Strategic Communication- Leadership Through Vision, Culture, and Communication

Leadership is about others. This statement largely exemplifies the ideas about leadership that are garnering attention today. In the opening of his Google talk, Jerry Porras stated that there was an overabundance of literature on leadership today. Yet, we still study it and read about it and talk about it. For as much as we study leadership, we are still learning. We are finding that there are commonalities among our most effective leaders and we try to replicate or at least focus on those leaders. This leads to the question, “what do all those leaders have in common?” There are certain things those leaders do but, according to Benjamin Zander in his TED talk, “the one characteristic of a leader is that there is no doubt in his mind the capacity of the people he is leading to realize his vision.” This is just a mirror of my first statement that leadership is about others. Real leaders and good leaders look to their followers and feel that they have the responsibility of helping them to realize their potential. Doug Fields, one of the foremost authorities on church youth leadership called it “Spotlight Leadership.” It was leadership where the leader was not threatened when his/her followers did well but celebrated their accomplishments. In a paper written for the United States Army about strategic communication and leadership author Rebecca Wriggle focuses on three areas of leadership. These areas are vision, culture, and communication.

Benjamin Zander's TED talk

Vision

Zander also said that, “to get to the end we cannot think about each individual note, we must think about the whole piece.” This makes reference to the fact that the leaders must have long term vision. In several articles about leadership and vision one of the most repeated things was the statement that leaders with vision start something with the end in mind. With respect to Mr. Zander’s statements it is important that there be some boundaries given in a vision so that the followers know the ultimate goal. In a Forbes article, John Ryan wrote that:

 “Great leaders give real thought to the values, ideas and activities they’re most passionate about–and those are the things they pursue, rather than money or prestige or options forced on them by someone else. The visions these leaders have can be–and, in fact, should be–challenging to put into action. They realize them only by setting realistic, demanding goals and then going after them relentlessly, with the help of other talented men and women who are equally committed and engaged.”

 This indicates that leaders should set the vision but set it high. Not only should they set the vision high but they should set the vision somewhere where their followers want to go. Zander also stated in his talk that “we all know where home is.” A leader’s responsibility is to help get their followers to what feels like “home.” By this I do not mean that the follower has total control over where an organization goes, as stated above, vision does come from the leader and sometimes that means taking hard stances. But, at the end of whatever journey a leader and follower go on together they must, at the end, find themselves in a place of comfort and growth. This is what I refer to as home. The vision starts at the beginning of the journey and is realized throughout the process of traveling.

Culture

The second area that Wriggle focused on in her paper is creating a culture that enables the vision to become reality. The culture is what allows for the final destination of any organization to be reached. This is something that Zander referred to in his talk. He stated that “the conductor’s power depends upon the power to make other people powerful.” In essence it is a leader’s job to enable their followers to do the work that they need to do. A leader must help the followers do that work in the strongest way possible. This helps to create a culture that will buy into the vision of a leader.

Further, Zander stated that leaders should ask the question, “Who am I being that my children’s eyes are not shining?” This leads to the second aspect of a leader that helps create the culture needed to fulfill the vision. This aspect of a leader is that the leader must be willing to give up their own wants in order to bring out the possibilities of their followers. I was at the Orange Conference which is a conference for church leadership and Pastor Andy Stanley put it this way, he said that, “I am willing to be wrong if it means that someone else is made to feel important.” From a strategic communication standpoint it goes back to the idea that leaders of organization must be willing to lose a little control if it means that the ultimate goal is met. This happens when a leader allows their followers to help define the vision of their organization. In an article for the Harvard Business Review authors, James Kouzes and Barry Posner state that “constituents want visions of the future that reflect their own aspirations. They want to hear how their dreams will come true and their hopes will be fulfilled.” This idea goes back to the idea of the Golden Circle that I mentioned in my blog on Opinion Leadership. The one thing that all opinion leaders did was communicate in a way that answered the question Why? for people. It was a focus on values and interests that lead the way with communication and this focus will help to create the culture needed to accomplish the long term goals set forth in an organization.

Communication

Communication is the final aspect that all true leaders share. It is not just regular communication though; leaders with a vision and that have created a culture for that vision to flourish must communicat strategically. Strategic communication is defined as a “strategy for communicating. It recognizes that information can transform attitudes, beliefs and behaviors, and is a potent force for achieving strategic ends(Wriggle, 2006).” Strategic communication is further defined as “effects-based and begins with the end in mind (Wriggle, 2006).” This means that any communication that a leader gives must mention the goal. A leader should also include the fact that it is a goal that is shared by the people of the organization because it was a goal that was made by those very same people. Every communication sent out to anyone who has an interest in the company should make mention of the vision and the culture. This helps both outsiders and insiders know what the company is about and where it stands as it pertains to the goal. If a leader has implemented the first two aspects of vision and culture then it becomes much easier to communicate because the leader knows what needs to be done to accomplish the vision. A leader must also remember that communication is a two way process and should allow for feedback. This, again, will be made easier if the leader has focused on creating a culture that enables the vision to be accomplished because the lines of communication necessary to create that culture are the very ones that should be open for feedback.

All of these considerations shows that being an effective leader requires the leader to focus on the followers first.

Forbes Article
http://www.forbes.com/2009/07/29/personal-success-vision-leadership-managing-ccl.html

Harvard Business Review
http://hbr.org/2009/01/to-lead-create-a-shared-vision/ar/1

Wriggle, R. (2006) STRATEGIC LEADER AS STRATEGIC COMMUNICATOR. U.S. Army War College,Carlisle Barracks,Carlisle,PA,17013-5050. 

Strategic Communication- Leadership, organizations, and communication structures

“ The first executive function is to develop and maintain a system of communication ”- Chester Barnard

Every business or organization has something that drives them or there is a reason for the organizations existence. For example, the reason for the existence of the company Amazon.com is to sell things. However, Barnard would say, and studies have supported this view on things, the actual primary responsibility of an organization is a function of communication. A business should primarily be concerned with communicating to its internal and external publics. Without this concern there is a possibility, perhaps even a likelihood, that the lack of a communication plan will lead to problems for the organization. Because of this the leaders in an organization must form a communication structure within the organization that encourages openness and fosters the ability for every person in an organization to feel as though communication is not wasted.

In a TED talk, Gen. Stanley McChrystal said that, "leaders can allow you to fail without allowing you to be a failure." This is a good rule for an organization that wishes to succeed to live by. We are now seeing the results of a new brand of leadership that is moving away from an authoritarian structure to a more relational form of leadership. The interesting thing about the desire for this new way of leadership is that it is not really that new. At least not in the way of one on one teaching and allowing for possible failures. There once was something that was called an apprentice that many tradesmen used in order to pass down the knowledge of their craft. There are still a few jobs that use apprentices such as an electrician or a plumber (or even a Donald Trump but I do not believe that he was using it in the same way). These masters would teach their students the basics of the trade and allow the apprentice to work for them. The difference between that time and what I would suggest to be a good way of leadership is that these apprenticeships tended to be authoritarian by nature.

In another TED talk, Drew Dudley spoke about everyday leadership. He asserted that everyone can be a leader. He said that we need to have what he called the lollipop moment and not focus on earth changing aspect of leadership so that we stop making excuses to not lead. By this he meant that leaders should focus on enabling others to try out their steps in leadership. The way to do this is with open communication. He used humor to comfort a girl who must have been visibly shaken and nervous but companies should do this by focusing on open communication.

He starts his talk by asking the crowd how many are comfortable calling themselves leaders. So, if an organization is trying to have open communication to foster new leaders so that it affects growth of that organization in a positive way, many people would question where they should start. To a company, communication should be the primary focus. Focus is a good word to start with because the first thing a company should do is to clarify its goal for both the employees and stakeholders. When I was in High School, I was a member of my choir. Our choir director always stated how winning whatever competitions we went to. His goal was that we were a positive influence to the other choirs that were at the competition. This was adopted by the choir and whenever we went to a competition, we would win awards for being the most spirited, friendly choir at the show. We also did well at the competition but that was a side effect of a clear goal.

The second consideration that an organization must make is how much red tape is involved in the communication process. Every business must have certain organizational processes that are in place but it is better for two way communication (which is what communication really is anyways) if red tape is lessened as much as possible. That way an organization can focus on interpersonal communication. This does not mean that a company has to ask every employee intimate questions but it is important that members of an organization feel as though they are a vital part of the organization. They must take ownership in the organization. Jack Dorsey, founder of Twitter, had a good way to encourage open communication and cut out red tape with organizational communication. Meetings at Twitter were all stand up meetings (no one sat in seats) and in an open area. He said this helped the serendipitous nature of the business. Twitter is one of the fastest growing businesses in the world.

The third consideration is the size of a business. The larger an organization, the harder it is to make sure that everyone gets the message. Something that was pointed out in an article on organizational performance is that  while large organizations have a difficulty due to size they have an advantage over smaller organizations because they tend to have resources that smaller organizations do not. Because of this, my suggestion if there is a large organization is to break down the larger organization into smaller parts. This helps communication. Andy Stanley is the pastor at North Point Community Church which is one of the largest churches in the Atlanta area. He attributed their growth and the continued connection that people were able to find at the church to their small groups. He stated that the church was "small group crazy." Breaking a larger organization down into smaller groups helps to combat the weakness of both large and small organizations. It does this because Stanley, instead of having to rely on communicating with the whole congregation (which he still does) he is able to give his vision to a smaller group of people who then take it to the larger group. It allows mass communication with a face to face feel.

If an organization takes these three things into consideration when planning its communication style, it should help to cut down on a lot of unnecessary issues that would have come up otherwise. It is important to have a plan with your communication because communication should be the first consideration of an organization.

Strategic Communication- Viral Videos, Just What The Doctor Ordered?

Most people that you know use some form of social media. Or if you do not personally use social media, you have encountered it in some way, shape, or form. You have read a news report that mentioned someone's Twitter (or tweet as the case probably is) or you talked to a friend who told you some amazing bit of news and you asked them how they found that out and they responded, "It was on Facebook." The culture of social media and the way that things are share online today has led many businesses and organizations to wish for just one thing, a video or tweet or Facebook update or Instagram photo, of theirs to go "viral."  That leads to the question of what is the definition of a viral video.

According to an article on socialtimes.com, Internet celebrity (they called him a weblebrity which should lead to the discussion of how the internet is changing communication by creating new words and definitions but I will leave that for another time), Kevin Nalty, stated that a video has gone viral if it gets 5 million views in a 3-5 day period. That is not all though. The article notes that just having a large number of views does not constitute a viral video. There are some other measures that must happen in order for something to be considered viral. The other three things that are necessary are; buzz, parody, and longevity. Buzz is the idea that everyone is talking about the video, parody constitutes that others are copying the content and longevity is the idea that a video is still popular years later.

With all of this it is not surprising that companies would want something of theirs to go viral. If a video goes viral they get a huge amount of exposure for their product or idea and people everywhere are talking about them. However, if a viral video is so important then it would make sense that companies would spend a huge amount of time and money trying to make one video that would go viral. Companies like Hubspot that deal with social media strategies would encourage time spent on trying to make a video go viral. However, Hubspot wrote a guide for leveraging social media and there was no mention of trying to specifically try to force something to go viral. Instead, they laid out a plain on how to best manage your social media and how to best communicate. Their plan was very methodical and  it showed that to best utilize social media it is important to be strategic with how you communicate.

This is a screen shot of my Twitter account. I do not have a lot of followers yet but through a good social media strategy and consistency I can grow.  Follow me @jolmstead84 on Twitter.

I think the issue that comes with depending on something going viral as opposed to having a strategy when it comes to social media is that videos that go viral depend on someone else. In his TED talk, Kevin Alloca, called the people who viral videos depend on "tastemakers." So, rather than it being a  calculated move on a company's part, for a video to go viral it must have someone else who has a strong online presence mention it. This is why I would suggest that it is better to be the tastemaker rather than trying to get a video to go viral.

I think to understand why it is more important to be a "tastemaker" rather than have a video go viral we must look at what social media is exactly. According to an article in the Harvard Business Review, social media is, as defined by Wikipedia, "media for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques [and] web-based technologies to transform and broadcast media monologues into social media dialogues." Social media is really not that different from a traditional form of doing business in the sense that people are still doing the technological equivalent to a "handshake" deal. The only real difference is that the deal is done on a global scale and not using face-to-face communication. I am not suggesting that businesses make large deals over the internet or on Twitter and yet, they do. 

Wil Wheaton, who played Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation, was on a discussion panel board at the 2012 Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo with Brent Spiner (who played Data) and LeVar Burton (who played Geordi) and discussed how he got the recurring role as "Evil Wil Wheaton" on the hit television show, "The Big Bang Theory." He is huge into using Twitter and one of the producers from the show followed him. Wil mentioned on Twitter how much he loved the show and because of that mention on Twitter was invited to be on the show. Taking this and the multitude of homecoming dates with celebrities and other exceptional instances of the power of social media, it is clear that people use social media to form relationships.

 Because of this, it is a lot like High School where you may have your one moment of glory (e.g. a viral video) or you are the Prom Queen. People become the Prom Queen because of a consistent working of a social structure that is in place. The Prom Queen's values and ideas are accepted by the school because she has spent the time working to promote them. This is what I believe that companies should do. In the same article from the Harvard Law Review it states that this social connection is grown strategically by branding yourself, engaging your peers, and learning from instant feedback. This is what I was referring to with the idea of being a Prom Queen rather than the person who gets one moment of glory. The person's moment depends upon the acceptance of the Prom Queen whereas the Prom Queen does not become that way due to just one moment.

With all of this in mind, I do not believe that a company should depend on a viral video. They should be ready to harness that social media currency should it happen but it is better to be consistent rather than lucky.

Social Times article

http://socialtimes.com/what-makes-a-video-viral_b61409

Strategic Communication- Opinion Leadership

Anyone who communicates is trying to communicate an idea with his/her audience.  This is what the basic root of communication is, trying to influence people. Basically, when you communicate, you are trying to get others to adopt your opinion as their own. In the text book by Robert Heath and Michael Palenchar, Strategic Issues Management: Organizations and Public Policy Challenges, the authors make the point that public opinion and public policy go hand in hand (pg 50) and they discuss how corporations and organizations have developed over the years. It used to be that businesses were assumed good and ethical but then, during some turbulent years and through the changing of local business to a larger business model, public opinion started to shift. With this shift in public opinion, businesses and organizations had to think on their feet in order to get the public back on their side. This trend has continued today and it brings to light the fact that, whoever controls public opinion or whoever is forming opinions that are being adopted by the public are very powerful people.

This leads to the question, how does someone become an opinion leader? In his TED talk, Simon Sinek talked about how opinion leaders all share one commonality and that was how they thought.  He mentioned what he called the golden circle and it encompassed three words: why, how, and what. He mentioned that most people think from the outside going in from what to how but that, opinion leaders, when they communicated, they went from why to what. He says that they knew why they thought what they thought.  This is an important point because people have a harder time following others if they allow what they are doing to shape why they are doing something.

(The video is 18 minutes but it is not necessary but advisable to watch the whole thing)

For instance, I work as a youth director at pretty big church in Troy and I have talked to many other youth workers from other churches. One of the things that most youth workers from smaller churches are always asking is “what can we do to bring in more young people?” On the surface this seems to be a good question to ask because a church can die without young people. I have even asked my volunteers at times, “What can we do to …. (fill in the blank)?” However, if Sinek is right, this is a huge mistake. I should not and those other churches should not be so focused on what can we do to accomplish a goal but we should be asking ourselves why that particular goal is important. We should be asking what motivates us to set such a goal and communicate that to our audience. In the example of smaller churches wanting young people just to continue the church, I wonder what would happen if the church looked at its motivating factors and found that that particular church’s “why” was about the elderly. What would happen if, rather than fixating on something they do not care about, they started to focus on being the best they could be for their particular public. If that church were to refocus their values and start focusing on a strong senior citizen program then, perhaps, they would grow. Just not in the way that they expected to.

This example is not that far off the mark. According to an article from Advertising Age, Starbucks had to do something similar. Starting in 2008, Starbucks was starting to slip from prominence as sales and traffic had begun to slip for the first time ever. In order to combat this Starbucks had to look at what might have been causing this issue and had to address it. They accomplished this by returning to their original “why” that had led them to prominence in the first place. However, they did this in a new and innovative way. They did this through social media. The reason that this is a return to their original “why” is answered in the article by Chris Bruzzo, Starbucks' VP-brand content and online who said, "Maybe we have an unfair advantage because in so many ways Starbucks and the store experience is like the original social network." He also said that, “consumers come in, hang out and talk to our store partners. They sort of got to know us as a brand in a very social way." So, for Starbucks the start of the business was not the fact that they sold coffee. This had been done long before Starbucks. What made Starbucks so successful was that they understood that people wanted to be social and they wanted to provide the atmosphere to do so. It was this desire that drove Starbucks and it is what allowed them to be an opinion leader in the business of coffee.

The story of Starbucks brings about an important point. This is the question of the place that social media has in an opinion leader’s world. This is important to consider because, in order for an opinion to catch hold, it has to be accepted by a large number of people and, with social media, it makes it much easier to spread your idea. So, in this day and age, is an idea or opinion that stems from an organizations value system more important or can a lack of a value be overcome by a sophisticated social media marketing plan? In his article for the International Journal of Advertising, Shintaro Okazaki states that studies have found that “online know-how exchange significantly influences the overall perceived value of the products, but not repurchase intention (i.e. loyalty) (pg 443).” If being an opinion leader requires that people continually listen to you and allow you to influence them then something such as loyalty is of great importance. This tells me that a sophisticated social media marketing plan will help to get the word out but it will not help retain the attention needed to be a large factor in opinion leadership. Bruzzo also said about Starbucks that "If we had approached it not from 'what you know and love about Starbucks' but as a marketing channel, we would have taken this down a path that would have been very different" and "This was not [built as a] marketing channel, but as a consumer relationship-building environment (adage.com, York)." This, along with what Sinek had to say in his TED talk tells me that, to be an opinion leader, you must know what motivates you and you must act upon that knowledge because people connect with ideas and values and while flashy get ups may keep them interested for a while, to be a true leader of opinions, you must operate from your values. 

Starbucks Story

http://adage.com/article/special-report-digital-alist-2010/digital-a-list-2010-starbucks-brewing-social-media/142202/

Okazaki, S. (2010) Social influence model and electronic word of mouth PC versus mobile internet. International Journal of Advertising. Pp 439-472

Heath, R. and Palenchar, M. (2009) Strategic issues management: Organizations and public policy challenges. Sage Publications, Inc. Edition 2, Pp 45-76

Spread the word!! Focusing on followers for a movement.

Hello, for any new readers to this blog, my name is Jerrid Olmstead. If you found this blog via a search engine or some other similar website, my URL for this blog is http://jolmstead84.blogspot.com/.  I am student at Troy University and I am studying to receive my Master’s in Strategic Communication this upcoming July. In addition to being a student I am also a youth director at a church in Troy. This means that I get to learn some really interesting ideas and concepts about strategic communication and emerging media and I have my own personal lab to try the ideas out…ethically, of course. Throughout these next couple of weeks I will be doing some serious studying on the topics of leadership in communication and effective strategies that organizations can use to help manage issues that may arise. I will also be addressing new and emerging media and how they can help with strategic communication. I will be posting weekly and I encourage any comments or criticisms that you may have. One of the topics that I have been interested in is how communication is a group process. These means that ideas are much better when they are the result of multiple people’s input. With this in mind, it is my hope that each posting will be made better through healthy dialogue and discussion so that my readers and I will have a better overall understanding of the topics being discussed.

So, an obvious starting point in a discussion on communication is to try to address why we communicate. Usually, most communication has some sort of end in mind whether it is to try to persuade, or inform, or move people to action but the common thread in all of this is that there is an idea that is trying to be communicated. Not only is the idea trying to be communicated but an idea is usually trying to be spread and accepted by a particular public. There is a scholarly book entitled Diffusion of Innovations that was written by Everett Rogers. In the book, Rogers is discussing why a particular idea takes hold and why others seem to falter and fail. According to Rogers, there are four groups that are important when it comes to the acceptance of an idea. These groups are:innovaters, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. The thing to keep in mind with this list is the fact that the focus is not on the idea that is being brought forth but on the groups that are receiving the communication. This may seem like an obvious place to look, however, we often focus on the person giving the information. In a recent interview with NPR, horror author, Stephen King, talked about the aspect that he most enjoyed when it comes to his acceptance of an idea. He said, “Then I want the preacher where the guy's going to walk back and forth and not just stand like a stick behind the pulpit. He's going to, you know, shake his fist a little bit in the air and then he's going to smile and throw his hands up and say, 'God's good! God's great! Can you give me hallelujah?' I just adore that.” In his interview, King is talking about how we, in America, like a big show put on for us whenever we are taking in a message. However, if Everett is right, that is nowhere near as important as the followers of, in this instance, the preacher.

In a TED talk, Derek Sivers notes the importance of followers when trying to start a movement. He talks about the importance of the first follower because the first follower turns the leader from a “lone nut” to a “leader.” This is important in the aspect of communication and the diffusion of an idea because, if no one is following, how can you be a leader? So, it could be argued that the first follower is more the leader of an idea where as the first person to talk about an idea is the innovator. As the innovator of an idea it is important to nurture those who wish to follow you. As a communicator, it is important to keep this in mind because it is so easy to want to hold on to an idea, especially if it is a good idea but it is more important to celebrate those who join you in the idea.

Now, this helps give us an idea of how a movement is started but this does not really discuss how a movement reaches the “tipping point” where it has graduated from idea to movement. Knowing that there are several groups (early adopters, early majority, late majority, laggards) that have to be reached it is also important to know that they are not likely to move out of their particular group. These groups are usually defined by personality traits and so the idea should be to find a follower out of each of the groups that can communicate with them on their level. In this, I find that it is important to take the longevity of an idea into account. For the innovators of an idea, the farther down the group ladder they go, the more difficult I imagine it will be for them to effectively communicate with each group. This is because the innovators are closer to the early adopters in personality than they are with the laggards. So, to help with the spread of an idea so that it can gain momentum and eventually become a movement, it is important to have a plan for peer to peer communication for the idea. Make it easier for the followers to help lead because they are more likely to do it effectively with the groups that are closer to their particular adoption group than the innovator is.

NPR interview of Stephen King

http://www.npr.org/2013/05/28/184827647/stephen-king-on-growing-up-believing-in-god-and-getting-scared