The Importance Of A Communication Plan: Communicate, Communicate, Communicate!

The last step of the Synthesis Phase of the VBP process is Step 11: Develop a Communication Plan. Whether this is accomplished as part of the overall VBP, as discussed in the last article, or whether it is developed separately, the purpose for it is the same. This article discusses what a communications plan needs to impart.

Editor’s Note: See Christine’s entire Series HERE

“The problem with communication is the illusion that it has occurred.”

~George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright and essayist

We communicate to inform, persuade, and influence people; to share ideas; to find out about things and people; and to socialize. And, most important from an organization’s perspective, we also communicate to help change the organization’s culture. This aspect of changing cultures is discussed separately in a subsequent article.

In this context, people need to know about the organization and its 6 W’s+H — — What? Why? Where? When? Who? Who else? How? They need to be clear about what the organization is and does, how that might affect them, and what they might need to do with or for the organization. So the communications plan needs to be targeted to stakeholders both within and outside the organization.

There have been a number of studies recently that suggest that organization leadership is not doing a very good job of communicating with its stakeholders and employees. We hear a lot about the public’s hostility to big business and Wall Street. But the problem is generally not hostility; it is a lack of understanding of what corporations (or government agencies or other large entities) are about. And it’s not just outside the organization where there is lack of understanding; it’s also within. There have been many studies showing that employees do not understand what their company does. The latter case is a failure of leadership — a failure of its ability to communicate. As specific examples, data from 2013 TINYpulse Employee Engagement Survey indicated that only 42 percent of employees knew their organization’s Vision, Mission, and Values. A recent survey for i4cp’s annual Critical Human Capital Issues study indicated that 46 percent of high-performing companies and 83 percent of poor performing companies are not regularly communicating goal progress to their employees.

While a new Vision, Mission, Values, and Strategic Plan (VMVSP) must be communicated as quickly as possible, while the leadership is still fired up with enthusiasm, there are many other things to be communicated. Communicating to all stakeholders is an ongoing process — telling them good news as well as bad.

Good communication has many benefits, from improving morale, productivity, recruitment and retention of employees, to positive investor relations, general public support, government support, and better community relations.

Strategies to Win Acceptance by Internal Stakeholders

A Communications Plan is needed to share the VMVSP with the whole organization, affirming the support of the top leadership and infusing everyone with the passion generated by the leadership. This can sometimes be a daunting task, depending on the size of the organization and the receptivity of its employees.

An organization-wide presentation is often the best approach, with the leadership making presentations to the headquarters’ staff and others. The presentations should be captured on video and distributed to all parts of the organization. Rather than expecting people to look at it of their own volition, a member of the leadership should be there to explain what it means to the middle managers and other employees in terms they understand and are meaningful to them.

We have frequently found that middle managers are the most difficult people to convince. They’ve been in the organization long enough to say, “Been there, done that, many times before.” They are often concerned that the new strategic plan will mean more work for them, because that has been the case in the past, and with no increase in salary or opportunities for advancement.

So the presentation of the VMVSP to the middle managers needs to incorporate honest assessments of what this will mean for them. What extra work will they be required to do? What might they be able to drop because of this new plan? But the key to their acceptance is to ask them what contributions (beyond the work that is required) they could make to achieve this plan and to find some means of rewarding them when they do so.

CONTINUE TO NEXT PAGE BELOW

Presentations to the workforce should have a similar tone and objective. However, in this case, it is often very useful to speak to first-line supervisors and workers directly, and ask them to identify what they can to do to help achieve the new vision, mission, and goals, and to reward the teams for good ideas that are used by the organization.

In all cases, we need to think about the people to whom we are communicating. What do they know? What do they think they know? What do you think they know that is wrong? What do they believe? Without wishing to be condescending, we need to ensure we are using language and terminology they will understand. An understanding of their values (and your own) is often useful.[1] We’ll cover this in a later article. The words used should be related to their values and interests. For instance, people with values at the lower end of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs tend to talk about family, home, and the desire for security. Those in the middle are more concerned with making money and gaining status and power, and those at the top end of Maslow’s hierarchy prefer to talk about ideas.

Using the three methods of communication derived from Neuro-Linguistic Programming[2] — visual, auditory and kinesthetic — can also make a difference in the number of people who relate to what is being said. Visual people (the smallest group in the population) use and relate to visual words and cues (picture, sight, future), so when speaking with them they will resonate with comments such as: “Look how well your daughter is doing in school, she’s smart and bright and clearly destined for big things!” Auditory people relate to auditory words (sound, loud, story), for instance: “I hear that your son is a great communicator and story-teller, and has a wonderful speaking voice.” And kinesthetic types relate to words such as feeling, touching, sensing — “How did that presentation grab you? It was so lively and uplifting!” The use of all these types of words in a speech or written communication ensures that the message resonates with more people.

Communicating the VMVSP to External Stakeholders

Communicating to external stakeholders is a form of diplomacy. An organization needs good relationships with the general public, shareholders, Wall Street, suppliers, customers, unions (if appropriate), and many more.

A new VMVSP needs to be communicated to external stakeholders just as quickly as to the workforce. They want to know what it will mean for the organization and its performance, and what it will mean for them.

One commercial client in the pulp-and-paper industry had a very difficult set of stakeholders, including a trade union, the government (in the form of policy constraints on both workforce and overseas customers), environmentalists, and some difficult and demanding clients. Once they had developed their VMVSP, they had to interpret it very carefully to their workforce and the different sets of stakeholders. This meant keeping the same words and sense as the VMVSP, but interpreting it in ways that made sense to each stakeholder. This required some very careful and sophisticated communications so people did not think they were telling different versions to different people. They had to be seen as honest and authentic. This was a difficult task, but they succeeded.

International/multinational organizations will obviously need to communicate with their foreign operations and stakeholders. This requires not merely translations of words but of concepts and meaning. Misinterpretations can be a major source of misunderstandings.

However, communications with external stakeholders also need to be ongoing. They frequently cover such topics as product and service quality, concern for both the consumers and workforce, financial strength, growth rate, breadth and depth of offerings, concern about the environment, and so on. If carried out well, communications can be part of a risk-management strategy and very effective in assisting with sales, recruitment, reputation, and more. But if done poorly, it can contribute to disasters.

A word of caution: New forms of social media are revolutionizing the way organizations interact with their stakeholders and vice versa. Make one misstep, one appearance of something being covered up, and the message will travel around the world in seconds. This may be a good thing, since it is ultimately likely to make organizations more honest and authentic, but until companies develop a greater understanding of what good communication requires, there may be problems and even crises. Being aware of what people are saying about your organization is a necessity, and having some prepared responses to crises will be very useful. Many large organizations already have public relations or strategic communications agencies collecting data on what is being said or written about the organization on a worldwide basis, and some conduct surveys of customers and other stakeholders. These agencies can also provide crisis communications, and they are experts at using social media. Some organizations have internal departments that do all that. Provided the people in those departments are experts in social media and keep up with the latest developments, internal departments have the added advantage that they are there on the spot, aware of what is going on, and therefore able to respond immediately. Regardless, this is a function that is increasing in importance and needs to be included in an organization’s capabilities.

Key Points from this Article

• Communicating your VBP to all your stakeholders is a critical and often overlooked part of your plan.
• Your internal stakeholders — employees — are more likely to work well if they know what the organization is about: its vision, mission and values.
• Your external stakeholders are likely to provide better service if they know how they fit in and what is expected of them.
• And clearly, you must communicate effectively with your shareholders in order to maintain their trust.
• The same, overall message needs to be communicated in ways that make sense to each different stakeholder, without compromising or diluting the real message.
• You need to be prepared to deal with negative messages that can be spread like wildfire through social media.

[1] Chris Rose, What Makes People Tick, Matador, UK, 2011.

[2] Lewis & Pucelik, The Magic of NLP Demystified, 2d Ed., Crown House Publishing, UK, 2012

Editor’s Note: This Article is excerpted from Strategy with Passion: A Leader’s Guide to Exploiting the Future by MacNulty & Woodall

[su_button url=”http://bizcatalyst360.tradepub.com/?pt=main&page=home.ebookspg" target=”blank” style=”glass” background=”#155700" color=”#ffffff” size=”1" wide=”yes” center=”yes” radius=”5" icon=”icon: briefcase” icon_color=”#ffffff”]CLICK HERE TO LEARN SOMETHING NEW TODAY! [/su_button]