Master class for communication directors of European universities (EUPRIO conference 2012, Goteborg)

1. How to get your communication strategy accepted?
Master class EUPRIO conference, 7 September 2012, Göteborg
A wonderful communication plan. A splendid campaign strategy. The result of weeks of hard work.
Completely following the golden rules of your handbooks and of what you’ve learned at all those
trainings, master classes and conferences. You feel fully respected in your role as a strategic
communications advisor. At last, after all those years at purely operational level, just executing the
communication instructions from your management.
Your bosses don't buy it…
But then, when you finally present your masterpiece to your board, they don’t follow your
arguments, they aren’t convinced of the needs and the results, in a nutshell: they don’t buy it.
Do you recognise this? Well, you’re not alone. According to the 2012 European Communication
Monitor, almost 85% of your colleagues believe that this is the major barrier for a professional
communication management in their organisation: a lack of understanding of communications within
the top management.
... and your colleagues don't share it
And even if you’re among those 15% lucky communicators who have their top management aboard,
there is another hurdle to take. Especially in big and complex organisations, and even more in the
current 2.0 days, a communication strategy is not something of the communications unit alone. Even
purely external campaigns can only succeed and have sustainable results if they are shared and
supported by the whole organisation. And that’s a major challenge, in particular when you work in a
most critical environment such as a university…
So how to avoid those situations? How to get the validation for your strategy at management level,
and how to guarantee the support from your in-house allies? Here is a list of golden rules, tips and
tricks. No rocket science, but everyday common sense… All this presuming that your communication
plan is well-designed, as this will always be the first and most important factor for getting it
validated. But for that, there are plenty of other handbooks and guidelines.
1. Know your context
Strategies are not developed in an isolated office, nor implemented on their own. Today more than
ever, organisations are networked and interlinked: structurally and virtually, internally and
externally, locally and internationally.
As a communicator you should know this context and understand its complexity. Monitor the main
processes that are ongoing in your organisation: not only in communications, but also in other
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2. strategic domains. Try to get an overview of the major flows of information and influence. Try to map
with an helicopter view your (future) communication strategy within the broader context.
Because in the end, it is not about communication, and even less about your communication service.
It is about your organisation, with its goals, structure and the world it’s operating in.
2. Prepare (and prepare and prepare)
The better you are prepared, the bigger the chances of acceptance. Sounds obvious? In reality, this is
where things often go wrong. Because it is not only a matter of preparing your communication plan.
It is also a matter of preparing your management. And of preparing your whole organisation.
3. (Ab)use your corporate strategy
If you are lucky, your university has a clear and long-term corporate strategy. Make sure that your
communication plan is a seamless part of this strategy. Embedding your communication plan smartly
in the global strategy gives you a double advantage. It will increase the impact, the relevance and the
outcome of your communications. And it makes it easier to get green light for your vision. Because
your bosses will not contradict their own strategy, will they?
In case you were not involved before in the development of this corporate strategy – unfortunately
many of us, communicators, aren’t – then find some colleagues who have assisted in the process.
You can learn from their experiences, and avoid the same mistakes and pitfalls when designing and
defending your communication plan.
4. Learn from your own communication plan
When you develop a communication strategy, you will (or you should) do an in-depth analysis:
SWOT, DESTEP, budget outlooks, market research and other tools necessary to define all the
elements of your strategy.
All this research does not only enrich your strategy, it is also extremely useful to gauge the eventual
acceptance of it. How is your management performing in terms of communications. What are the
competitors currently doing. How is the climate among your staff and other internal stakeholders?
Will they be ready for sharing your strategy?
5. Involve and connect
It is key to involve your internal stakeholders during the whole strategic process. Listening to your
directors, your colleagues and your internal clients during the preparation of your strategy is the best
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3. guarantee to have a coherent and realistic approach. But it increases also the involvement of your
internal stakeholders, which will show crucial in the next steps of validation and implementation.
You can use the existing platforms or official networks for informing and consulting or, even better,
for asking their participation. But you can also detect the unofficial opinion leaders and gatekeepers,
and try to connect with them in an informal way.
6. Know your allies (and your enemies)
In those preparatory consultations, you will easily find out who are the (unexpected) enthusiastic
ambassadors of your project, who is rather lukewarm or reluctant, and from whom you may expect
opposition. Take all those positions into account, but invest most of your time and energy in your
allies. They will have a multiplicator effect on the rest of the organisation, and you will keep your
own drive and enthusiasm…
Very often, the main opponents are at the middle management level of your organisation. Your top
management and your basis may be supporting your communication strategy, but they will be the
ones arguing that it will not work: too difficult, too expensive, too time-consuming, not compatible
with the priorities of their administration or their faculty, etc. These middle-management colleagues
often feel squeezed by the different interests of the management and their own staff, urging them to
take sides.
In preparing your communication strategy, you often work together with external consultants or
communication agencies. They can also play a role in defending your strategy. Even if the idea is
100% yours, it often sounds more acceptable for your management if it is presented by a renowned
marketing expert or by an agency with a convincing reputation. Of course, you will pay for their
advice and support, although many agencies consider universities as a quality reference on their
clients list, and will charge a very fair price for their work. Other external opinion leaders can be
involved as well: regional business leaders, network experts or – why not – colleagues from well-
respected universities abroad.
Most universities have a faculty or department of communication and marketing studies. A great
pool of in-house academic experts, with a (theoretic) expertise in your work domain. Do involve
them in your strategy preparation and validation as well. If you don't, they will probably be the first
ones to criticize your work. If you do, you can add some academic credibility to your strategy –
always useful when your management board is composed of professors. And if you are lucky, your
academic experts might give relevant input for your strategy, or even support you with market
research or benchmarking.
7. Share and communicate
It is the first rule in every communication handbook: start with the internal communications.
Nevertheless, we communicators, are often the first to neglect this rule. We develop a
communication strategy at our desk, get it validated and start the implementation. And then our
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4. own colleagues and students get to see the final products, on their campus, in their mailbox, in their
newspaper.
So when your communication strategy is ready, think about a second strategy at the metalevel: how
to communicate this communication strategy. It will create a leverage effect, both in house and
externally. It will increase the pressure towards your management for continuing the efforts.
You are afraid of the reactions of your own colleagues? Well, rather get their feedback during the
preparation than when everything has been published, no?
You are afraid of losing grip on the ideas? Better live with it, that's a part of the job. As long as it is
"your" strategy, it will never be "our" strategy. Besides, sharing does not mean loosing: watch how
your ideas are picked up, monitor the reactions, harvest the new ideas and extra dimensions and
make use of the support and engagement by your stakeholders. Enjoy the comfort of working for a
university, where you have a large basis of staff, students and alumni, all with a genuine and often
emotional interest in their university.
8. A matter of timing
First of all: don't hurry! It takes time to develop a sustainable, long-term communication strategy and
to create solid support for the implementation.
When your communication plan is ready, reflect about the timing of the validation, the launch and
the implementation. Try to combine it with major strategic evolutions: the start of a new
management, the adoption of a new corporate strategy, etc. Make use of key moments, hot topics or
even crisis situations.
Besides, if you have followed the earlier rules, you will probably have created a momentum yourself.
By involving your (internal) stakeholders in the preparation process, you'll get the right climate for
launching the strategy.
9. Respect the procedures
Universities, as well as other big (public) institutions, are very often rigid bureaucracies. This
corporate culture does not always match with a communicator's attitude: Aren't we too dynamic,
creative and independent for this dull paper work? Well, let's be creative then, and make use of
those procedures. It is the only way to a formal validation, giving you the mandate for all next steps.
Search for links and matches in the decision flow of other departments, and try to embed a
communication paragraph in their official notes. The more your ideas appear in other files, the
broader the impact of your strategy.
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5. 10. Ready to sell?
So you prepared your strategy, your management and your organisation. One final step to take
before you can put your strategy into practice: you need the formal validation.
Take the effort of testing your presentation and your defence strategy. Simulate a board meeting, set
up a role play with your colleagues, try the "elevator pitch", etc.
Try to look inside your bosses' heads. Understand the reasoning and the mindset of your decision
makers. What are their broader organisational concerns? What are their experiences from the past?
Maybe they have an implicit long term strategy in mind. Or they might have specific interests to
defend: personal, political, ideological. What is their vision on communication and marketing? And
who is influencing them in their decision?
11. Tactical games
Selling your strategy at your management is merely a matter of tactics. So to end this short
background note, some do's and don'ts.
Big bang or crescendo? Find out which presentation strategy is the most likely to be successful.
You can bomb your board with a big, overambitious and all-inclusive strategy, allowing them to
downsize it to realistic proportions. Or you can start the validation small-scale, adding extra elements
in the following discussion rounds and leading the process crescendo to the result you have in mind.
The latter approach is usually the most effective…
Avoid multiple choices. Managers like to choose, and often ask for more than one proposal. Try to
avoid this. Even if you add to your proposal some clearly inferior alternatives, you risk ending up with
the worst option. Variation on the same theme: polls and contests. Don't use online polls to select a
communication concept. Don't ask your students to send in their ideas for a logo or a baseline (and
especially don't promise them that one of them will be selected). Again, you will end up with useless
results: nice stand-alone concepts, but hardly compatible with your strategy. Sometimes, democracy
kills creativity…
Avoid bricolage. "OK, but…" This is often the reaction of the management when deciding on
communication plans. They agree with the main concept, but then start on the spot – with a real do-
it-yourself spirit – to add elements, change colours, modify baselines, etc. In those cases, it is wiser to
stop the debate, take their remarks into account, and come back later with a new and coherent
version of your strategy. If your board doesn't want amateur infrastructure plans or budget reports,
why would they want DIY communication strategies?
Avoid compromises. Probably as bad as the do-it-your-selvers: the decision makers who try to
bargain on the implementation. They agree on your strategy, but they want an exception for this
faculty, another timing for that unit and a reduced implementation for that department. If you agree
with that kind of compromises, you will find it very hard to defend your strategy, and even harder to
implement it within your organisation.
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6. Go for the unrefusable. Clearly link you communication strategy to the (accepted) corporate
strategy. Make use of your allies: invite your academic partners or external experts to the meeting
and let them convince your management.
Let your bosses get the credits. A good idea has many fathers. Accept that your management
takes the credits for your successful strategies. More: try to stimulate this, make them visible during
the launch and the implementation. It will increase their engagement and support on the long term.
And if you really want a personal applause for your efforts: come and present your strategy at the
next EUPRIO conference ;-) …
Tom De Smedt
tom.desmedt@cor.europa.eu
www.linkedin.com/in/tomdesmedt
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