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also be a good reference for someone starting an organization, in addition to just attempting to revamp a currently outdated plan.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.

Week 5 Application Assignment- Kristina Quinn

Interview - Strategic Communication

As I read through the strategic communication material this week I thought of my husband, Jason, who ran a small manufacturing facility in Las Vegas for 5 years.  Because it was a smaller company the strategic communication was handled a little differently than in a large manufacturing plant like GM.  It was a $10M sandwich manufacturer that sold sandwiches and box lunches to casinos, hospitals, and store chains.  He was responsible for the entire Las Vegas facility which included 25 assembly workers, 4 office workers, 2 maintenance, 5 drivers, 2 supervisors, 1 sales person, 1 purchasing person, and 3 investors.  I sat down with him and reviewed the readings with him then asked him some questions.

I asked him what strategic communication meant to him.  He felt communication was key at that company because there were so many moving parts.   According to him if there wasn't clear communication then they couldn't adequately satisfy the customer. 

Clearly Communicated Objectives

I was curious if a small company with 3 investors and 40 employees had a clear overall company objective and how it was communicated across all constituents.  He felt they did have a clear objective and was able to clearly articulate it to me, “To be the premier box lunch and sandwich provider for both back of the house and retail”. 

I asked if he felt this message was clearly communicated to his employees.  He felt it had as he held quarterly meetings to outline the quarter and what the expectations were for the next.  He felt his supervisors were probably the most informed about the objectives as he talked about them all the time.  He also felt his customers understood as it was on the communications given to them including price lists, email tag lines, leader head, etc. 

Mechanisms of Communication

I asked him how he communicated the objectives.  His first answer was, “to whom are you referring?”.  Which was a perfect response as it relates to this week’s readings.  As Argenti & Beck (2005) state in their article, it is important to “align the communication to the strategy” (p.87).    Jason was clear he had very specific communications depending on the situation and the constituent.   

The communications of strategic objectives to employees were through quarterly meetings to discuss prior quarter and next quarter’s objectives.  The communications to customers were through monthly meetings. 

He also made sure that all front of the house employees that had contact with customers understood the objectives so there was one consistent message.  This was also in line with Argenti & Beck (2005) concept of “speaking in harmony”.   It is important to make sure the communicated objective appears to be one consistent story.

Channels of Communication

I asked what channels he used to articulate his message and again answered, “to whom are you referring?”.  He kept clear channels of communication as this was an important way to successfully accomplish the consistent story. 

As mentioned before he held quarterly meetings to address all employees at once, but he also required his supervisors to keep this message ongoing to the employees.  The customers channel was either the front office or route drivers.  And he spoke to investors directly. 

Ambiguity in Communication

I reviewed the readings this week on ambiguity with him and he felt it was different based on the type of organization.  In his case he was always very clear on the message.  

In Terthewey, Goodall & McDonald (2006) strategic ambiguity as a communication strategy is used in companies where information needs to get to its audience quickly and be diverse enough that various constituents could get something out of it.  

Jason believes communication gets transferred quickly in a smaller company and ambiguity could mean mistakes and poor performance.  He stressed his messages were always clear and detailed.  He never wanted to leave anyone guessing what he was saying or interpret it in a way that would cause confusion and mistakes.

He also mentioned that budget constraints of a small company must be taken into consideration when talking strategic communication.  He stresses that there is a cost of communicating or not communicating properly.  A small company must always be mindful of poorly communicating a message, communicating through the wrong channel or communicating the wrong message.   Whereas a big company may not take the hit as hard when this happens, a small company can be severely crippled.

Overall I learned a lot about communication strategies in smaller organizations.  It appears to be key to communicate a clear, consistence strategic message to all constituents in the most efficient and effective way.

References:

Argenti, P., Howell, R., Beck, K. (2005) The Strategic Communication Imperative, MIT Sloan Management Review, 46 #3, pp. 83-89 (full article)

Goodall, B., Terthewey, A., and McDonald, K. (2006) Strategic Ambiguity, Communication and Public Diplomacy in an Uncertain World: Principles and Practices, Consortium for Strategic Communication, pp. 1-14 (full article)

Week 5 Application Assignment - Xiomara J. Moncada

"Effective leaders use ambiguity strategically to encourage creative and guard against the acceptance of one standard way of viewing organizational reality" (Eisenberg, 1984, p. 231)  This week I interviewed my supervisor, Wayne A Combs, Associate Dean of Operations and Constituent Relations to get his perspective on the department's organizational communication strategy.  We had a long conversation about how messages get transmitted from the top University stakeholders to the lower level stakeholders.  One of the most important points that he made was, that clarity is necessary at certain levels of the organization but ambiguity is almost necessary at others.  Let me elaborate.

Our department, Dornsife Advancement can be divided into three units, the major gift officers (MGO's), the operations team (composed of all administrative and operation functions) and the corporate and foundations relations (CFR) officers.  Each of these units function and communicate differently.  When I asked Wayne to give me his thoughts on what the departments communication strategy, he broke it down into the three previously mentioned units.  He said that for the CFR team collaboration and constant communication was necessary for their line of work.  They work with government agencies, foundations and corporations that have a very clear message and expect clear requests from organizations looking to be funded.  Since the CFR team has to always be clear and follow established rules they have to always be clear with their needs, messaging and requests.  In CFR ambiguity doesn't exists.  Unlike CFR, the MGO's work with less information and are less clear on what the current messages are that are coming from the top officials at the University.  To deal with the ambiguity that they constantly have to work in, the MGO's have weekly meetings and are constantly in contact with their operations person (administrative assistant) who can keep them up to date with what is going on.  Since the MGO's have to be on the road cultivating donors and fundraising they use their weekly meetings with each other to get clarity of what the funding priorities are and what the new case statement is, which depends on what the governing authorities decide it should be.  Last but not least, Wayne discussed the operations team.  The operations team serves the overall efforts of the department by providing accurate information that can be transmitted buy different methods, phone, email and phone.  The operations team only be successful if they have clear, reliable and truthful information. To serve everyone the operation members come in contact with they have to be aware of all that is happening in the department and within the University.    

Wayne stated that the operations team is "most impacted by lack of planning and without a clear communication strategy".  He said that when there is a communication breakdown and there isn't a case statement every request becomes an emergency and the department becomes reactionary.  To avoid this, the department needs to come up with a clear case statement and leadership at the top levels need to communicate more and with clear messaging.  When I asked Wayne why he thought the messaging was vague, he said, "when you make your goals and objectives known, you are then accountable for them".  He said that ambiguity gives them time to see if what they are planning will work and if it does, they continue with it but if it doesn't it will allow them to change direction without having to explain why it failed.  As stated by Eisenberg, "Strategic ambiguity in task-related communication can preserve future options" (1984, p. 235).   

To conclude, is ambiguity a form of strategic communication at USC, yes it is.  Top level managers use vagueness to "reduce unnecessary conflict" (Eisenberg, 194, p. 231) and to "maintain their formal or informal standing in the company (William & Gross, 1975)" (Eisenberg, 194, p. 235).  Ambiguity can allow for interpretations of messaging that can be beneficial to all parties involved, more so when the end result is better than what it was intended.  

Combs, W. A. (2012, February 24). An oral interview with Mr. Wayne C. Combs/Interviewer: 

          Xiomara J. Moncada.  Los Angeles, California.

Eisenberg, E. (1984).  Ambiguity as strategy in organization communication.  Communication 

        Monographs, 51,  227-242.

Week 5 Application Assignment – Damu Bobb

After reading the Wal-Mart and Bharti case study, and after completing the strategic communication analysis, I couldn’t help find parallels to the recent ABC news story by Nightline about the relationship between Apple and Foxxconn. I felt that this topic was appropriate with our reading “When Social Issues Become Strategic”, where the focus in on awareness of social and political issues that can grow into larger issues if not address in a strategic and timely manner (Bonini, Mendonca, Oppenheim, 2006, p. 27). Also, how CEO’s create a strategic communication plan to address local and national concerns.

Last week, Nightline aired a segment about the working conditions at Apple’s China factory. The Foxconn factory in Shenzen, China is the factory that creates Apples top selling iPhone, iPads, and MacBook computers. Unfortunately, factory workers are grossly underpaid making approximately $1.78 an hour, over worked working 80-hour weeks. Notes Weir: “The average starting salary at Foxconn is around $285 a month or $1.78 an hour. Even with 80 hours of overtime, it’s considered so low that the Chinese government does not deduct any payroll taxes.”

Conditions are so deplorable that workers have been known to jump off the roof in despair. Don’t worry, no dies, Foxxconn has placed suicide prevention nets outside the building so if anyone jumps they catch them and put them right back to work.

This coincides with the reading, “When Social Issues Become Strategic”, large-scale problems generally start as small regional issues before they are championed by larger, typically Western NGO’s that have the clout and media contracts to launch a global campaigns” (Bonini, Mendonca, Oppenheim, 2006, p. 27).

In this weeks reading around strategic communication, the focus was the use of social communication, and the local media, and impact and influence it can have on a organization. So the question now is, how is Apple going to handle this local problem that can become a global issue very fast?

Apple CEO, Tim Cook took a step in the right direction here in the US by working with the Fair Labor Association and conducting its own internal audit of the facilities in China. But more needs to be done. I believe that Apple CEO, Tim Cook needs to create some sort of strategic communication agenda with Foxconn and the Chinese government to aggressively address the working conditions at the factory. The coolest computer company in the world, with the best brand should not have people killing themselves on the job.

BTW, March 1st, the new iPad 3 arrives. I can’t wait to jump in line.

References:
Bonini, S., Mendonca, L., Oppenheim, J. (2006) When Social Issues Become Strategic, The McKinsey Quartley (full article)

Weir, B. (2012, February) "iFactory: Inside Apple.",
ABCnews.com

Week 5 Application Assignment - Joshua Sutterfield

This week I selected the academic article titled “CEO Communication” by Greg Crowther.  In the article Crowther discusses the importance of effective communication skills a CEOs’ and leaders.   This coincided well with this week’s reading “The Strategic Communication Imperative,” in which Argenti observed that “companies most likely to recognize the strategic communication imperative are those in which the CEO has an inherent understanding of how communication can be a differentiator for a business and thus can drive strategy” (Argenti, 2005, p. 84).

Among the points Crowther makes is that the leader must stay in the “credibility zone” and failure to do so can lead to serious trouble (Crowther, 2003, p. 34).   In this week’s reading, we learned how Cendant had overstated its financials by hundreds of millions of dollars causing a serious credibility issue (Argenti, 2005).  In order to get back its credibility, the CEO “established the mantra, “Tell the truth.  Tell it all.  Tell it now”” (Argenti, 2005, p. 86).  Here, the CEO stressed the importance of communicating in order to get Cendant back on its feet.

In Crowther (2003), the author using a case study to demonstrate how a new CEO and leader should communicate effectively.  Here, the CEO had only been with the company for about a month and had to announce financial troubles (Crowther, 2003).  In order to appease employees and outsiders and not cause too much alarm, he communicated his message in multiple mediums, such as in-person, print, etc. (Crowther, 2003).  The new CEO conveyed the bad news, but did his best to assure everyone that the company was willing to work harder and take corrective measures (Crowther, 2003).  

This coincides with the reading in Argenti, where the former CEO of the New York Times stated “”You almost can’t communicate a message frequently enough, particularly to the employees”” (Argenti, 2005, p. 87).   Again, the message here is that it is important for CEO to communicate all news, good and bad.  Just as we expect people in our life to be honest with us, why should we expect less from our business leaders?

 References:

Argenti, P., Howell, R., Beck, K. (2005) The Strategic Communication Imperative, MIT Sloan Management Review, 46 #3, pp. 83-89 (full article)

Crowther, G.  (2003, October). CEO communication. Communication World, 20(6), 34-37. 

Week 5 Application Assignment - Megan Irish

An independent global strategic communications consulting firm based out of San Francisco, CA - WCG - has been in the news recently. A press release I came across this week ties into the readings about the importance of strategic communication. In the press release “WCG Hires Diverse Healthcare Communications Veterans to Expand and Enhance Global Integrated Offering,” the reader is given information on all of the new hires - namely experience each has. The release also starts with a short introduction on the importance “of hiring the best people with real-world, hands-on experience in diverse business sectors and disciplines to ensure we are delivering the most relevant, impactful and integrated communications solutions to our clients," from chairman and CEO Jim Weiss. (msnbc.com, 2012).

    This press release goes along with the article we read this week, “The Strategic Communication Imperative” by Argenti, Howell, and Beck. This article states that the best “strategic-communication leaders allow their corporate strategy to drive their communication choices” (Argenti, Howell, & Beck, 2005, p. 84). In the example of WCG, the corporate strategy employed is hiring those with hands-on communication experience. All four individuals hired have extensive experience in the communication field.
    Argenti, Howell and Beck also explored lessons of strategic communications. One lesson is that senior managers must be involved. This includes CEOs and other high ranking members of the organization realizing how important communication can be. Anther lesson is communications must be integrated. Basically this means  that communication should be tied into all other aspects of the organization. The next lesson is structural integration is not the only choice. A company does not need just one person managing communications. Next, communications must have a long-term orientation. The final lesson is top communicators must have broad general management skills (2005). Based on each of the new hires’ experience, they have all dealt with these lessons. 
    In another recent press release, “WCG Forms Strategic Partnership With CEO Connection to Inform Newly-Appointed CEO Priorities,” a newly former partnership is explored. CEO Connection is a “CEO-level, members-only organization focused on knowledge sharing, development and research on major global business issues” (msnbc.com, 2012). This partnership was formed because WCG “provides its clients with the most current and progressive thinking, and strategies and methodologies regarding the philosophy and practice of communications to strengthen reputation and engagement -- critical priorities for CEOs given today's challenging business environment” (msnbc.com, 2012) states the CEO and founder of CEO Connections Kenneth Beck (msnbc.com, 2012).
    Based on these press releases, it seems that WCG’s corporate strategy of hiring individuals with extensive communication experience has been very successful. Because of this impressive experience, WCG employees are probably very familiar with the communication strategies discussed in Argenti, Howell,and Beck’s article - as well as many other articles on the topic.


References
Argenti, P., Howell, R., Beck, K. (2005) The Strategic Communication Imperative, MIT Sloan Management Review, 46 #3, pp. 83-89 (full article)

msnbc.com (2012). WCG Hires Diverse Healthcare Communications Veterans to Expand and Enhance Global Integrated Offering. [Press Release] Retrieved from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46410986.

msnbc.com (2012). WCG Forms Strategic Partnership With CEO Connection to Inform Newly-Appointed CEO Priorities. [Press Rlease] Retrieved from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46495286.

This week’s reading happened to coincide with some interesting conflicts that arose with one of my company’s “strategic partners”. I had the opportunity to sit with the owner of our company, Bill Baquet, for an informal interview during which we discussed the topics of Alliances and Networks (Gulati, 1998) , collaborative advantages( Kanter, 2010) and  trust (Barney & Hansen, 1994). While we talked about these issues Bill shared a little bit of his business experiences which I will share here as well.

Bill has had a long history, 38 years in fact, in the contract furniture business. During this time he has started and/or acquired several different companies. Each of these companies has been structured in slightly different ways. At one point he was the sole owner of an organization that “employed 14 manual drafters, a couple dozen commissioned sales people, and an enormous installation crew that along with other administrative and warehouse staff totaled over 100 people” (Baquet, personal communication). After suffering a loss of over $300k in a single month, Bill began to reorganize the company to return it to profitability and then sold it to take a break from the business. He’s never been away long though and he is now a majority owner of a smaller company that does nearly as much business (in terms of annual sales) as that behemoth company he sold off many years ago.

The difference between that company and our current organization is that we now rely on outsourcing to strategic partners for a great deal of the services that make up our business. Bill has created, through years of networking, a pool of other business owners in complementary businesses that he draws upon to create key alliances (Gulati, 1998). For example, he has a long list of architectural firm Principals who introduce him to their new clientele. This keeps Bill working in a warm market where strong levels of trust are already established and hence transferred by association (Barney & Hansen, 1994). In fact, we can’t have lunch in Pasadena without running into at least one person in Bill’s long list of contacts.

From an operations stand point, Bill also enjoys a long list of “go-to” companies with whom he has had longstanding and successful relationships. This brings me to that interesting conflict I spoke of in my opening sentence. One of these strategic partners is the installation company that we’ve had as our primary installation team for nearly ten years now. The owner of this company has made staffing changes, which is to say he’s fired people, which greatly reduced the quality of his services. He was seemingly forced to do this as a result of the economic down turn. Unfortunately, adding to the complaints of unsatisfactory performance on the part of his current staff, he’s added a business developer who has erroneously contacted Bill’s existing customers. This could have been forgiven except that in a conversation about the matter with the owner of the installation company that owner “didn’t see anything wrong with pursuing a delaer’s clients” (Baquet, personal communication). This just goes to show that for however much strong form trustworthiness (Barney & Hansen, 1994) there is between entities, the almighty dollar takes precedence in the end. Bill told me at the end of our conversation, "trust, but get it in writing".

References:

• Barney & Hansen, (1994). "Trustworthiness as a Source of Competitive Advantage." Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 15, pp. 175-190.
• Kanter, R. (2010). "Collaborative Advantage: The Art of Alliances."Harvard Business Review. pp. 1-16. (Full Article)
• Gulati, R. (1998) "Alliances and Networks" Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 19, pp. 293-317