Originally Published PR Week

I’ve been friends for a long time with a guy we’ll call Marvin Blotnick.  Marvin was flying home from Chicago the other day having spent a tough two days at a corporate senior management meeting.  Marvin was stressed.   He told me every executive at the meeting was asked to do scenario planning, which meant Marvin had to come back with two new budgets, one reflecting a 10 percent cut, the other 20.

Marvin’s the head of global communications for Couldashouldawoulda Enterprises, a US-based producer of industrial appliances.  In his 10 years with the company he’s been through his fair share of budget reviews.

But Marvin’s boss, Couldashouldawoulda’s new president and COO, is being blunt and demanding. His focus now: immediately achieve significant productivity gains and expense reductions.

Marvin told me he was looking out his plane window getting anxious.  He wondered, how do I meet the growing demands the company places on my organization yet be a team player and come back with constructive ways to run a leaner organization?

Here’s a roadmap for Marvin:

• On the left side of one sheet of paper, list and prioritize the company’s business goals for the next 12-24 months.  If it’s important, it goes on the list.
• Now, on the right side, prioritize the goals for the communications organization.  Be sure top executives would agree; this exercise is to focus on business priority support.  Check for goal alignment.
• Force rank all the work your department’s doing.  Carefully evaluate the ratio of priority impact:time/resources consumed.   It’ll take time to inventory the work and assess it, but it’s worth it.  Now cut the bottom 10 percent.  If it’s good enough for Jack Welch, it’s good enough for Marvin.
• Now, re-evaluate the remaining 90 percent.  Is it being done efficiently? Are you working smart, e.g. do you access other markets (like India) for research and analysis to achieve cost, time and quality advantages?  Can you eliminate unnecessary internal reporting? Can you reduce the number of internal meetings to assure more work actually gets done?
• Take a hard look at your staff.  It’s never easy to cut. Good times accommodate mediocrity, but now is the time to be tough.  If people aren’t excellent performers and they’ve been given a fair opportunity, then move them out.
• Manage your staff as an internal professional services firm.  Assign budgets, track productivity, measure results, implement internal client accountability.
• Assess agency partnerships. Do you have the right number of agencies? Are they 100% focused on achieving your new priority goals?  Is their performance worthy of at least a 4 on a scale of 1 to 5?

If Marvin moves forward on each one of the above action items he will build an efficient, sustainable organization that’s always focused on business priorities.  His scenario planning will be a lot easier, and his next plane ride home from Chicago should be a lot smoother.

---

Bob Feldman is CEO of Feldman & Partners, a communications management consulting firm.  Bob can be reached at bob@feldmanandpartners.com.  Bob’s monthly column focuses on management of the corporate communications function.