The communication function offers practitioners a rare opportunity. It is one of the few roles in any organization involved in every aspect of the business. In this Circle of Fellows panel, you will hear international perspectives on how the role of communication extends beyond the exchange of knowledge and information. The panel shares thoughts on how communication fosters organizational collaboration and can be viewed as a cornerstone for professional success. Learn how the fundamental principles of strategic communication excellence can apply across different business sectors, underscoring its value in any professional context, and how effective communication enhances teamwork and innovation, drives organizational growth, builds trust, inspires change, and helps achieve results. A communication role can position the communications professional to influence, impact, and potentially lead other business areas. (Did you know that the late Intel CEO Paul Otellini was a marketer before ascending to the company’s top job?).
Neil Griffiths, ABC, Chart.PR, IABC Fellow, is the Global Head of Diversity, Equality & Inclusion at ERM, the world’s largest sustainability consultancy, where he is responsible for the global DE&I strategy and engagement plan. Neil’s background is varied, having spent the better part of 20 years in a series of external, brand, strategy, and internal communication roles before moving into DE&I. Neil has held leadership roles in several public, private, and non-profit organizations. In the volunteer space, Neil has held multiple leadership positions within the IABC and the Company of Communicators (CoC), one of the City of London’s modern Livery Companies. Volunteer highlights include being an inaugural Global Communications Certification Council member, Career Roadmap Committee member, Chair of the 2018 IABC World Conference (Montreal), Past Chair of IABC’s EMENA region, and, as of November 2020, Junior Warden of the CoC. Neil is a recipient of the IABC Regional Leader of the Year, Rae Hamlin, and IABC Chair’s Awards. In 2019, Neil was named IABC Fellow, the highest honor bestowed on an IABC member. With co-author Deborah Hinton, Neil has published two studies on the current and future state of the communication profession and advocates for channeling your best communication self regardless of where and how you work.
Russell Grossman, DipPR, ABC, FRSA, FCIPR, FCIM, IABC Fellow, has been a communications practitioner for nearly 40 years and a UK Senior Civil Servant since 2006. He’s the Director of Communications at the UK Rail Regulator, the Office of Rail and Road, and head of the Government Communication Service (GCS) internal communications profession. He’s a non-exec director of the “ Engage for Success ” movement to advance employee engagement and sponsor for both the GCS Fast Stream and GCS Talent. Russell and his long-suffering wife of 38 years are blessed with four children (one of whom also works within GCS) and five grandchildren.
Martha Muzychka, ABC, MC, speaks, writes, listens, and helps others do the same to make change happen. Martha is a strategic, creative problem solver seeking challenging communications environments where we can make a difference. She helps her clients navigate competing priorities and embrace communication challenges. Martha offers strategic planning, facilitation, consultation services, writing and editing, qualitative research, and policy analysis. Her work has been recognized locally, nationally, and internationally with multiple awards.
Jennifer Wah, ABC, SCMP, MC, IABC Fellow, has worked with clients to deliver ideas, plans, words, and results since she founded her storytelling and communications firm, Forwords Communication Inc., in 1997. Her agency has won over two dozen awards for excellence in strategic communications, writing, and consulting; Jennifer is recognized as a storyteller and strategist. She has worked in industries from healthcare to financial services to academia and is passionate about the opportunity for stories to inspire actions and reactions within organizations. After serving as faculty with Royal Roads University, Jennifer was named an Adjunct Professor at the UBC Sauder School of Business, where she teaches business communication to future business leaders. A lifelong IABC volunteer at all levels, Jennifer most recently served as past chair of the Ethics Committee and is looking forward to welcoming all to the World Conference in Vancouver in 2025.
Hi everybody and welcome to episode number 111 of Circle of Fellows. This is a monthly panel discussion of fellows of the International Association of Business Communicators on topics of interest to those of you working in organizational communications, PR, marketing, that type of thing. And I am Shell Holtz.
I am Senior director of Communications at Web Corp. We’re a commercial builder in California, headquartered in San Francisco, and I’m coming from home today in Concord, California. I have a great panel with me today to discuss an extension of last month’s topic. Last month we talked about executive communication.
Today we’re going to talk about communication and leadership, which is adjacent but not directly connected to last month’s theme. And I’d like there are our panel to introduce themselves. We’ll go clockwise as I see you on the screen that puts you first. Russell. Hi [00:01:00] there. I’m Russell Grossman.
I’m director of Communications at the UK Rail Regulator, the Office of Berlin Road. And I’m also the head of profession for internal communications for the UK government. In the context of today’s discussion I’ve been in my current role for nine years on my particular executive committee. And previous to that, have sat on various boards and executive committees of organizations.
Thank you, Russell and Neil. Hi everybody, this is Neil Griffiths. I’m coming to you from Saff from Walden in the uk, which is just outside Cambridge for anybody that has any ge geographical knowledge of the uk. I am global and Europe, DEI director for Kearney, which is a global management consulting firm.
I’ve been with them for the past 18 months prior to that. Spent a long time also in professional services, in the sustainability space, working in a variety of roles, not just in, in diversity, equity and inclusion but also a long background in [00:02:00] communication roles. Looking forward to the discussion.
Me too. Jennifer, you’re up. Hi everyone. I’m here in North Vancouver, Canada which is just across the water from Vancouver Proper, where the World Conference will welcome professional communicators from all over the world. Next June. I’m super excited to see you all here. My agency is called FORWARDS Communication, and through that agency I do work in strategic storytelling consultation with organizations.
I’m also an adjunct professor at the UBC Solder School of Business, where I teach business communications. Really looking forward to today’s conversation and Martha. Thank you. She, I’m Martha Zeka. I’m based in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, the east coast of Canada. I also like Jennifer sole proprietorship and independent consultant.
I do a lot of work coaching nonprofits as well as corporations working in the private sector [00:03:00] and a fair bit of board experience also at the not-for-profit level. So fair bit of engagement in terms of communications. I’m also a part-time instructor with the Gardner Institute School of Business at Memorial University, where we do ongoing professional development for people in business.
So it’s been a great opportunity to share the communications message and promote communications excellence. Thank you. And just a note to those of you who are watching live with us today. You do have the opportunity to participate in this conversation. You’re on YouTube there’s a place where you can enter your question, your comment, your observation and we’ll pop it up onto the screen and make it part of the discussion and really hope that you’ll take advantage of that because it makes these conversations more interesting when we’re able to talk about the things that you tell us you’re interested in.
Just to kick things off, I as a, as an avid fan of artificial intelligence asked [00:04:00] one of the AI models for examples of CEOs who got their start in communications. And it gave me an interesting first list. Chris Foster, who’s the CEO of Omnicom James Wright global, CEO of Red Haas Richard Edelman, of course, CEO of Edelman.
Chris Ruby Media Group and Julianne Richter head of Ogilvy. And I said, okay I can easily see how one might ascend to the leadership of a PR or advertising agency from within the ranks of that organization. Are there people who are running organizations that are not communication focused, that got their starts in communication and the model said, oh, sure.
Misha Dunna is CEO of Space Hive, a community fundraising platform, spent 20 years in communications. John Fallon is the former CEO of Pearson Global Publishing and Education Company. He had previously served as their Chief communication [00:05:00] officer and Sue Clark, former CEO of Sab Miller Europe transitioned from a background I.
In corporate communications to leading the European division of that beverage company. And where I work at Webco, our manager of outreach, a wonderful person I just love working with. She does all of our workforce development things like that. She’s new to this role. She had been in public relations and communications for about 15 years before that.
So making the transition seems to not be uncommon. What is it in your view about working in communication? And by the way, I should mention that the one that I knew before that and listed in the promotion for this episode was Paul Delini who was the CEO of Intel, who was the chief marketing officer there and came from a background in, in marketing.
So what is it about the communication field that lends itself to [00:06:00] moving into. Leadership roles that are outside the realm of communication?
I’ll start by saying everything. And I speak to my students about communications skill. These are business school students, and I speak to them about communication skills being the superpower foundation that they need to succeed in business because really the elements of understanding your audience linking it to the ability to link to the business objectives and communicate that with with through the right channel, with the right tone, et cetera, are all the hallmarks of, of great leaders and and frankly the leaders I’ve admired most shall to your set of examples or not most, but some leaders I’ve really enjoyed working with have been ones ones who’ve had a background in communications because they see the value of that of that superpower really. My experience is that leaders get to [00:07:00] be leaders either of one of two things.
They’ve either crawled on top of everybody else, shot others in the back and done dastardly things behind the scenes in order to crawl to the top of the leadership, or they are simply good communicators themselves. I myself often challenge the idea that we call ourselves communicators. Were, in my view, practitioners in communication, but the true communicators in a business actually are the leaders.
And as Jennifer says it’s something which is absolute the, these skills are absolutely fundamental to being a leader. And so perhaps it’s surprising that more people from the communication profession actually don’t end up in leadership. And I’m sure that’s something we can explore in the next few minutes.
And I definitely would like to explore that because it’s always struck me working in communications that we’re one of the few functions that has a good solid overview of pretty much every function in the organization. We have our fingers in everything. Neil, you had mentioned that there are [00:08:00] skills in communication that equip people with the tools that they need to become a business leader.
What kind of skills did you have in mind? Yeah, very much aligned with what Jennifer and Russell have already talked about. I think there’s, there are a few others in the organization that really understand how the organization works than the communication professionals in that organization in order to get our job done.
We, we need that collaboration and we need to understand how decisions are made. We need to understand, where the seats of power are. We need to really be connected to the organization in a way that other functions I just don’t think are. But then if you think about the fundamentals of what makes communication great, Jennifer referenced a number of them already, but that solid understanding of your stakeholders their needs their preferences how you’re gonna get to your outcomes.
I, I think that is just such a fundamental [00:09:00] capability that you can transfer beyond just the communication process, right? And you can extend that into decision making. You can extend that into operations. You can extend that into all sorts of things that, that leaders really need to grapple with.
But it’s that. If you think of the communication excellence model that IBC is so great at you can see how so many of those elements really apply across. And I think it’s that ability to have the vision because great leaders have a vision and can motivate and mobilize to create that positive response, that forward action.
But it’s not just about building the relationships, it’s also about seeing where those relationships are possible and in communications. When we look at storytelling and building those elements that tell a good story, it’s the same thing I find with communications, taking the different elements and highlighting who’s going to be, taking action, [00:10:00] who’s going to be leading, who’s going to be bringing up from behind to make sure that everything is heading in the right direction? And to me it’s about the relationships, it’s about the listening component and the collaboration. But it’s being able to translate that vision into action.
It’s also having a good judgment. Particularly being able to judge from a variety of diverse and apparently unconnected elements. So one of the things that we know about communications is that ultimately it’s an art. People will argue, I think, correctly, that it’s an art based on science, but it is an art because it involves humans who don’t always behave in the same way twice.
And that ability to bring these disparate elements together to form if you like, the patterns in the mess is something that we probably do most days and don’t think about naturally in communications. But it’s something that a lead, a good leader is able to practice and to put into and to put into action.
To, to good effect. And, Russell, sometimes I [00:11:00] think that communication professionals and those of us who have don’t know if it’s the way if our brains are wired this way to start, or and I guess it’s different for every person, but I sometimes find that we are the people in the room who can see that lay of the land, who can see that the connective tissue.
And I’ve experienced that as a volunteer around an IABC and other tables and around fundraising tables and executive leadership tables and tables of engineers where I have no idea what dialect they’re speaking. But but there is an ability, because of my communications, training and background to see where the river is going to run through the valleys and, and rise up rise up through mountains, et cetera. And I don’t really know where that comes from other than an ability to always be looking for that connectedness. I think there’s a level of curiosity in our profession that you don’t get in many other professions. I won’t mention HR or financeer specifically who tend to follow process rather than pragmatism [00:12:00] sometimes.
But it’s also true that when we apply ourselves in that kind of situation you just described, er, we also become the conscience of the organization. We see things that maybe others do see, but nobody else wants to point out. What I often call being the grit in the oyster without being in the pin in the balloon, but also the joker at the court of Klia.
And sometimes around the board table, my, my experience is sometimes it’s better not to be at the board, but around the board table if you’re part of the board, sometimes you are compromised in being able to call things out that you may not be if you are sat around the board table and not actually part of the board.
Neil, you were talking a few times about decision making as one of the outcomes that we get from our experiences as communicators. Certainly at the leadership level, it’s all about making key decisions about the future direction, the company, things like that. Where in communications does that decision making skill come from, do you think?
It does. It’s about the stakeholder analysis piece. Again, I think for me but [00:13:00] also when we’re developing really great communications, they’re grounded in research, I think there is a lot of instinct but we’re also great at really fully understanding the issues from a variety of perspectives.
And I think that skill and that capability. Sets us up to make really informed decisions and seeing different sides of it. So I think that’s probably where I’d come at this from. I think it’s also the ability to play a decision forward. Think about what’s gonna happen next, what are the consequences on our stakeholder groups.
And I think a lot of the time, in my experience and it speaks a little bit to what Russell just said about being the conscience. It’s helping the room that you are in, or the people around that table really understand what is the impact and are we really going to do we really fully understand from all perspectives what impact we’re gonna have?
It could be as simple as, okay, if we make [00:14:00] this set of promotion decisions right now, do we fully understand the impact of those who aren’t gonna be on, those who aren’t gonna be promoted? In the same way as are we about to acquire a company, what impact does that have on our operating environment, our diversity aspirations, whatever it is.
I think we’re just great at really considering all aspects of of the decision. Because we’re good at stakeholders, we’re good at research and we’ve got our foundation in that. And just to build on that, Neil when you talk about stakeholders, I think that’s not just external stakeholders, but internal stakeholders as well.
Absolutely. The way that we are communications is able to again, see those partnerships internally and see the op and see the opportunities. I don’t go into any client organization without asking my client. Okay, where are the change people? Who are the HR people? Who are, because those are the people who are [00:15:00] the DEI people.
Those are the people who also I know are going to see a clear path through a different lens. But whose work is going to elevate mine and vice versa. When I even think about, a few years ago I got to work with a really brilliant change enablement professional who really embedded me.
And I haven’t done pro sci training, but really embedded me in the whole ad car model around change management. And when you think about those elements awareness, desire, knowledge, ability, and reinforcement, all of those, and I think the change management people would agree, really rely ultimately on, on communication skills to move audiences and partners toward those various states to take people through change and transition.
Arguably again, communication communicators and and our partners are the ones moving organizations and communities of various sorts through those, through all sorts of [00:16:00] transitions. I think it’s really important to recognize that communicators also operate with various lenses. And it can be the DEI lenses, as Neil has highlighted.
It can be the stakeholder lens. It can be the research lens. If you look at policy development, program development, evidence-based decision making, where you take in data you also have to factor in the human data that you collect. And that’s why I think in terms of applying those lenses so that we can make good decisions and support good decisions, being able to have access to, what Russell highlighted that sort of innate curiosity of how does this work and why are we doing this and who else should be involved? Is there a different way that we could be doing that allows us to be effective communicators because you’re just not standing on a street corner and broadcasting a message over and over again.
There’s a whole process of engagement and understanding that [00:17:00] has to be in place in order for action to result. Yeah. I also think it, it’s important that we come to this without an agenda beyond supporting the organization and its goals. And people have biases when they make proposals or wanna make decisions.
And with that big picture to be able to say, but wait a minute, have you considered the impact on this group of this decision? And in terms of that big picture, I am reminded of a story Charlene Lee tells of a company. This was in the early days of blogging where they had started a couple of blogs and one of them was having a significant impact on their customer support.
People were getting answers by going to the blog rather than calling the customer support center. But in one of their blogs, they inadvertently violated a securities and exchange commission rule and were fined in the millions of dollars. And the lawyers. Immediately jerked [00:18:00] their knees and said, we need to shut this down.
That cost us X million dollars. And it was Charlene who stepped in and said, how much money do you suspect you have saved with the blog in terms of people getting answers and not having to call the company? And they said as we put pencil to paper, we estimate that’s in the $20 million range. And she said, okay, so you’re $15 million in the black.
You’re gonna shut this down. Why? Now, I think leaders, when they’re in the throes of the emotions around a decision, stop thinking about things like cost benefit analysis. And that objectivity in that big picture helps us bring that back to the table. I think you’ve just mentioned ahead, just, and I agree with that.
I think you’ve just mentioned shell, one of the factors and skills that we haven’t mentioned yet that you do need if you’re gonna become a leader, and that is the ability to work and manipulate data. Because ultimately as somebody said it, I think it was Liam [00:19:00] Fitzpatrick. If you come with data you leave with respect.
And I think as communications practitioners sometimes we tend to waffle and talk about words and commas and grammar and stuff like that. But ultimately at the board table, it is the data that the finance person, and the CEO is really interested in and have. If you’re able to do that effectively, that’s when I think you become a true leader of the organization.
Completely agree with that. And I think we can probably unpack that a little bit more actually. But I just going back to the point that you were making, shell, I think, when you spend years and years being the person who has to communicate and find ways of engaging people with the decisions and the, the like it or love it that, the way that the organization is going, I think you do develop a skill of saying, okay, hang on.
So you are deciding this. How are we gonna explain that? How are we gonna rationalize that? And I think just that process of going, [00:20:00] doing that for years and years does impact how you then in the moment very quickly can see whether or not something is a good or a bad decision. And I, I think that there’s a lot to that.
It’s something that develops over a long time. But I think we’re really good at it. And, sorry, just to quickly build on what you were saying not just how are we gonna explain it or rationalize it, but how are the people hearing it going to feel? And here’s the data about what we know about, the generalized data about what we know to anticipate they’re going to feel, and therefore, how should we adjust our message accordingly so that we can move people through this change or this transition, or this impact of some kind or another?
We do have a comment. Brian Kilgore shares a good PR person will spend much more time with customers and clients than will other executives at similar levels in hr, it, manufacturing, or even r and d. And I think that’s an excellent point. I remember I, I worked for a pharmaceutical company for a few [00:21:00] years and once a quarter.
I went out with a sales rep as he made calls on doctor’s offices. And I, you have no idea how valuable it was to hear directly from the doctors about how their relationship with the company was. Any thoughts on this?
Oh, I agree. I, when I worked in a large organization and I was probably one of the few senior managers who ate lunch every day in the lunchroom, and it was just a really good way to get a read on what people were thinking because, you could sit there and participate and contribute, but most importantly you could listen and get a sense of, what were the things that people liked?
What were the things that were perhaps not going the way they thought they would, or where there might be some misunderstandings. And it gave a sense you could, get a pulse on the organization. And I think if we can create those channels and those opportunities to talk to people about what’s [00:22:00] happening, you get a sense of that reality of how the organization is operating right at the ground level.
Yeah, I think that applies to internal communications as well. I did work when I was consulting with a big NGO in Washington, and they had a leadership board that ate lunch in a private dining room and never mingled with the employees except one. One of them came down into the cafeteria, grabbed a tray, knew all the cashiers by name and picked a different table to sit at every day.
The research showed that there was one leader in this organization that employees trusted not a big stretch to guess who that might have been among that leadership team. He really built those relationships. Leads to another good question is, for both internal and external relationships, how does a communicator go about building those in order to facilitate good communication, good collaboration.
For me, I think it’s [00:23:00] understanding what it is that they need, right? It’s that whole point of understanding the business or the organization, how it works how things get done ultimately. And that way you also find out the, where the win-win really sits. So when you are in a particular situation as a communicator or as a leader the what’s in it for them as part of whatever it is that you’re working on.
I’ve got change in mind, but what, I guess whatever it is that that it is that you’re working on. Yeah very true. And I think of the, the kind of little bit overused, but still still meaningful Mr. Rogers line, look for the helpers. And I think communication professionals are often seen that way.
And again, to my point, when I go into a client’s organization, I look for those allied professionals those folks who work in in similar fields to communications where where their goal is to both understand the impact on a group [00:24:00] and and. Take people through whatever they need to, whether that’s a process, a change, a towards something different, et cetera.
And generally when, when you find people in an organization who are like-minded in that way, working toward similar goals in similar ways you start to create community and alliances that amplify what we do. It’s also about being curious about people. I think it’s something that, again, as communications practitioners, we probably do more naturally, but to be curious about people, their backgrounds, what was their, what were their previous employments?
Possibly what’s their family background? What’s their cultural background? What do you know about them that you can relate to in a way that you can strike up a conversation, that you can remember things about them, et cetera. And I think, we all go around with kind of virtual rolodexes on what we know about certain people in a good way in order to both strike up and or, and then cement relationships sometimes over, over many years.
We work in a [00:25:00] profession where often you come across people that you may have come first across, years ago, and then you meet them again, perhaps in a different guise but you still remember things about them. I think that’s quite important. It is about being seen. I remember I once worked had this amazing supervisor who’s a leader of an organization and who kept a stack of note cards by her telephone.
And whenever she saw something that somebody had done or that she noticed, something that they had said or contributed to, she would write them a note. And acknowledge that contribution and the power of being seen was tremendous. And people would say, wow, I, I didn’t think that she would notice that I had done that.
Or, I’ve been doing this for years and nobody has said boo and now this person comes along and says, thank you. Or That was a great piece of work or whatever. So being seen and creating those spaces where people can be [00:26:00] acknowledged for their contributions, I think is part of how you build those relationships and build a community where people feel supported.
And that then when they are being given information that then they have the tools to start, putting that vision into action. So to me, I think it’s a combination of that big picture, but also those little things that add to the operations, the smooth functioning of an organization, both internally as, as well as externally.
Okay, so it’s the time of year when we’re all going to holiday parties and getting together with friends. That kind of rush where people say oh, we have to get together before the holidays, before the end of the year. And I’m sure that you all have been in a situation where you come back, you leave a gathering like that, and you think the, you think about all the things you learned about the people that you were speaking with [00:27:00] about a challenge they might have about their kids, about what they might want for Christmas about their pet, an upcoming travel adventure and the, and personal things as well as professional things Again.
Challenges there, something that’s stressing them at work. And often I come, also come away from those gatherings thinking, huh, isn’t it interesting that not that many people asked me that about me? Not that I care to be asked. I’m, I, like Russell says I’m a curious person, so I want to know those other people’s stories.
But I think part of it, Martha, to what you’re talking about is that kind of idea of holding space, of giving people room to tell and share their story in ways that, that we then can perhaps see a more meaningful thread or moment. Whether that’s recognizing someone for a little. Tidbit of something that they didn’t you know, they, that they didn’t think anyone noticed, or whether it’s just remembering a little detail of of, again, a person’s [00:28:00] life or their a conversation that you’ve had.
Holding space for that in our own brains and our own professional practice has a profound impact on the people and the communities around us. There was some fascinating research that was reported by a number of outlets back in August. This was from an organization called the Observatory on Corporate Reputation, which was a new one on me.
But what they did was, they examined the fortune thousand companies and found that roles of chief communication officers that had an additional role tacked onto it. So it was chief communication and blank officer had risen 88% since 2019. And outnumbered the total number of chief communication officers who only did communication.
And they’ve ranked the additional roles that these officers have. [00:29:00] Chief Communication and Marketing officer chief Communication and HR Officer, chief Communication and Sustainability, ESG impact chief Communication and Corporate Affairs Officer, chief Communication and Brand Officer investor relations, public affairs, and DEI all being added onto the CCO title.
Is this a way that organizations are saving money by not having additional people sitting around the table? Or do they see communicators as uniquely positioned to take accountability for these additional roles? I. I think this works in both directions. It’s interesting in terms of what you said, that all those titles began chief communications, and and that does suggest that the chief communi the communications element was the principle, although most of the ones you listed actually were also, and another communications discipline with the exception of hr.
But what I’m seeing is that you’re seeing communications and strategy put [00:30:00] together, for example or communications and corporate operations, for example, or in one or two cases communications and one or two operations of the business. And to your question, I think it I think it, it, when I say it goes both ways, I think either you can see that the communications partner’s been squeezed out and someone else has done it, or the opposite.
And in the opposite case, that’s often been down to the quality and the assertiveness of the person that was in the communications role to say. And to demonstrate that they can do more than simply communications, because communications is a more generic business function than the organization expected.
But this is where I think it’s also important that communications practitioners who are capable don’t just sit in their box to be communications practitioners. And demonstrating that either at executive level, around the board table or elsewhere in the organization is a space that we should be operating if we feel we’ve got the capability.
I’ll stick with you there for a minute. Russell, at what point then [00:31:00] would a communicator stop thinking of themselves as a communication practitioner and sort of transition into perceiving themselves as a business leader? I think it’s when they’re sat round, the board table, executive committee, whatever you want to say, and they’re thinking, hang on a second I could do that job as well.
Or, there’s nothing particularly special about that particular role that doesn’t include a lot of generic elements of my skillset that I could apply that. And I think I’ll suggest to the CEO that next time, for example, there’s a vacancy in that particular area. Maybe he or she wants to combine the two roles together.
And I think that’s probably the point. It’s a, I think it’s also a point in a person’s career which is about their confidence as well as competence in the organization.
Other thoughts on that? Anyone? If you work in the not-for-profit sector, you often get roles that are. Layered upon each other. And the one I [00:32:00] see most frequently is communications and fundraising. You also have, communications and community relations. So there’s part of that is driven by budget considerations because they recognize the need for that role, but they may not necessarily have the budget for a separate person.
So the communications function absorbs that as a better fit than perhaps other areas. But I think where you see the transition from a communications officer to a communications director or director of communications and strategy comes with that strategic higher level analysis that allows you to start applying the things that you have seen and gathered in your initial years in the role within the communications function to apply to other components of the business operation.
Think shell, to your question about is it which came first with regards to the el the the use of that title [00:33:00] and what it means for organizations. I observed during Covid, as did many of us, that that organizations, there was a reckoning among organization, amongst organizations, a realization that communications was perhaps more essential than they even realized.
And I said at the time that kind of, it was this spotlight on communication professionals. Professionals. It was our time to shine, to show up to really profoundly make a difference within organizations. And I would sus my own hunch would be that what you’re describing or what that research showed is a bit of organizations needing to perhaps performatively indicate to their audiences that communications is a foundational element of their organizational structure.
Now, I think that was an earned bit of performative titling perhaps. But I think that could be part of it.
I think another. Discipline where communications [00:34:00] has developed some expertise recently I would say over the last maybe 35 years or so, is technology. To some extent we’ve always been engaged with technology at some level. I remember doing press checks with blue lines, so I understood printing technology.
I carried a little book from International Paper called Pocket Pal wherever I went. But digital technology has really become the foundation of most of the communication work that we do. So we’ve had to become expert in that. I was recently invited to speak at a gathering of all of the IT people who work for companies that are owned by my company’s parent company.
Flew to Long Island and talked to a room of about 60 people about how we’re doing AI at Web Corps. Seems that. This is something that we end up doing quite a bit, which is branching out of communication into other areas of expertise. How do we leverage [00:35:00] that? And also how do we make the case for the kind of investment in that will, serve the goals of the organization and the needs of the communication function.
I think knowing the history behind communications in some respects. I remember being at one of the IBC conferences in London and we were asked to put when we used different things or acquired different things and how we applied them and just seeing how technology influenced the work that we did.
Previously when I first started communications, we used to hand deliver our news releases and then we adopted the fax, and then we had fax lists, and then we adopted email and listservs. And in terms of how technology functions in the organization, communications professionals are among the early adopters who, because.
We can see the efficiencies that result, but also because we’re curious, could this make our work better? Could it be faster? How do we make our presentations [00:36:00] more engaging? How do we share information visually to reach people in a different way other than the printed word? How can we share information across multicultural communities and so on?
So I think for me, the role in communic technology in communications is really how we can do things that will allow us to have greater impact. And to me, that’s fundamentally the question of why we will do something is what will be the impact? Can we make it better? Can we make work easier? Can we have a greater reach?
Can we foster understanding and uptake so that we get the results that we want in terms of the vision and the action for our employees and for our customers and for our clients? I think that’s where I was gonna go as well. Martha, I impact was the word that, that came up for me. And shell, I think you were asking, how do we somewhat make the case, right?
For either adopting something or pursuing a certain path from a [00:37:00] tech perspective. Again, comes back to what Russell said earlier about data, right? If you can bring the data in the room, I think you make a much more compelling case. But that has to be focused on the kind of impact that you are gonna have for the organization, for the communication process that you are, that this technology is looking to facilitate.
Neil, I’m gonna, I’m gonna pick on you for a minute because of everybody on the panel right now, you’re the one who’s not working in a communication role. You work for the DEI function. How did you make that transition because you were in. A communication role. I was so I was at my last firm at the time.
And it was a setup where really diversity, equity, inclusion wasn’t anyone’s primary focus in the organization. We I don’t think we were alone in that. There are many organizations that were quite progressive on this, but certainly more I would say that we’re in the sit, same situation that we were.
So it was a little bit side of desk for [00:38:00] me. But we knew it mattered and we knew it was important. And there were a group of us, it was led initially by one of the partners and HR directors. But she assembled a small team really of people who were willing to support.
And essentially I was really the communication business partner, if you will, to really get DEI off the ground when that partner left the firm. I was asked to just keep things going and progressively took on more and more. It, I do think going into DEI from a communication background is a really it’s an easier transition, I think than for many for a number of reasons.
I think a lot of the things that we’ve talked about before I was able to advocate for the people in the organization, the groups that, that needed to be visible. And that, I was able to use the communication skills to, to really keep the story central to all of the work.
But I was also very used to. Asking for the [00:39:00] organization to pay attention to this. I’d spent years and years trying to make the case for great communication in an organization for whether that was internal or external. And really the, it feels a little bit distant now ’cause it feels like we, we have this seat at the table as communication professionals, but for a long time we didn’t.
And we were used to making that case. And so going into DEI, which was then also making its own case, I was very at ease with that. And I wasn’t discouraged by the fact that we were trying to push on the door. That wasn’t all the way open yet. And so that really stood me in good stead, I think to drive this work.
And as I said before, just really understanding where this fits in, fit into the business, how it advanced the the aims of the business and how it improved life overall for not just the underrepresented groups, but for everybody. ’cause ultimately, DEI work is about improving the whole organization.
I think coming from a comms background really set me up for that. I would imagine that moving to DEI from [00:40:00] communications is easier than, say, moving to accounts payable. I would argue the same. But that does lead to a question. Leaders need an overview of the entire organization, and there are parts where we probably dip our fingers a little less.
How important is it for us to understand the functions of those departments as we pursue more leadership roles? I think this goes back to what we were saying earlier about, I think it was Neil that said it, that you when you’re in communications, you have the role, you have the run of the whole organization.
And I think that means that you can use that to your advantage to go out and understand what all those different roles are. If you’re in an organization that’s a manufacturing organization, so what does the manufacturing pipeline look like? What do this, what do the customers look like? What do the suppliers look like?
If you if you’re in a different type of organization, say an accountancy firm or one of the one of the major consulting organizations. How does their business work? And in order to do that, go through every function, one of the things that we have a [00:41:00] license to do is basically to, to ask questions on the guise of it’s in communications, therefore I need to know about it.
But in doing so, of course, but yeah and showing an interest and also gaining, gaining the knowledge of that you are gaining the respect of the organization and therefore the credibility in order to achieve what you then want to achieve either in communications or in a wider leadership role.
If through the work that we do, we build. A great bank of trust with our stakeholders, both internal and external. It also builds trust in the communication function that, that produced that result. One of the challenges I’m dealing with this right now in my organization, is leadership visibility.
Trust is an important issue in the organization. It’s addressed very overtly at the leadership levels, and yet the leaders are not [00:42:00] ridiculously visible to the employee population. So I guess I’ll expand my question beyond my own challenge, both internal and external. How do we support visibility to build trust in leadership knowing that eventually that trust is gonna come back to us?
I think we lead by example there, right? And I certainly did this when, with the DEI role. I think because I guess naturally I felt the urge and also the the need to be very prominent and communicate on this topic. Therefore the whole organization then became very comfortable about having the necessary conversation.
It’s very specific to my example, but I guess just trying to illustrate that, if the communication function can set the tone and show what happens when you create the kind of communication that the organization is looking for and certainly needs from its leaders.
Then I think that just lays the ground for that. I guess the [00:43:00] challenge is when you’ve got a leader or a leadership team that either doesn’t see the value in communication or is scared of communication or for some reason is not engaging on that level because that’s a really hard, that’s a really hard sell.
But I think again you need to go back to the data. You need to show how this is going to transform the organization for the better. And I’m sure that my colleagues on the panel have got great examples of how they’ve worked with leaders in, in that way. I think this is one which brings together a lot of the things that we’ve spoken about in terms of understanding the business, in terms of having credibility yourself in terms of the ability to create relationships and the degree of counsel that you are able to affect with your senior leadership.
You don’t have to sit on the board for that, but you do need to have the trust and be a confident, principally to the CEO, but also, or the managing director or whatever, but also to others and to understand what their barrier is, what their blocker is in [00:44:00] becoming more visible. In some cases it may be that they are desperately shy.
In other cases it may be that they just don’t understand the value of visibility particularly if they’ve grown up in a different culture as the culture of the organization. But understanding where people’s confidence and competence. Come together in a way that you can make a difference as a coach and as a confidant and working on one by one.
So if you worked you wouldn’t take your most difficult case to start with. You take a case that was moderately difficult but one that you could overcome and then use that as an example to show, if Bogans over there is able to do it, maybe you’d be able to do it as well. But not to underestimate these things take a lot of time and a lot of resource and effort, but it is effort that we should be prepared to put in order to achieve that result.
And, Russell, I was thinking about that and Neil, when you mentioned about your trajectory and your career path, that this is a [00:45:00] long game in many cases, right? This is an investment both from a career perspective, but then also but then also in terms of our the trust that we build within organizations and within our communities that we can say help, let me help you understand your audience and and reach them better and have a better impact.
But when we show that as the IBC model calls us to do with evidence and with data as an outcome, not just an output when we show that over short, medium, and long term are the most. Have the most profound impact. Then we really begin to earn trust. Trust as professionals. I think it’s also true, Jennifer, that when we talk about that trust and earning it there’s an accessibility question.
And by accessibility I mean in terms of who has access to senior leadership and then who has access in terms [00:46:00] of the information that’s available at the front line. And I was struck at an IBC conference. There was a presenter who said, every time they would hear a leader say, people can come to me, my door’s always open.
He, said the flip side to that is that they have a door that can be closed and how that can send a signal that who controls the access. And clearly there are decisions that need to be made and things that need to happen and conversations and so on at different levels. But when we look at visibility and accessibility to share concerns or to share ideas and potential innovations how we build trust comes to the accessibility.
Do we make it possible for people to share what they know and also for them to listen to what people have to say? So I, when I think about the questions of trust, I do often think about that simple image of who has a door and who [00:47:00] doesn’t change. Communication is easier when you have, I. Trust as a foundation.
Change is also a discipline that thrusts a lot of communicators into leadership roles who may not have had one before. I think Covid was an example of that, particularly with internal communicators suddenly being relied on much more heavily by leadership than previously in a lot of instances.
How can we leverage change communication to build our own leadership chops and grease the wheels toward leading bigger parts of the organization?
I see us as two halves of a whole in many ways or parts to the circle. Change communication has just so many principles that are similar to what we practice in, in, in communications per se. And again, really change comes into into our measurable outcomes, right? What are, what [00:48:00] Im, what action or reaction are we looking for from any audience on any topic at any time?
And how do we know that we got there? And those are really the elements of change, communication, albeit phrased in different ways with many of the professionals I’ve worked with. But it’s a profound partnership and opportunity. And as you said, shell many I have many colleagues who’ve moved from communications into related fields, hr, coaching and change Included in that.
This is good. Although sometimes I’ve lost counter the number of times that somebody who didn’t have a job at the right time that wasn’t a communications practitioner ended up leading change and not really knowing what on earth they were doing. And it came apart across it. It was the necessity for me or somebody in my team or whatever to then step in and say, actually that’s not what you do.
And too many times I’ve just seen an assumption that anybody that doesn’t really [00:49:00] understand change can actually do change. And we have to be able to step in there when necessary and act. We have a couple of comments. Brian Kilgore says, get out of your cubicle and visit. Departments, stores, factories and suppliers could not agree more.
I get some of my best insights when I get out of the office and out onto a construction project site where the actual work is being done. But Miko has a question specifically for you, Russell. How might a Mid-Career Communicator Act is their communic their corporation’s conscience without harming their career progress?
They’re vulnerable, less secure, financially less able to rock the boat. I think you have to have the courage of your convictions, really. And I think this is just so important generally in communications. I think if you think that something needs doing, or something needs pointing out or is wrong, if you’re a mid-career communications practitioner and you’ve been doing what you should be doing for, for good, you should have a level of credibility that allows you to challenge.
I think if you are [00:50:00] not in a position where you feel at that stage in your career that you can challenge the organization to some degree, there’s probably something gone wrong. I think I, I feel quite strongly about this as you can see. And I think it’s something that we as practitioners have a a duty which we owe to our organizations.
Often when the organizations itself, the organization itself cannot see the need that we can see looking, if you like, from a more a more global perspective on the organization rather than those people who have got their head down in the organization all the time. Vocabulary that I’ve used before is that I wouldn’t be doing my job properly if I said yes to this or no to this.
It and I think Russell’s absolutely right it, it’s in the description of one’s contribution to the organization and reminding people that actually, yeah, this is part of what I do. I completely relate to the comment shared because I imagine that there are a number of people doing the work that we do [00:51:00] who have had to pause because of, they’ve weighed up the potential impact on them personally.
But I, as I, I’ve done it, I’ve, I was mid-career and I said no to something or doing something because it was not the right ethical thing to be doing. And I said, look I cannot be part of this. And ultimately the organization I was with at the time went in a different direction.
And it’s on all of us in our profession to do that. Otherwise we, I think we can all understand the impact of that collectively. One, one of the thing I would say is that at the time I mean I’ve been an IBC member a very long time. But there I was able to also lean on the code of ethics and say, actually, I’ve made a commitment to a code of professional practice.
Not necessarily everybody’s gonna need that to lean on, but I found that very helpful to be able to say, look I’m a professional. I have a code. This does, this is not consistent with that code. I’m glad you mentioned that Neil, because [00:52:00] it also comes back to organizational values.
And so interestingly in that list of job descriptions, shell that you provided communications and ethics officer didn’t seem to be part of the job title in top ranking. If it exists. Another way for organizations, I think, because you can have multiple people with multiple codes of practice, hospital health based organizations as an example.
But if you can go to your code of ethics and you can go to the organization values and say, if we do this, how are we living up to our values as an organization? How are we maintaining or keeping or upholding our promise to our stakeholders, customers, clients, our employees? To me that’s a fundamental question that we need to look at.
And that is all the time we have. We are at the top of the hour. I just have a couple seconds to let everyone know. That episode one 12 of Circle of Fellows is scheduled for 4:00 PM Eastern on Thursday, January 16th. We’ll be [00:53:00] talking about sparking creativity. Our coordinator of these events Anna Willie is working on assembling that panel, but so far Zoa Artis and Andrea Greenhouse will be joining me for that one.
So I hope to see everybody there. Thank you so much to the panel today. This has been great, and we’ll see you all next month.
The post Circle of Fellows #111: Professional Communication as a Leadership Foundation appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.
