The deadliest communications four letter word :PLAN

Last time I was talking about the need to speed things up and kick into high gear. Now is the time when I say, well we also need to slow down a bit. Are these contradictory? Now absolutely not and let me explain.

Execution is unquestionably essential to the development of a proper brand. It is often where the wheels come off the wagon and many well designed plans fall down, never to be heard from again. Execution is the time when we have to deliver. But let's step back a minute and look at what needs to be done before execution. By that, I am referring to that terrible word and something a lot of C-level's don't like to see and that is plan.

Especially in the area of communications senior executives seem to have the notion that it is simply a matter of throwing a switch and all will start running like clock work and that is all there is too it. As one CEO said to me once, "Communications should be as easy as order from a drive through." Needless to say he h ad no idea of how powerful communications was as a tool and how it could benefit his organization.

Now there is one big, enormous down side to planning and that is that it requires organizations to look three to six months out. It requires vision and it requires waiting. For a world class communications plan to work there is a need to plan out several months in advance just as there is in every category.

I laugh sometimes because my account and finance friends spend a long time working on various financial models and try to determine different scenarios which will show what cash flow will be in 3 months or 6 months or what ever time period. The same holds true for IT managers who have to plan several months in advance for upgrades and patches and security tests. As we can see planning is an essential and intelligent aspect of the organizational growth process.

Yet the communications department is expected to produce stuff on rapid turn around, more often than not to suit the temporary needs of senior management. Ironically, this is the most visible forum for the organization and unlike IT or, to a lesser degree finance, this will be seen by external audiences who will be making decisions based on what they see.

One thing we need to do as communications professionals in order to strengthen our position within the organization is to develop strong planning methods and then to stick with them. We need to do this so that we can develop a cohesive and far-reaching planning strategy but most importantly we need to do this so we can develop a system to measure and evaluate our progress. The use of planning and strategy and more importantly our resolute defense of the need to do this will ultimately benefit the organization and its brand and ultimately refocus senior leadership on the role of communications as a strategic tool and asset and one that needs to be nurtured and grown.

Let's get this decade right

Well I am sure we all agree that the first decade of the century and millennium was a failure by even the most optimistic measure. It is pretty obvious that it was a total failure of leadership by government and business. The short sighted CEO's who managed the economy into the gutter by thinking they work for Wall-Street share the blame alongside the fat cats on Wall Street who thought their bonus checks were their IQ's and let's not forget the total lack of leadership in Washington where the idea of, "If I don't admit wrong then I am not wrong" prevailed along side a total lack of interest in the national well-being.

So now we're in a new decade and hopefully we can turn things around. It may seem highly unlikely now but with the right set of circumstances we might be able to do so but like any task it will take work and sadly thanks to reality TV, government officials and Corporate CEO's we've been taught that hard work is wrong and we should be going for the fast and easy buck. Well thankfully for all of us the days of easy money are over so let's see if we can get the teens, my name for this decade, right.

First of all the biggest change needs to come from the corporate world. Corporate leadership in America does not exist and is driven by really stupid people who think they work for Wall Street and don't care about anything beyond the next quarter. Believe it or not there was a time when companies cared about things like customers, products and yes employees. Companies like IBM and Dow used to brag about how they hired only the best and the brightest. We need to get back to the days of treating employees as valuable assets rather than expendable tools. Employees need to be treated as an asset and not a liability on the balance sheet.

Companies also need to realize that they can anticipate events but can not control them. More effort needs to be put into flexibility and planning rather than trying to cover all possible scenarios are just working under the assumption that we know everything and that events will just work out perfectly because we're super smart and can plan anything again. The goal for the coming decade is an idea I call planned flexibility. Let's be ready for the changes in the marketplace but lets also keep in mind that despite all media hype, the world does not change all that quickly.

As for the other two legs of this stool of stupidity, we need to restore a sense of balance. I laugh at the concept that these firms need to pay these bonuses because if they don't they will lose these oh so valuable souls to the competition. That would be like your local baseball team looking at the player who consistently failed in the clutch and gave up home runs or struck out with the bases loaded and saying, "we really wouldn't want the competition to have this gem." Actually, I think that is exactly what you want! Strengthen the gene pool by getting rid of the weakest link. On the Serengeti in Africa if a gazelle is too slow or gets too close to the watering hole then the gene pool is preserved because the gazelle is some lion's or croc's lunch.

As for Washington, can we tear it down and start over? I think Nebraska gets it right, no parties. Everyone is non-partisan so they have to work together! Let's do that and maybe if we can get people to work together and set one seven year term for all members of congress maybe we can see some real reform.

I hope that we can see the errors of our way during the past ten years and make the changes that are necessary. Sadly, the people best in position to make the changes are the ones who got us here in the first place so forgive me if I am not overly optimistic.

Strategic communication planning for 2010.

There was a great article in the most recent Time about how the past decade was one of the worst and how we will be happy to be rid of it. Well, the new year always bodes well for new and exciting things as we shake off the dust of the old so it is time to start thinking about what to do in 2010.

There are several things you need to do to prepare for the upcoming year. The first thing is to review not just the most recent year, but the past few years before hand if your business has been around that long. You need to take an honest and hard look at what has worked and what hasn't worked. It is time for hindsight to do its thing and tell you what would you do different if you had to. It is also important to remember what went well and what you did right. Certainly there are lessons to be learned from success as well as failure.

There is also the need to find out how marketing and communications will help drive the overall strategic goal to its successful completion. Every organization plans ahead usually quarter by quarter, but there is also the need to project out annual goals for the organization as communication goals tend to span several quarters. Strategic planning of communication is every bit as critical to the success of the organization as the strategic planning of capital spending. Planning on communication and marketing is often seen as what I would call an "oh yeah," category when in fact it requires some of the most strategic planning of all the organization's groups in order to succeed properly.

Another aspect of planning communications strategically is to have both hard and soft goals. Communications tends to fluff off the concept of hard goals and that to a large degree is why marketing and communications are seen as expendable in turbulent times like this. By developing hard targets for accomplishments and then being able to benchmark these accomplishments over a period of time and versus company success marketing and communications individuals will be able to clearly demonstrate the role they play in the success of the organization.

The time for strategic communication plan is not only here but it is long overdue. Like all other professionals marketing and communications professionals need to realize that while we are relied on as creative individuals, we also need to join the rest of the management group as people who work in a numbers based environment. Doing this will solidify the role of marketing and communications as an essential role player in the organization!