Communicating — taking the wider view
| Published date | 01 November 1981 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb057219 |
| Date | 01 November 1981 |
| Pages | 13-17 |
| Author | Frank Barnard |
| Subject Matter | Economics,Information & knowledge management,Management science & operations |
Communicating
—
taking the
wider view
by Frank Barnard
Managing Director, Burson-Marstellar Corporate Communications
If ever there was a safe prediction, it is that corporate
communications will be a growth area in the 1980s. This
will not happen solely because of current advances or
initiatives displayed by the public relations profession.
It will happen quite simply because it is no longer pos-
sible for a corporation to remain silent in a climate of
ever-increasing social, economic and political pressures.
While as you know this was true in the 1970s it is even
more significant in the 1980s.
A corporation has got to speak out, explain
itself,
counter criticism or run the risk of being misunderstood
or, worse, mistrusted. However, just because a corpora-
tion is skilled and successful at managing its business
does not mean it is equally capable of charting its pas-
sage through the complex maze of communications dis-
ciplines and techniques. The misunderstandings are
sometimes very basic indeed.
A good example is the time a communications consul-
tant was called in to advise a firm manufacturing glass
bottles. At the first meeting with the management team,
having been primed with a weighty supply of back-
ground material, his first question was "What business
are you in"? Somewhat annoyed at this apparent lack of
research, the president said "We are in the business of
manufacturing glass bottles". To which the consultant
replied "No, you are not. You are in the packaging bus-
iness."
And from that stemmed all that he was going to
tell them. To put itself on the road to successful com-
munications, then, the corporation must first understand
the nature of its own activities in communications
terms.
"You are not in the business of making glass bot-
tles.
You are in packaging."
Now what I plan to do is to consider not only the way
in which communications techniques will advance over
the next ten years but also the philosophies, the thinking
behind the activities that will employ those techniques.
You might be forgiven for thinking that technique is all.
The available channels of communication seem to
expand daily. And yet paradoxically this may not lead
to easier communication. Instead it is quite likely that it
will result in a fragmented, a segregated audience which
will, in turn, create a need for more precisely targeted,
more carefully reasoned communications initiatives.
The problem is everybody seems to want to be a giant
of the media, a media hero. The clamour for attention is
deafening. Each of us encounters a vastly larger number
of names, faces and voices than ever before. We are
confronted with thousands of messages aimed at shaping
the way we think and the way we act. But still, as the
American sage Will Durant commented about tele-
vision, "The finger that turns the dial rules the air".
And unless an organisation has a relevant, pertinent and
reasoned message to communicate to the right audience
that finger on the dial will spell failure.
A hundred and thirty years ago Henry Thoreau
paused in his contemplation of Walden Pond to con-
template a communications revolution of
his
time. "We
are in great haste," he said, "to construct a magnetic
telegraph from Maine to Texas. But Maine and Texas,
it may be, have nothing important to communicate."
It is understanding what is important and knowing
how to communicate it that is the key to expansion in
this field of endeavour, expanding in the right way, the
professional way, the responsible way over the next
decade and beyond. And that understanding must first
be fostered between the corporation and its communi-
cations advisors and executives, whether they be emp-
loyees or consultants. It is essential that management
understands the business of communications, acknow-
ledges its importance and its validity as an activity. It is
equally vital that the communicators really understand
business, are businessmen.
All this of course may seem obvious. But the trouble
is that many managers merely pay lip-service to it
because they are still hide-bound by an autocratic, hier-
archical society in which the underlings should only
know what is judged good for them. Perhaps it's some-
thing to do with age; the need to fill a role as you
imagine it should be filled. You could call it the man-
agement menopause. And yet things must change.
Indeed the Japanese have started to show us that know-
ledge brings participation, brings commitment, brings
efficiency.
For the corporation the video revolution and the chal-
lenge of the chip have started to stimulate management
and have created fascinating possibilities for new ways
"You are not in the business
of making glass bottles.
You are in packaging"
"The finger that turns the
dial rules the air"
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1981 13
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