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My head is spinning a bit from all the corporate communications and marketing execs out there who are trying to finish the year strong, manage their budgets properly (a year-end art form in itself!) and plan for the new year.

Planning for the new year seems to trigger questions around change: what trends are going to be impacting my business; what new skill sets do I need in my function; how do my people work optimally with other functions; how do we enhance our value in the enterprise; and so on.

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This post originally appeared in PR Week.

Now that we’re well into the fourth quarter we’re in the heart of planning season.  I find I’m frequently being asked, “what are the big trends out there?” and “what are other communications organizations doing that I should be thinking about?”

Here is some of what I’m seeing.

Corporate character. The “new model” introduced earlier this year by Page is taking root. A deep understanding of who a company is and how that must be at the core of everything it does is being increasingly appreciated.  Research it at www.awpagesociety.com.  Some great videos and information are on the site. The new model is gaining traction.  (more…)

The impact of a world gone digital is having two big, new effects on the corporate communications function: it’s becoming more centralized even  in the most decentralized companies, and content creation/syndication is entering a whole new sphere.

Given the magnitude of these two trends, I’ll devote this column to the issue of centralization, and next month’s to content creation.

You may have noticed a growing trend in which communications and marketing people report to the same executive. The new boss could be the former CMO, CCO or president of a business unit.  But the trend of a common boss should come as no surprise. We forecast this a couple of years ago and if you look at some of the country’s most admired companies, e.g. IBM, GE, J&J,  you see it in action.

Why?

The media landscape has, of course, become more complex. Marketing and communications people are often engaged in common media with shared interests.

The old PR belief that marketers engage in one-way output and PR people engage in two-way conversations is more outdated every day. Marketers are more savvy than that.

The other phenomenon is that companies are realizing a digital world means a real-time world, and that means much more rapid stakeholder engagement.  More and more companies are running their communications function like a political campaign, with daily message meetings, etc. That pace of business has generated recognition among market-leading companies that they cannot afford to go to market in a decentralized way. In other words, a strong, central coordinating body is more important than ever.

There must be a single narrative for the enterprise, and all business unit work must support the narrative and be executed with total awareness of what’s going on elsewhere in the company.

Absence a change in total organizational structure, this means chief communications officers, whether working laterally with marketing or vertically with their various business unit communications pros, must assert themselves more dynamically and impact activity via knowledge and force of personality.  There is minimal authority via hierarchy and the organization’s reporting lines are getting less and less relevant.

Another interesting consequence of this is a growing need by corp comm execs for a new type of staff person: someone who is a great storyteller and writer for a multi-platform world.

What does that mean? We need people who can craft a company’s strategy and messages into a singular compelling narrative.  And can then help take that narrative and adapt the way in which that story is told across all the various platforms we use: traditional press, influential blogs, short-form video, town halls, etc.

Interestingly, some CCOs are telling me these skills are now trumping industry knowledge as a priority job requirement.  The thinking goes a smart person can learn the industry, and the company has plenty of industry experts.  What is a unique and highly valued skill is the capacity to convert the wisdom of the organization into compelling communications.

The new year will bring a growing realization among corporate executives everywhere that the underlying catalyst behind Occupy Wall Street, the Arab Spring and other forms of protest will actually begin to impact the private sector, as well.

What is that catalyst?

Let’s call it the expectation of engagement.

A recent column by Tom Friedman in The New York Times referred to our living in a “democratization of expectations,” the new expectation that all individuals should be able to participate in shaping their own career, citizenship and future.

The column quoted Dov Seidman, a leading authority on the subject: “The days of leading countries or companies via a one-way conversation are over. The old system of command and control – using carrots and sticks – to exert power over people is fast being replaced by ‘connect and collaborate’ to generate power through people. Leaders and managers cannot just impose their will.”

Want proof? Think Netflix and pricing. Bank of America and debit fees. The Gap and its new logo. And so on

The companies we admire these days tend be those that really engage with their employees and customers….they actively listen and they co-create the future with these constituents in order to assure a robust future. They tend to empower their people to engage with customers on a real-time basis. Think Home Depot, IBM, P&G.

Companies that run in a traditionally hierarchical fashion have futures that are going to get very bumpy. Corporate employees are no different than public citizens; they want to be heard and respected and their expectations are changing. They see the world around them changing…not only in high-profile political events, but in the way their friends and colleagues are increasingly being engaged by progressive employers. How long will it take for them to find ways to activate their own peers to demand more engagement from their management?

The digital and social media revolution has forever changed the communications requirements of leaders. Successful leaders embrace a transformative approach in which they fully understand the ecosystem in which their stakeholders operate.

Real engagement in the new digital world requires more than just retooling existing messages for electronic distribution. It requires a fundamental belief that listening to, partnering with, and even occasionally crowd-sourcing ideas with key stakeholders, ultimately results in better decision-making leading to more satisfied customers, motivated employees and so on. The only catch: you really better believe this, because this is where stakeholder expectations now reside.

Is there risk associated with this new way of conducting business and the associated absence of control? Of course.

But it is a new world and control no longer exists (if it ever did). The more enlightened leaders realize that open, public conversations about their brand, their work environment, etc., are taking place regardless and will continue to do so.

The question is, will these leaders engage in that dialogue or stay back? For sure, risk is associated with either choice, but risk cannot be avoided – it is to be managed.

Featured in PR Week January, 2012

Bob Feldman is co-founder and principal of PulsePoint Group, a management and digital consulting firm. He can be reached at bfeldman@pulsepointgroup.com. Bob’s monthly column focuses on management of the corporate communications function.

Not too long ago I asked the ceo of a major business if she thought creativity was an important part of the skill set required of a successful communications professional.

Absolutely, she said.

She had recently hired a senior communications executive and I asked if, thinking back, she looked for evidence of strong creativity.

“Now that you mention it, not really.”

What we want and need in our hires and what we interview for are often two different things. No one likes to admit this, but it happens all the time.

The principal catalyst for this disconnect is the volume of work stacking up for the new hire, kind of like planes circling O’Hare waiting to land.

When many executives screen candidates, the focus, intentionally or not, often skews to the tasks at hand. This is especially true when making mid-level hires. Does this person know the business? Can he or she write well? Will they get along with others? Do they know key media? Digital influencers? Etc.

All reasonable questions.

But…

When hiring mid-level pros, all of whom we want to take real responsibility, grow and become leaders, do we really screen for attributes that will be critical to their long-term success?

The single most common criticism I hear from senior business execs is that communications staffers are often too tactical, and not capable of managing their time in order to provide thoughtful, proactive strategic guidance.

How do you screen for that?

For starters, I’d look at self-confidence. Is your candidate comfortable enough in his or her own skin to form opinions and diplomatically assert those to opinions to others, including more senior executives?

Is your candidate smart? Raise your standard of intellectual contribution. Look at the academic and professional backgrounds of your internal clients…pedigrees, schools, degrees, positions of responsibility. Your candidate may not match up directly, but it sure would be good to get close.

Is your candidate really intellectually curious? Does he or she read a lot? Books, papers, etc. Online, offline doesn’t matter….but probe for intellectual curiosity.

Have they been trusted advisors? You don’t have to be interviewing for the CCO job to have experience being a trusted advisor. Probe for such experience. Examine the advisor role when checking references; dig deep.

There’s much more, but you get the idea. Step back, really evaluate what attributes will you want to see in addition to the handling of the day-to-day tasks, and then actively search for those.

You’ll be very happy you did.

Featured in PR Week November 2011

Bob Feldman is co-founder and principal of PulsePoint Group, a management and digital consulting firm. He can be reached at bfeldman@pulsepointgroup.com. Bob’s monthly column focuses on management of the corporate communications function.

Last month’s column focused on the role of “Corporate” in corporate communications. In sum, my pov is that Corporate serves the business interests of the organization and much of its authority is earned, regardless of reporting structures.

This month I’d like to tackle the flip side: the role of communicators in the business units and their relationship to “Corporate.”

Unfortunately, too often we see this relationship as passive, at best, or dysfunctional, at worst.

Some corporate cultures prize the sales-and-marketing, revenue-generating nature of a business unit and frequently see corporate priorities as fuzzy: long-term, minimal bottom-line accountability and sometimes just doing what the CEO wants.

This is not right.

To paraphrase the old adage, “give as good as you get,” the mantra in business unit communications ought to be “you get as good as you give.” What does that mean?

The opportunity for corporate to add real value comes from things like facilitating knowledge-sharing of best practices across the enterprise; being a source of collaborative innovation; providing seed funding for initiatives that are a bit longer-term in nature, etc.

The capacity for Corporate to do these things – which are 100% in the interests of every business unit communicator – is directly related to the intimacy of the Corporate-BU relationship.

As such, BU communicators should regularly reach out to their corporate counterparts to make them aware of activity and enlist their support when appropriate.

Furthermore, there are some things to consider when evaluating the wisdom of Corporate outreach:

Is your function world-class? If so, great. But if not, tap into Corporate to help identify world-class performances in other areas of the company or through external benchmarking. Corporate communicators often have access to outside research from sources like the Communications Executive Council.

Is your business leveraging the benefits of scale the larger enterprise can offer? For example, are you advocating big ideas that require collaboration across business units because those ideas will have a bigger, greater impact on your own business? Do you negotiate agency fees collectively? How do you handle digital listening? Do you evaluate sponsorship opportunities that, without the participation of other business units, may not be otherwise practical or affordable?

Are you developing relationships across the enterprise for your own career development? Remember, while your culture may seem to prize a short-term focus on business results, your CEO inevitably wants a team of well-seasoned executives with experience in different divisions and different geographies. That happens as much due to cultivated relationships as anything; make time to make those happen.

Are you partnering with Corporate on issues tracking and management? You should because if other BUs were having external problems you surely would want Corporate involved in order to potentially help isolate the issue and protect the larger corporate brand.

Do you want to test or incubate new ideas that aren’t getting funded at your BU level? If the idea has applicability to more than one business unit, this may be an opportunity to partner with Corporate to get seed funding. Corporate always wants to find ways to add value to the businesses; this is often a great option.

Bottom line: The value and productivity of the Corporate-BU relationship is what you make of it. BU communicators who minimize the value of Corporate inevitably behave in ways that make that perception self-fulfilling. Those that want to grow, be better at their jobs and build strong careers, tend to reach out, have a bias towards inclusion and, in the end, are the long-term winners.

Bob Feldman is co-founder and principal of PulsePoint Group, a digital and management consulting firm. He can be reached at bfeldman@pulsepointgroup.com. Bob’s monthly column focuses on management of the corporate communications function.