Week 5 Application Assignment, Ebmeier_D

http://work911.com/articles/comstrat.htm

For my application assignment this week, I read an article that focused on Strategic Communications within companies, or Strategic Internal Communications.  ( The link is above.)  The article noted that many corporations seem to know how to communicate to their stakeholders and customers outside the company, but forget to take the same strategic approach with their own employees.  The article noted showed numerous advantages to a “having a coherent, shared organizational culture.”  (Bacal, 2012 )

One of the initial themes discussed was idea of being proactive and setting up strong internal communications as a part of everyday business, rather than just wait until a crisis to establish communications within a company.

“Determining what should be communicated to staff, when it should be communicated, and how it should be communicated is often left up to the decisions of individuals made when there seems to be a need.” (Bacal, 2012 )    

Several advantages to implementing strategic communications within organizations were discussed, including: empowerment of employees, group morale, minimizing routine tensions. 

Long term planning in the form of the Internal Communication Planning (ICP) Process was discussed.  The steps for ICP were outlined to show the general direction and organization would need to take to implement such a plan.

Implementation steps included identifying the common culture needed and identifying the myriad avenues of communications.  Once the types of communication are determined, the article states that organizations should determine compatibility between which tools are best suited to which goals and then who should use said tools.

Additionally implementation plans included planning for remediation, the implementation of the plan, and finally monitoring and revising once the plan is set into motion.

I felt that the article laid out a clear and concise plan that would be helpful for an organization to implement for it’s own internal communications.    The plan itself could also be a good reference for someone starting an organization, in addition to just attempting to revamp a currently outdated plan.

With our rapidly changing world and business landscape, companies and corporations will need to grow and adapt to keep up.  Growth means more relationships with more and more stakeholders.  “The need for a consistent communications strategy becomes even more critical because it must communicate to a diverse and rapidly expanding array of constituents while remaining relevant to all.”  (Argenti, Howell, & Beck, 2005)

References:

Bacal, R. (2012) Internal Communication Strategies - The Neglected Strategic Element. Retrieved from http://work911.com/articles/comstrat.htm

Argenti, P.A., Howell, R.A., & Beck, K.A. (2005) The Strategic Communication Imperative. MIT Sloan Management Review, 46(3), 86.