Communicating Strategically

Most managers have learned to think strategically about their business overall, but few think strategically about what they spend most of their time doing – communicating.

Communication Theory

The root of modern communication theory goes back to Aristotle’s major work – “The Art of Rhetoric”. This theory talks about three parts of every speech: the speaker, the subject and the hearer. Based on this theory the modern strategy has: organization, messages, and the constituency.

Developing Corporate Communication Strategies

The three subsets of an organization strategy include:

Determining the objectives for a particular communication – what does the organization want each constituency to do as a result of the communication?

Deciding what resources are available for achieving those objectives.

Money
Human Resources
Time

Diagnosing the organization’s reputation – reputation is based on the constituency’s perception of the organization rather than the reality of the organization itself.

Analyzing Constituencies

In this analysis following facts are determined:
Who your organization’s constituencies are
What each thinks about the organization, and
What each knows about the communication in question?

Delivering Messages Appropriately

It involves a two-step analysis for companies. A company must decide how it wants to deliver the message (choose a communication channel) and what approach to take in structuring the message itself.

Constituency Response

It has to satisfy two questions- did each constituency respond in the way the corporate wished? And should the corporation revise the message in light of the constituency responses?

Conclusion

By creating a coherent communication strategy based on the time-tested theories presented here, an organization is well on its way to reinventing how it handles communication.

Reference:

1. Corporate Communication by Paul A. Argenti (pg. 1-12)