OPINION: Open Communication Cultures...best practice in a changing world
What are Open Communication Cultures and what effect can they have on bottom line results? Roger D'Aprix and Barbara Fagan-Smith explain why openness represents best practice.
So-called "best practice" is a curious thing. How does it get to be that way? Is it because an elite group ordains it? Is it simply a preferred way to do things? Or is it somehow an idea or an insight that rings so true that you wonder why you didn't think of it yourself? The notion of Open Communication Cultures (OCC) fits all three of those descriptors, but that's getting ahead of ourselves.
In 2006 we at ROI Communication convened an ad hoc group of senior communication executives that we dubbed the ROI Executive Communication Forum. It has continued as an invitation-only group of the senior-most communication leaders at Fortune 200 companies or their equivalent. Our goal was to provide a forum for discussion of the problems that the group faced in common. At our very first meeting when asked what issue they wanted to explore first, the vote was close to unanimous: measurement.
A consequence of hard times and intense cost-cutting has been the continuing need for staff organizations to justify their existence. Rather than finance a task that is seemingly peripheral to the organization's primary mission, senior leaders have frequently chosen to outsource any activity that couldn't demonstrate a return on investment. Or alternatively to severely limit its funding or growth.
All of that is perfectly logical behavior in an era of intense competition when the bottom line continues to be under pressure. The result for the affected departments like internal communication or human resources, for example, has been an intense interest in measuring the impact of their work on the organization's goals. The ultimate question comes down candidly and roughly to: what have you done for us lately?
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This article was originally published in Strategic Communication Management.
Have your say
What effect do you believe Open Communication Cultures have on your organization's bottom line? Does your company promote openness?
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