiences in the operating plan. Remember, you already know the who-we-are, where-we’re going, how-we’re-going-to-get-there information.

Fifth:
Get your personal act in gear. I call that getting yourself in “pitch-perfect” condition. Pitch-perfect means that when you tell a leader in your organization, who has more power than you, why x needs to be communicated and not y, your logic is flawless—pitch-perfect. You already have thought it through. You know why x message supports ‘what your organization will look like’ when it grows up.

Tell me again? Whose “permission” do you need to construct targeted executable communication strategies?

I'll tell you. The answer is nobody’s!

I can hear the clink,clink, clunks in your brain as you sit there and think that you can not develop and execute targeted communication strategies in your organization? Why not?

Don’t you remember that you are zero-point-zero Influence Carrier? Just like Agent 007, James Bond, you’re invincible!

Summary Points
• Bottom-line of the communication process: influenced behavior(s) of a target audience(s). Strategic plans are how we do that.

• Senior management’s role includes defining ‘what it looks like’ for the organization (who we are, where we’re going and how we’ll get there).

• You are 0.0 Influence Carrier and a key factor in helping your leaders establish “the teachable point of view (tpov)” for your organization.

• You vs. The Three-Legged Monster
Is your mental energy on automatic? Get out of The Box. Turn off your Romulan Cloaking Device. It ain’t working!

• Communication Strategy Construction Formula
The Business Plan Document
Priorities in the Business Plan Document
Analyze Current Communications
Define Desired Behaviors
Get Pitch-Perfect
Whose Permission?
Let the air out: “Burp Your Monster!”

A Souvenir
I brought you guys a souvenir. I usually give these to the people in my internal communication consulting seminar. You are welcome to have one. It’s a button that reads: “Burp Your Monster!”

Questions?

Go in peace.

Go to stirrednotshaken Part 1.

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Gavin-Hodges Associates
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Contact: Ms. S.N. Jones, Marketing Associate
snjones@gavinhodges.com
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