If you are a marketing and communications professional, you probably think about “doing more and more with less and less” every week. And, one of your daily concerns might come from working with a large and vocal committee to make decisions about a critical project with a tight deadline. Talking through each of the six things that probably bug you every week, Susan T. Evans shares tips, ideas, and advice for making your way around the barriers to excellent marketing and communications work on your campus.

1. mStoner
OH in Higher Ed Circles:
6 things that drive us mad
mStoner Webinar
Susan T. Evans, Senior Strategist
27 March 2014
2:00PM Eastern

3. mStoner

6. page 5
EXECUTIVES
INTERNAL
STAKEHOLDERS
YOUR IDEA

7. Committees
Feedback
Resources
Change
Turf
Relationships

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Committees.
They are unwieldy, slow to act, and
sometimes set up to avoid a decision.
Even when a committee is called a
task force, it presents challenges; you
must find ways to use them well.
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11. First meeting = nothing gets done.
Let them have their say.

12. Go in with the best answer.
Avoid open-ended questions.

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• First meeting: the goal is listening (all get
their say) before you can move on.
• Future meetings: Go in with a plan for
them to react to. Avoid open-ended
questions.
• Make decisions even if someone is
missing from a meeting.
• Say it again, Sam. (Repeat yourself.)
Committees1

14. “Committees are not where the work happens.”
#mStonerNow

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Feedback.
Sometimes, you are caught in a
seemingly unending feedback loop while
staring down a deadline. Worse, you find
yourself responding to the personal
preferences of internal stakeholders at
the expense of the target audience. You
need to control the fire hose.
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17. It might be worth hearing.

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19. The dean doesn’t like green...

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• Don’t assume you won’t hear something you
need to hear.
• Help them give you useful feedback.
• Ground your the presentation of your idea in
feedback/data.
• Beware of herd behavior. Meet with
individuals.
• Don’t be paralyzed by what people tell you.
Feedback2

21. “Thank you for your feedback.”
#mStonerNow

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Resources.
Another week, another new task or set
of expectations. Our teams regularly
take on new initiatives and
responsibilities but rarely stop doing the
less valuable work we’ve always done.
You need to make it stop.
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You need a team that
can change colors.

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• Gulp. Stop. Don’t ask and don’t point it out.
• Swap one thing for another; ask them to
pay for it.
• Reshape your team (new skills, new roles).
• Timing. Ask for resources during times of
great success or serious crisis.
• Cheap, good, fast. Pick two.
Resources3

27. “Stop. See if anyone notices.”
#mStonerNow

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Change.
We’re pretty good at digging in within the
academy. But some amount of change is
needed for almost any great idea. Take
off your blinders, stop pushing past the
resistance, and instead use personal
benefits to influence stakeholders.
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29. I miss Kansas...

30. What’s in this for me?

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•Help stakeholders understand the
personal benefits.
•Be direct about the business need.
•Focus on the greater good.
•Enough details to make the future state
acceptable.
•Executive leadership should be available.
Change4

34. “If we want what we already have,
why did we start this thing?”
#mStonerNow

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Turf.
Using softer language, we refer
to silos when we’re really talking
about turf. We need to turn things
toward a focus on our customers
not our organizational charts.
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•Coordinate with everyone who has
communications in their title.
•Work at the grass roots level.
•Focus on project goals and
measurements of success.
•Create common ground: service to
students or meeting a deadline.
Turf5

39. “You don’t have to be right. You just
have to get what you want.”
#mStonerNow

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Relationships.
Perhaps a surprising addition to this
list, relationship building should always
be a factor. Regular reflection about the
approach and style you use with peers,
members of your team, senior leaders,
and your boss is never a waste of time.
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Ride the coattails of a visionary.

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•Prompt, cajole, ping. (Don’t wait for
people to not do what they said they’d
do.)
•Step into the role. Ride the wave of prior
success.
•It’s your job to help people understand
your goals and ideas. If your boss is the
problem, get over it.
Relationships6

45. “Someday, that person might
be your boss.”
#mStonerNow

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THANK YOU!
Susan T. Evans
Senior Strategist
susan.evans@mStoner.com
757.903.1120