Communication is a difficult thing sometimes. More than ever
there are changes in the way we communicate. This is why Strategic
Communication is so important. We must be intentional in how we communicate.
This is true for us as individuals, for businesses, and for any organizations.
However, I think that, when measuring the success of our communication and
planning for future communication campaigns it is important to remember one
thing: have fun. I do not mean do not take things seriously but there should be
a certain amount of enjoyment in the communication process. I am a well-documented
nerd and because of this I follow Wil Wheaton, who I have written about a
couple of times, on Twitter. I was reading his blog one day in which he posted
about why he was a user of Twitter and the thing that most stood out to me was
that he used it because he enjoyed it. He had fun with it. Because of him being
who he is, he naturally had quite a few followers but as time has gone on he
has grown to over two million followers. On social media Wheaton has become
huge because he writes and communicates about that which he is passionate
about.
I write that not to encourage people to only focus on the
fun parts of communication because there are certainly times that communication
is not fun. Crisis communication is a response to stimuli that are very much
not fun. I do believe that we should take joy in the process of communication
though. It is a complex thing that is just getting more complex and we get to
participate in it. As strategic communication professionals we get to lead in
it. This is really something that I think we should take pride in. No, our
leadership will not always work out and some campaigns will fail. But
communication will still take place and we should hold on to that idea and
strive to get better at it.
A few weeks ago I posted a link to a TED talk by Benjamin
Zander in which he talked about classical music and why everyone should love
it. One of the points he made was that, as a person gets more experienced with
music they tend focus on longer musical phrases. He stated that when you first
start you focus on every beat, then every two, then every measure, and then
every phrase and, finally, you get to the point where you start the music with
the end in mind. It is not that you focus just on the instant when you end or
the end results but you focus on the piece of music as a whole. It is the whole
adventure, the totality of your experiences from start to finish that you must
focus on. As a strategic communicator, this is also how you should measure the
success or failure of any particular campaign. The approach taken should be a
holistic approach to the change that you wished to be implemented. This means
that there cannot be a focus on just product advancement and there cannot be a
focus on culture change but all of it must be taken into account.
As I have written, I am a Youth Director at a church and
churches tend to be not much different when it comes to focusing on the bottom
line. Yes, for us we focus on how many people are “saved” or how many have
joined the church. Or we may focus on a particularly popular program because “so
many people seem to like it!” These, in and of themselves are not bad things
but I got a glimpse of what I would call a success in the fullest sense of the
word. I had put on my Facebook that I had a career opportunity and one of my
youth responded telling me that she did not want me to leave. This was not the
success but it did make me feel good. I assured her that I was not leaving but
just expanding my horizons and what she responded with made me realize that I,
to at least some degree have been a success as a youth director. She wrote “Don't
leave me it's senior year!But
follow what God tells you to do. I'm pretty sure you taught me that he is more
important than I am anyway. Praying for your decision.
“ This student, who is a Christian, is saved, comes to most events and is in
just about every tangible way a success made me realize that there was more to
success than just those things. Somehow, as her leader, I had imparted on her a
willingness to be self-sacrificial to the will of God even if it means not
getting what she wants.
In the book, Manager’s
Guide to Excellence in Public Communication Management, in the very first
chapter there is a link between excellence at an organization and the culture
that is established. In a culture that is more open and less authoritarian,
communication tends to expand. With this come the benefits of good
communication. This includes, but is not limited to, a feeling, both internally
and externally, of inclusion. This feeling helps with feedback and feedback can
lead to an increase in the bottom line for an organization. Feedback is an
important way to be able to measure the success or failure of a communication campaign.
If you create that culture where communication is encouraged you help develop
relationships. These relationships are important for organizations. The way to
measure these relationships, according to article Organizational Blogs and the Human Voice: Relational Strategies and
Relational Outcomes there are three things to be measure as it pertains to
relationships. These are antecedents, maintenance processes, and outcomes. The
second measure, maintenance processes focuses on how organizations maintain the
relationships that they have built and this, too, helps stress the importance
of a culture that exemplifies communicational excellence. Granted, the article
is about using blogs to maintain those relationships but I think that would
just be a strong indication that a company or organization was serious about
the results they were after.
As it pertains to results, when measuring them it pays to be
careful. In his TED talk, Why we make bad
decisions, Dan Gilbert talks about our perception when it comes to making
decisions about what will make us happy and how, often we choose incorrectly.
This is pertinent because when measuring the success of a program, one must be
aware of all facets of the campaign and the actual contributions to the
organization. It is our job as strategic communicators to convince and show our
CEOs and managers the actual benefits of excellent communication. I did not
completely agree with Mr. Gilbert’s entire outlook because he was viewing happiness
as a formula that was simply if we get more out of something than we put in, we
will be happy. If you watch the video all the way to the end, someone from the
audience makes the point that happiness is not always about getting more out of
an activity. Sometimes it is just the activity that gives us pleasure. This resonated
with me but it also pointed out the fact that sometimes we have to be careful
how we judge success.
There are ways to judge success. As I pointed out, we should
really look at the “big picture.” This is because if we do not then we are
likely to miss out on a true success story for us and our organizations. Also,
it is our job to convince, not only our bosses, but everyone in the
organization that communication has to be two way. Communication has to be the
goal and the measure of that communication can be done several ways. I believe
the largest measure is in the culture of the organization but there are also
more tangible ways to measure as well. However an organization decides to
measure success it should always be on the lookout for improvements that need
to be made because, unfortunately, there are no sure fire ways to guarantee any
sort of success.
There is a statement that familiarity breeds contempt. Yet,
in the marketing industry it would seem that companies should actually try to
increase familiarity. Up to this point brands have tried to obtain that
familiarity with repetition of their brand or their message. There is a quote
that is attributed to Oscar Wilde that states that the only thing worse than
being talked about is not being talked about. This was sort of the precursor to
the idea that there is no such thing as bad publicity. The idea is that you
want your name to be talked about, good or bad, because it was the repetition or
continued recognition of your brand that accomplished the goal of selling your
goods. At least that is the end result. Good marketers are actually trying to
sell more than goods; they are actually trying to sell ideas. By that I mean
that through the reduction of uncertainty they are trying to get people to
accept them and their goods or services. In Mediating
the Message: Theories of Influence on Mass Media Content, Shoemaker and
Reese make the point that from an ideological perspective, “programs encourage
a feeling of social stability resistant to substantial social change.” This
means that the longer something runs (in this case it was television shows) the
more comfortable people get with it. Think about the most well-known brand in
the world, Coca Cola. In the 80’s they
tried to change their brand and there was a huge backlash against them. People
had been drinking coke for years and they were not happy with this change. The
backlash was so fierce that, after only a short time, the Coca Cola Company
returned to their previous brand with only one exception, they added the word
Classic. This helped to signify to their customers that they understood that
they were comfortable with what they had always known.
There is a theory that proposes an inverted U relationship
between familiarity and liking. Under this premise, it states that, initially,
there is a positive relationship between reduction of uncertainty and liking.
This means that when a company starts out, they need to reduce the uncertainty
about themselves as quickly as possible. However, it seems that the theory
agrees with the idea that familiarity breeds contempt because it states that
eventually what endeared the company to the public will eventually become the
reason that the public comes to dislike the company (or person). I can think of
no better example than that of Tim Tebow. Tebow started his college career with
the University of Florida. During his time there he was a part of two teams
that won national championships and participated in three conference
championships. While at Florida, Tebow had become a national favorite. Part of
the reason for that favor was that he was devout in his faith and expressed
that faith on the field. However, as time wore on people became less enamored with
his expressions of faith (also called “Tebowing”) and, as such; they also
started to criticize his play on the field. The interesting thing about this is
that, while he was with the Denver Broncos, Tebow had an impressive win/loss
record and routinely outplayed opposing quarterbacks (Bryne, 2011). Yet,
because of his controversial nature and people’s dislike of him, this was often
ignored and his image suffered because of it.
At a point in time a company no longer has to be a proponent
of who they are. By this I mean that they no longer have to try to convince
people of what they stand for. This is where actions of the company speak for
the company as well as where the idea of transparency comes into effect. Some
of the most successful companies are transparent but they no longer have to be
a cheerleader for their values. Their values are shown in how they act. In
regard to the Tebow example, there was another football player named Reggie
White. Reggie was a defensive player for the Green Bay Packers but he was also
a preacher. Reggie never garnered the negative attention that Tebow did
because, even though everyone knew that he was Christian, he no got to a point
that he did not have to continue to do things to prove it such as tebowing.
There was an interview after the death of Reggie where former Dallas Cowboys
wide receiver, Michael Irving, who had a questionable past, said that even
though you knew that Reggie was a Christian you never disliked talking to him
or resented him for his faith. This was because whenever Reggie would talk to
Irving, he would not talk to him about what he had been doing wrong or ask him
about his faith but he talked to him about his personal life. The focus shifted
from Reggie to Irving. Reggie was transparent in that there was never a
question about his faith but he reached the point where he did not have to talk
about it because his actions showed it.
This is a great example of what Morgan Spurlock was talking
about in his TED talk about marketing. In it he talks about the culture that is
required in order to make a company successful. He made the point that the
companies that were willing to take chances and were willing to lose a little
bit of control were most successful. My favorite quote from his talk was “When
you train your employees to be risk averse, then you’re preparing your whole
company to be reward challenged.” So a company should be willing to take risk.
It is true that when a company first starts, they should hold to their values
because it helps give them and their customers comfort. They should remain
transparent but allow their work to signify their values because if they
continue to try to get people to know who they are, they run the risk of
chasing people away. Finally, they must not be risk adverse because it is
through risk that they grow.
