2. Communicating Strategically

2. Communicating Strategically
A) The summary based on the textbook
Communication, more than any other subject in business, has implications for everyone within an organization-from the newest administrative assistant to the CEO. 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.

Setting an Effective Organization Strategy
The first part of an effective corporate communication strategy relates to the organization itself. The three subsets of an organization strategy include (1) determining the objectives for a particular communication, (2) deciding what resources are available for achieving those objectives, and (3) diagnosing the organization’s reputation.

Determining Objectives
Management communication expert Mary Munter writes in her Guide to Managerial Communication that managerial communication is only successful if you get the desired response from your audience. To get that response, you must think strategically about your communication, including setting measurable objectives for it.

Deciding What Resources Are Available
Determining how to communicate about something like an employee benefits plan or introducing a new product into a market depends heavily on what resources are available within the organization, including money, human resources, and time.

Diagnosing the Organization’s Reputation
In addition to setting objectives for a communication and deciding what resources are available to accomplish that objective, organizations also must determine what kind of reputation they have with the constituencies in question.
The three considerations for creating an effective organization strategy – setting objectives, deciding on the proper allocation of resources, and diagnosing the organization’s reputation – are the building blocks upon which all other steps in communication strategy depend.

Analyzing Constituencies
Analyzing constituencies determines (1) who your organization’s constituencies are, (2) what each thinks about the organization, and (3) what each knows about the communication in question.
Usually, constituencies come from a group that is primary to the organization, but a secondary group also can be the focus for a particular communication. Companies have different sets of constituencies depending on the nature, size, and reach (i.g., global or domestic, local versus regional or national) of their businesses. Also recognize that constituencies interact with one another, and an organization must sometimes work through one constituency to reach another.
In addition to analyzing who the constituencies for a particular communication really are, organizations also need to assess what each constituency thinks about the organization itself.
Clearly then, after a firm has set objectives for its corporate communication, it must thoroughly analyze all the constituencies involved. This means understanding who each constituency is, finding out what each thinks about the organization, and determining what each already knows and feels about the communication in question.

Delivering Messages Appropriately
For companies, delivering messages appropriately 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.
An individual’s channel choices are usually limited to writing or speaking, with some variation in terms of group or individual interaction.
For organization, however, the channels available for delivering the message are several.
Each time a corporate communication strategy is developed, the question of which channel to use and when to use them should be explored carefully.
According to most experts in communication, the two most effective message structures are direct and indirect. Direct structure means revealing your main point first, then explaining why; indirect structure means explaining why first, then revealing your main point.

Constituency Reponses
Creating a coherent corporate communication strategy, then, involves three variables : defining the organization’s overall strategy for the communication, analyzing the relevant constituencies, and delivering messages appropriately. In addition, the organization needs to analyze constituency responses to determine whether the communication was successful.
In conclusion, when developing an overall strategy, firms need to consider their corporate communication effort as manifested in the company’s vision and mission statement.

B) Viewpoint & Experience
I think that communicating strategically to the constituencies means to make a reach effectively the intended contents to the audiences. In other words, the messages which we want to communicate with someone are correctly transmitted. In order to do that, we should consider the appropriate methods, place and timing to effectively and efficiently communicate with what we want to transfer
Currently, unlike 40 – 50 years ago, there are a large variety of communication channels such as fax, E-mail, voice mail web conferencing, Intranet, and webblogs based on the developed information technologies.
In addition, even though there are various and advanced communication channels, the attitude of audiences who received a message is very crucial to communicate with each other within a organization as well as among individuals.
In light of my experiences at my work during almost 20 years, whether the communication within an organization is successful or not, depends on both communication channels and the attitudes of constituencies. In addition, the attitude of a speaker, such as his leadership and feelings, also is one of the very important elements of communication.

References:
1. www.cbd.int/cepa/toolkit/html/resources/34/34404DBC-7BBF-48CA-BFCA-1F5A3BBD906D/Section%204%20_final_.pdf
2. siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTDEVCOMMENG/Resources/DevCommBrochure(final)July07.pdf