Communicating Strategically

Communicating Strategically

Communication is very important for an organization, as it has implications for every single member of the organization. Therefore it is a great advantage to learn how to communicate strategically. In the following is discussed, how communication theory developed and how it can be used.

Communication Theory

The roots of modern communication theory can be found in Aristotle’s major work, “The Art of Rhetoric”. Translated into a theory for organizations, the framework of communicating strategically would include four parts: (1) the organization…(2) communicates through messages…(3) to its constituents…(4) who then give a feedback. This framework describes a communication cycle instead of being linear and reflects therefore the reality of communication better.

Developing Corporate Communication Strategies

Developing a good corporate communication strategy can be divided into four parts. The first thing to do is to set up an effective organization strategy. This can be best done in the following order. First determine the organizations objectives, second decide what resources are available. The most important resources are for example money, human resources and time. The final step is then to diagnose the organization’s reputation. These three steps are the building block for the following three parts for successfully developing a corporate communication strategy.

The second part to do is to analyze your constituencies. For a good analysis you have to understand who each constituency is, what each of them thinks about the organization, and determine what each of them already knows and feels about the relevant communication topic.

Delivering messages appropriately depicts the third part in developing a corporate communication strategy. It involves a two-step analysis of first choosing the right communication channel and second selecting the right approach for structuring the message carefully, either direct or indirect.

Last but not least the final step is to assess the communication results and determine whether your communication had the desired result or not. If the constituency responses or expressed differently, the feedback shows that your communication was not successful in reaching your organization’s objectives you should change some part of your strategy, in order to be successful the next time.

Conclusion

Since all organizations depend on the behest of the public will, an organization should consider its communication strategy carefully. Therefore a structured model how to communicate effectively is very important since you have kind of a checklist to go along. In addition it is easier to go back and restructure the communication strategy if your communication objectives are not met.


Personal Experiences

My personal experience with strategically communication is, that you have to be very careful, which communication channel you use. Not only once, it happened to me, that I send friends a short message over a cell phone, asking them if they wanted to go to a certain party with me, for example. Unfortunately they got the message the next day, and so the message did not reach them in time, and I did not get the feedback which I wanted, which was a reaction if they wanted to go out that evening or not. The lesson that I learned from this is, if you want an answer in time, you might better call the people, even though it is more expensive communication channel.

Another personal experience happened not long ago in class. We had to do an “elevator presentation”, which means that you have 30 seconds to deliver a certain message. It was not easy in such a short amount of time to deliver the message you want, make sure that you deliver the message interestingly and also structure the message in a way, that people would understand the message. I think, the biggest problem was the nervousness, and because of that I could not get across the message as confident as I wanted it to. However, I think you can get control over it by practicing.


Links:

PDF file about “How to plan communication strategically”:
http://www.cbd.int/cepa/toolkit/html/resources/34/34404DBC-7BBF-48CA-BFCA-1F5A3BBD906D/Section%204%20_final_.pdf

Communicating Strategically: A Perspective and Case Study about Creating Comfort with Uncertainty:
http://www.imetacomm.com/otherpubs/pdf_doc_downloads/strat_commg_uncertainty_v4.pdf

Powerful Presentations: How to Craft an Effective Elevator Speech:
http://www.creativekeys.net/PowerfulPresentations/article1024.html