Stepping Up: The challenge for communications professionals

Increasing Communications’ Visibility & Influence Within the Organisation

• A Deloitte research study - 95% of the CEOs surveyed rated effective internal communication as a key ingredient for success

• Only 22% said that the delivery of internal communication was effective.

The Challenges

• Helping all to understand the value of internal & external communications

• Helping people understand how communications has changed

• Competing priorities • Crisis situations preventing

strategic thinking• Making comms effective

Moving From Doing to Advising

• Leaders—getting access, building trust and gaining commitment to action

• Resources— finding time to provide counsel • Value—ensuring that leaders receive value from

the counsel • Fulfilling commitments—making sure that

advisors follow through • Personal skills—having the skill set to serve as an

effective strategic advisor

Getting Communications a Seat at the Board Table

A starting point is to meet and ask these three questions:

• Will you get the business results you need this year if everyone (internal and external) keeps doing the same thing?

Getting Communications a Seat at the Board Table

• If the answer to number 1 is “no,” what audiences most need to change behavior, and do we know how to connect with and influence those

audiences?

Getting Communications a Seat at the Board Table

• Do we understand the root causes of poor performance and the role that more effective communications and stakeholder engagement could play in addressing those root causes?

Getting Communications a Seat at the Board Table

Should Comms have a seat in the executive committee?

• Trending tweets can instantly impact share price as seen with Quantas:

“ALAN JOYCE: We first knew it was a problem when our share price started to collapse. And that was because these reports coming out of Twitter that were reported by one mainstream media outlet on the basis of the Twitter reports that the aircraft had crashed in Indonesia started obviously causing a problem with the share price.”

Getting Communications a Seat at the Board Table

“When we found out immediately that that wasn't an issue, the aircraft was still in the air, we went out there and immediately wrote a press release making it very clear that the aircraft was still flying.

What also I think is important is that the major media outlets don't pick up on Twitter commentary and report it as fact, which is what happened in this case. And I think that was a bit disappointing. But it needs us to be very proactive to ensure that doesn't happen in the future.”

Making Reputation a Board Priority

Credit - PR Week

Credit - PR Week

Making Reputation a Board Priority

• Reputation: the emotional connection that stakeholders have with a company

• Research (UK RepTrakTM 2012) shows that 69% of people’s willingness to say something positive about an organisation is influenced by their perception of the company, and just 31% by what they think of the company’s products and services.

Making Reputation a Board Priority

• “Whether reputation is being managed by communications or another department, it has to be central to the organisation.” - Jane Wilson, CEO of Chartered Institute of Public Relations

Making Reputation a Board Priority

“In order for reputation management to make a difference in your organisation, you need to get a seat at the boardroom table. To do this you need to get the financial numbers which are the proof points of interest to senior executives. Once you have their attention you can then explain why reputation really matters.” - Richard Ellis, Director of Corporate Social Responsibility, Alliance Boots

Thank-You