Communicating Strategically

Most managers are concerned about conducting appropriate strategies, but only a few recognize the importance of connecting their company’s strategies to its communications. In this posting, I would like to discuss communication theories and how these theories can be used to set up successful communication strategies.

Communication Theory
Aristotle’s major work “The Art of Rhetoric” is the root of modern communication theory. According to Aristotle, in every speech a speaker (source) sends the “subject of which he treats” (message) to a hearer (constituency). These three components of speeches are interrelated so that a communication process is never linear, but rather circular.
By applying this concept, organizations can create a coherent communication strategy.

Developing Corporate Communication Strategies
Four steps have to be made to develop a sound corporate communication strategy:
1) Setting an effective organization strategy
2) Analyzing constituencies
3) Delivering messages appropriately
4) Evaluation of constituency responses

1) Setting an Effective Organization Strategy
First of all, managers should determine their organization’s objectives regarding communication in order to get an idea what could be a sound strategy. Possible responses from the constituency are the basis for defining an objective. It is important that the organization’s managers know how they want to influence the constituency through their communication. In order to gain that knowledge, managers should diagnose their company’s reputation and image. They have to notice that image is based on the constituency’s perception of the company and that this perception can differ from the reality.
Additionally, managers should base their decision on what resources are available within the organization. These resources are for example money, human resources, and time. Managers should take into account short-term cost as well as long-term costs. Furthermore, they should assure that sufficient human resources and time are allocated to achieve the company’s goals and avoid the kind of mistake many organizations make: they underestimate the required resources needed for successful communication.

2) Analyzing Constituencies
Communication managers should determine their organization’s constituencies. Often, this is an easy task, since the constituencies are obvious; however, sometimes, managers cannot clearly recognize all constituencies or important interrelations between them. These relationships have to be considered in order to set sound strategies. It is possible that an organization has to work through one constituency to reach another. Employees, for example, can be used as “brand ambassadors” to reach customers.
In order to assess what methods can be applied to reach the organization’s objectives, managers should take into account what the constituency’s attitude toward the organization is. Whether an organization has created a good reputation with its constituencies or a bad one, determines the methods of communication it has to apply.
Furthermore, a communication team should gain an understanding about what constituencies already know about the topic and how they feel about it.

3) Delivering Message Appropriately
In order to deliver a message appropriately, an organization has to determine what communication channel (press release, e-mail, memo, posting on company’s intranet, speech) to choose and what approach to take in structuring the message itself.
The most effective structures of messages are direct and indirect structured messages. Direct structure means revealing the main point first, and then explaining why; the indirect structure means explaining why first, then revealing your main point.
As experience shows, organizations should structure their messages as direct as possible because indirect communication is confusing and harder to understand.
Another possible message structure is communicating without having any message. However, since consumers are becoming more sensitive regarding communication, this structure cannot be recommended.

4) Constituency Responses
After the constituency received the message, an organization should analyze the constituency’s responses to assess whether the communication had the desired result. Since the received feedback is the basis for a reaction of the organization, communication is a circular process, which connects the organization, the message, the constituency, and the constituency’s responses. That is the nature of the corporation communication strategy framework.

Class Discussion (01/17/08)
In class, we talked about the term strategy. We stated that strategy has long range nature and that it is closely related to setting goals. In order to successfully implement a strategy, it is important that an organization defines long-term objectives. These long-term objectives can be written in a mission or vision statement. This mission statement should be communicated to all individuals within an organization. Professor Linda Szul asked us whether we know where the mission statement of the Eberly College can be found. Most students did not know the place before.

Personal Experiences/Examples
3 years ago, the German bank “Deutsche Bank” made a great strategic communication mistake. When the bank published its annual report the bank’s managers could be proud of what they reached: historical record profits. Simultaneously with the historical results the bank announced that it decided to cut a lot of jobs. The managers of the “Deutsche Bank” argued that this would be a necessary measure in order to remain succeeding in the difficult environment of global competition.
Perhaps, this reasoning was right, but it was communicated disastrously. The public could not believe that a corporation that make record profits need to cut so many jobs. Thus, the reputation of the bank suffered from the simultaneous announcement of job cuts and record profits.
An example of positive strategic communication is Starbucks Coffee. Starbucks has effectively communicated its fair-trade program, which ensures farmers in South America a fair and stable income (see: http://www.starbucks.com/aboutus/StarbucksAndFairTrade.pdf ). This fair-trade agreement enhanced Starbucks image and may have convinced many customers to choose Starbucks coffee rather than other company’s coffee. This is the result of a well organized campaign, which does not merely help poor farmers in South America; but it is also one reason for Starbucks' staggering success.


Links:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m4422/is_n8_v15/ai_21244391

http://www.gse.harvard.edu/hfrp/eval/issue16/sparks.html

http://www.e911.com/monos/A001.html

http://www.cbd.int/cepa/toolkit/html/resources/34/34404DBC-7BBF-48CA-BFCA-1F5A3BBD906D/Section%204%20_final_.pdf

http://mpimeetdifferent.com/CMS/mpiweb/mpicontent.aspx?id=2308

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m4422/is_4_21/ai_n14710024