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March 31, 2006
Getting alignment at the top
I had a very interesting discussion this week while in Belgium with the chief communications officer of a major "Bel20" company about the issue of too many priorities at the top. More specifically, this company is undergoing rapid change (even more rapid for a Belgian firm) and each senior leader has his or her own priorities that, when added all together, create an environment of unclear direction and conflict for the employees trying to carry out their wishes.
What energized me about this conversation was the fact that this CCO was trying to address this problem and create greater alignment of organizational priorities -- rather than just shrugging and suggesting it wasn't a problem for a communications person. All too often we see communications taking a back seat to these discussions, saying "When they figure it out, then we'll communicate it." As business moves faster seemingly every day and companies demand more and more change of their employees, the role of communicator as chief facilitator, coach, moderator and organizational conscience has never been more important. For those of you regular readers, you'll know that this is one of my hot buttons -- communicators who don't view themselves as business leaders.
For the particular situation of this Belgian company, one of the ideas we discussed was to stage a leadership conference with the top 100 or so leaders of the organization. The main advantage of this is actually more in what happens during the preparation rather than in the meeting itself. It's an excuse to force leadership to articulate a clear strategy and set of priorities -- and a golden opportunity to uncover misalignment or conflicting (or too numerous) priorities. And a strong communicator can be right in the middle of those conversations, helping leaders work through it.
Posted by Christopher at March 31, 2006 4:11 AM
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