Revisiting A Disillusioned Director

By J. Dean Spence

In an earlier post, I wrote about the disillusionment I felt working as the Director of Marketing and Communications at a small Toronto-area nonprofit organization. Specifically, It had become obvious to me very quickly that the other directors didn’t have a full appreciation of what strategic communication brings to the table.

I’m sure if you would have asked those directors, they would’ve said that strategic communication is an important organizational function. Their actions, however, suggested that in fact they did not take organizational communication seriously. For example, information I needed to be an effective PR practitioner was being withheld from me. And a Blog Coordinator was hired for my team without my knowledge or input. (Strangely, the Executive Director hired a woman who, although loved to write, didn’t even know what a blog was!)

I had read about this issue before. One particularly good book, Reputation Management: The Key to Successful Public Relations and Corporate Communication by John Doorely and Helio Fred Garcia, suggested that some people in other organizational functions don’t always take the communication department seriously because they feel that anyone can do communication. After all, the authors remind us, we learn to read, write and speak when we are young. So some executives think that anyone can compose a business tweet or blog.

However, strategic communication is not just about writing social media posts, newsletters or delivering speeches. I favour the term “strategic communication” rather than the more familiar “public relations” precisely because my understanding of organizational communication is that it should be aligned with the overall strategy and objectives of an organization.

Indeed, in the book I mentioned above the authors offer some advice to strategic communicators: never, ever talk to key decision makers in your organization about tactics, i.e. how many tweets you’ll post this month, or what you’ll say in a Facebook post next week. Instead talk to decision makers about communication strategies that are linked to the three main communication objectives: communication objectives can be informational (for example, providing information about the organization), attitudinal (for example, seeking some way to change the attitude of the organization’s stakeholders) and behavioural (for example, getting the organization’s stakeholders to do something such as attending an event or purchasing a product).

That’s good advice. My experience as a communication director, however, has made me realize that part of the job involves teaching other key decision makers about what exactly strategic communication brings to the table: not in the sense of having to constantly prove yourself, but rather creating awareness about the value of strong communication.

And there are many benefits of having strong communication, not limited to:

• Communication is a key differentiator. The competition can copy your products and/or services, but it’s much more difficult to copy something like an organization’s communication style. The way a company communicates is distinctively its own and therefore has value.
• According to Doorely and Garcia, strategic communication will save you money in terms of expenditures that would have been used to counter litigation, legislation, regulation and boycotts.
• Good strategic communication is the easiest way to ensure that your organization maintains a good relationship with its stakeholders, and the easiest way to maintain a sense of trust and goodwill between your organization and its stakeholders. Without trust, goodwill and strong relationships, your organization won’t survive
• The Public Relations Association of America states that PR offers “a voice in the marketplace of free ideas,” suggesting that good communication allows your organization to strategically take part in public dialogue.

I left my role as Director of Marketing and Communication because my fellow directors made it a challenge for me to get my work done. I realize now that part of my job should’ve been teaching them exactly what strategic communication brings to the table.