Keith Jackson
I’m currently working to develop communications strategies for two organisations that have run into problems. I won’t name them, of course, and I don’t want to discuss their precise situations, since the purpose of this piece is to try to articulate how an effective communications strategy is formed.
At Jackson Wells, like most public relations companies, we have a template to assist us develop strategy– amongst other matters the template forces consideration of objectives, stakeholders, issues, messages, strategic pathways and the actions to guide clients in the right direction. But such formulae are never enough because developing good strategy, like great travel, is more interactive, dynamic and intuitive than simply following a road map.
In a strategic communications plan, one of the first things the reader comes across is a set of objectives. But that’s never my starting point in developing strategy, because I’m never really sure up front what objectives may be feasible. Generally, I start with a consideration of stakeholders – who they are, what they want, how much influence they have. Stakeholders I define as any group that has an interest in and an influence over the organisation. That can be a lot of people. But generally, when an organisation has developed the kind of problems that causes it to pick up a phone and call us, it is because relationships with the most influential stakeholders have come adrift.
When I begin to consider what stakeholders want, I am in reality embarking on an analysis of the issues that are driving the problems they’re having. An organisation experiencing dysfunctions in its relationship with stakeholders is failing to address the issues they have in these relationships. This could be because the organisation has changed but, much more likely, it’s because the environment in which the organisation operates has changed and the organisation hasn’t shifted accordingly.
The campaign director for the Federal Coalition government that a month ago today was defeated in an election has just given his analysis of why the defeat occurred. “In simple terms,” said Brian Loughnane, “a range of factors came together which led the electorate to conclude that while the Government had done a good job, it had run its race and change, while having some risks, was ‘worth a go’…. The Government came to be seen as internally focused and not directly concerned or responsive to their priorities. Whether this was the case in reality or not is not the point. It is what these voters believed.”
You will detect an implication here (‘led the electorate to conclude’, ‘what these voters believed’) that Mr Loughnane thinks it was misplaced perceptions that gave Labor its win. But it’s likely the cause was more substantive than that. It is highly probable that the former government failed to detect or respond to shifts in the electorate that it needed to address in order to remain in office. The true answer to its problems, if it is to achieve success in the foreseeable future, is to define what those shifts were and to respond to them accordingly.
Similarly, organisations that run into trouble have usually failed to respond approrpiately to shifts in their external environment. Unlike governments, though, organisations do not face re-election every few years. Instead, if they are not behaving rationally in terms of their environment, they face disconnecting from stakeholders. This may seem to occur rapidly as crisis descends, but the truth is it has probably been building for a long time. The secret of effective strategy, in dealing with such crises, is to reconnect the organisation with its stakeholders in the shortest possible time. But if this is not achieved through substantive means – if all that is done is a bit of façade building – the reconnection will not last long and the next crisis is likely to be even worse.
Contrary to how most organisations feel when they encounter serious problems, most stakeholders have no significant or lasting enmity towards them. They just want the organisation back on track and behaving in a functional way that is congruent with their expectations. So it is that a correct analysis of stakeholders, issues and the total environment in which the organisation is working loom very large in developing effective strategy. The creative aspect – the development of bright ideas to take the organisation back to stability and functionality – is also important. But creativity without the understandings I’ve been describing is a sheer waste of effort.
There’s a lot more I could say on this subject, but that’s enough for now.
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