Here's a common complaint.
Comms managers go on a course or attend a conference and hear about CEO/Senior leaders who are paragons of great communications. There's a lot of it around (my colleague Kevin Murray has even published a very good book about leaders who communicate).
But they despair of ever transforming their senior leaders into someone who sees the value of communication. Every time they put up a comms plan it gets reduced to an all staff email or another pompous intranet story.
Their life feels like they are working in the corporate equivalent of the North Korean Ministry of Information and they run the risk of public derision.
So what is the answer?
From the great comms people I know there are a few simple rules that are worth considering if you want to win over the boss.
1) Remember that it's a marathon - not a sprint
No one changed overnight - especially a successful senior leader who stays in post by doing exactly what got them there in the first place. Successful Communications Directors play a long game - they look for the small opportunities to nudge the agenda on rather than spend their lives praying for some kind of dramatic conversion at the top.
2) What's your data?
When it comes to employee engagement, everyone is an expert - or thinks they are. But when there's someone in the room with real data - not just the benefit of a chat with Frank in the car park - they tend to get listened to.
Time invested in getting current and good quality feedback is never wasted...and when you're the bringer of truth, there's the opportunity to suggest where improvements can be made.
3) Deliver, deliver, deliver
This one should be obvious - but it does need repeating.
People who can get things done tend to get listened to. I know at least one Comms Director who owes his success to investing in a team member with powerpoint skills (it meant that he got to spend time with the CEO discussing the story behind the presentation) and another who manager to organise a roadshow for Directors where other, more senior, colleagues had failed.
In the past I have made the mistake myself of letting other people do important jobs - like running the leadership conference - when the Comms Department should muscle its way in on anything where the CEO is communicating. When we make it work we get the licence to shove the envelope a bit further.
In other words, stop stressing about the clever stuff if its getting in the way of giving the boss what she wants.
4) Show - don't tell
A client and I had an unexpected break-through this year when we got a CEO and his Exec to do a dress rehearsal of a roadshow presentation in front of a live audience of regular staff. The immediate feedback made them entirely rethink some important messages and actually revisit the whole engagement strategy.
There comes a time when a Comms Director becomes another Head Office stooge so the trick is to shift the whole conversation by bringing in another voice.
5) Prepare, prepare, prepare
Years ago I was stunned by how much effort my CEO made before he faced the Board. He went through every paper and would call up managers across the company for answers to questions he thought might possibly come up. This was a man who left nothing to chance.
The really effective Comms Directors who I respect continually prepare - event to the extent of anticipating meetings or encounters that haven't been scheduled. And they never ever try to busk their way through a conversation. They come with data, the flexibility to try out alternative ideas and solutions.
So what's your golden rule? Is there a maxim that you learnt years ago that has always stood you in good stead? What do the senior communicators who your admire do?
Liam
