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With today’s online discussions, forums, and social media platforms, communication professionals easily delve into what key stakeholders know-feel-do about something now. This enables comms pros to develop more efficient and effective plans to transform what stakeholders’ know-feel-do to achieve organizational goal(s) and objectives.

Four IABC Fellows dove into research and measurement in the next Circle of Fellows, a monthly live broadcast featuring IABC Fellows in conversation about a timely communication topic.
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As part of the IABC Career Roadmap, the business leader path is essential to our profession and its role within society. The business leader plays a critical role in shaping an organization’s future by adopting the Global Standard for the profession while building and maintaining a well-structured, competent, and trusted organizational communication function.

In this Circle of Fellows, our panel of top international communication advisors explores executive communication and leadership, its importance in organizations, and how we as communication professionals build the relationships and competence of executives. They will discuss how to add business value while expanding communication competencies and coaching the people who drive today’s organizations.
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“Strategic” communication is differentiated from other communication by one simple concept: It is “the communication principles, strategies, and initiatives used to further an organization’s goals,” according to one communication-focused website. (It’s not a bad definition, though it fails to mention “measurable,” which is a critical element of strategic communication.)

The target of an organization’s strategic communication efforts is the organization’s stakeholders, those individuals, groups, or organizations directly involved with — or indirectly affected by — the organization and its work. This includes employees, people who live in the communities where the company operates, investors, the financial community, partners, vendors, suppliers, government at all levels, and more.

Communication — strategic or not — is multi-directional. (Crafting communication collateral and distributing it to an audience is not communication. It’s messaging.) As a result, effective strategic communication almost always is designed to produce engagement with the stakeholders for whom the communication has been crafted.

How to do this effectively was the focus of the March episode of IABC’s Circle of Fellows.
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The pandemic has made us look more closely at human and corporate values and the capacity that good values, morality, and ethics can provide to overcome any crisis. ESG has firmly entered the vocabulary of investors, managers, and other stakeholders as it helps assess the risks and resilience of enterprises. The corporate world faces multi-dimensional challenges and all stakeholders are focusing intently on their Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) performance.

Businesses can be rewarded in many ways when they act in a responsible manner. Through committed ESG performance, businesses can gain legitimacy; a stellar reputation; government support; strong brand equity; increased investment from socially responsible investors; attract socially conscious consumers; entice talent and gain employee trust and loyalty. In this evolving business context, we look at what role communication needs to play.

Four IABC Fellows discussed a variety of issues and challenges related to ESG communication in a panel discussion recorded on February 17, 2022.
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How leaders view the communication function depends entirely on whether communication produces results that matter to them. Delivering that value doesn’t just happen. In the first Circle of Fellows broadcast of 2022, four IABC Fellows explored the various dimensions of communicating for results that matter, from knowing what’s keeping leaders awake at night, the elements of the business and strategic plans, establishing the means of assessing the results of the communication, and how to share those results with leaders.
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As the new year begins, before you set your resolutions in stone, ask yourself, “How healthy is the culture of the organization where I work or the clients I serve?”

And, with what you learn, consider new resolutions to make a place to work a more welcoming environment for the contributions people want to make and the ideas they want to share.

IABC Fellows Alice Brink, Martha Muzychka, Lety Narvaez, and Mark Schumann took a close look at how to diagnose, develop, and deliver a culture that resonates with what matters to people, and what’s needed by organizations, where every voice is welcomed and heard. Shel Holtz moderated this discussion.
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As the world struggles with what’s next for the workplace in the wake of the global pandemic, take time to consider your career path as a communication professional. Neil Griffiths, Amanda Hamilton-Attwell, Mary Hills, and Brad Whitworth contributed their thoughts and experience to a Circle of Fellows focused on career assessment and planning, IABC’s Global Standard, strengths, professional development, certification, and more.
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https://traffic.libsyn.com/fir/firfellows-074.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:00:59 — 25.1MB) | EmbedSubscribe: Google Podcasts | Email | RSS | Subscription OptionsTrust in media and business is not high, according to the latest Edelman Trust Barometer, and public relations practitioners are usually stereotyped as unethical hacks attempting to clean up the image of a person… Continue Reading →

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https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/fir/fir-fellows-073.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:04:38 — 89.4MB) | EmbedSubscribe: Google Podcasts | Email | RSS | Subscription OptionsThere are dramatic changes afoot among employee populations. The biggest of these are pandemic-related, including hybrid workforces and employees required to adjust to new at-work realities, including continued social distancing and other measures designed… Continue Reading →

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During the recent IABC World Conference, Brad Whitworth and Mark Schumann led a highly rated interactive session that examined how we use time to positively impact worlds we hope to change, lives we want to touch, and differences we need to make. Brad and Mark reprised much of that session — joined by Alice Brink and Jane Mitchell — as the five of us discussed what we are doing with our time.

Here’s how Brad and Mark describe the conversation: “We fill our days fighting the realities of time. Maybe it’s time to stop the clock, take time to reflect, and recommit to what we contribute to make ours a better world.”
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