From the top

I'm a real 'must be organised' person, so I can never stand to see the state of my office when I finally come back from a stint of travelling around. There are piles of papers everywhere, where I've put them down and picked the next lot up ready to get on the next train/plane. So the past couple of evenings have been spent laboriously sorting through my papers. (I know. I really should get out more.)

I've just come across some notes I made whilst at the Melcrum US summit headed 'advice from the top'.

Brad Casper, President and CEO of the Dial Corporation, gave an interesting presentation, but when people really sat up was when they were able to start asking him questions. Why are there so many CEOs that don't 'get' communication like he does? ("there's no magic formula - some people just won't get it")  When CEOs get together and talk about communication, what do they say? ("We don't really tend to talk about communication")

And the question where everyone sat with pens poised - What advice do you have for us as internal communicators about working effectively with CEOs?  These were Brad's three tips:

• CEOs like best practices. Coming back from a conference like this is a good time to talk to us about the best practices you've seen that we could learn from.
• Presenting a senior executive with a full-developed plan can be dangerous - we may not feel part of the solution. Leave some room for dialogue.
• Be ready to cite examples that are working and driving business results

I also noted down a piece of advice in a workshop run by Linda Dulye of L.M.Dulye&Co.  She was talking about the importance of data at the time, and took us back to a conversation with a senior manager that had influenced her approach to communications from early on in her career.  "Where's your data?" he had asked her.  "In God we trust - everyone else, bring data."   From that point on, she was determined to make sure her approach was built on evidence, data and measurement in just the same way as every other function, and she's built a very successful career on it.

What other advice have you been given by senior leaders or CEOs at various points that has given you insights or influenced your approach to internal comms? 

Sue

Comments

[Fiona]

This piece of advice really annoyed me at the time, but a senior manager once told me to stop fighting the system and start playing the games. I'm not one to play games (I'm what they call straightforward...) but he managed to convince me on 2 counts:
1. The person who you are playing the game for will like you more
2. Playing their game or the game of the organisation means you can get more done.

I don't like it and I'm not saying it's right. However, it has worked for me. I play the game I need to play with a stakeholder to get something agreed or done. I resent doing it, but I can spend time resenting doing it during all the time I've saved by playing the game in the first place.

On the other hand, it may just be stakeholder management...