Occasionally in my personal blogs, I take the liberty of conducting mock interviews myself on a topic of particular salience.  But so far, with CommsOffensive325, I have yet to avail myself of this conceit…until now. 

 

But in thinking over the concept of “The Communicator as Advocate” I thought the topic would lend itself better as an “interview” than as a big monologue—a big epistle about why communicators should think of ourselves as “advocates”.  So, from a studio overlooking a residential quarter in The Hague, here is “the first CommsOffensive325 Mike Interview”

 

  1. So, you’ve been thinking about “The Communicator as Advocate”—what the hell does that mean?

 

  1. I’ve always been a bit unusual for the corporate/internal communications profession, but I’d never been able to crystallize what the main difference was.  Sure, my background was different—running political campaigns and all that—but there are a lot of people with differing backgrounds in this field. And my philosophy tended to focus on bottom-up and lateral communication than the traditional top-down stuff.  But it wasn’t just philosophy or experience—I sensed there was something a little more basic in the background.

 

  1. And what was that?

 

  1. There are a lot of different approaches to organizational communication—a journalistic approach, a marketing approach, a facilitative approach.  And indeed, these approaches really define the way practitioners operate.  I knew my approach was fundamentally different, so I spent a good amount of time trying to figure out how to define my own approach.  When IABC announced its “advocacy initiative” last year, the notion of “advocacy” was one that really struck a chord.


Q.  What was resonant about “advocacy”

 

  1. Look at what the Webster’s Dictionary says an advocate is:

    1 : one that pleads the cause of another; specifically : one that pleads the cause of another before a tribunal or judicial court
    2 : one that defends or maintains a cause or proposal
    3 : one that supports or promotes the interests of another

    It occurred to me, that from political days, that an advocate is what I have always been and will continue to be.  I get hired by organizations to support and promote their causes, interests and outcomes, and to use my range of communication skills and tools to help make their outcomes happen. 

 

  1. What’s different then about advocacy than the more common approaches adopted by organizational communicators?

 

  1. I mentioned three other main approaches—journalistic, marketing, and facilitative.  Let’s start with the journalistic approach.  The journalistic approach is prevalent in large swaths of the industry. Its imprint is felt not only in the continued reliance of publications and tools using journalistic formats and styles (anyone see job advertisements lately asking for “expert in AP style”), but more significantly, in the injection of the journalistic pretense of “objectivity” into organizational communication.
    1. You think objectivity is a pretense?
      1. Generally, yes.  Most reporters have their own axes to grind, but we have people on corporate communication payrolls waging quixotic battles for objective truth rather than focusing on what they could be doing to deliver the organization’s desired outcomes.  On the surface, that may seem harmless, but injecting the pretense of objectivity into a key organizational communication role makes the communicator a bystander instead of a participant.  Moreover, those who such a communicator comes into contact with may come to question the strategic and financial value such a communicator adds to their organization—and that’s not good for the rest of us.

       

      1. How else can the journalistic approach make communicators punch below their weight?


      A.  Corporate journalism is inherently more concerned about outputs than outcomes.  Upholding production values often takes precedence over exemplifying organizational values.  Correcting managerial grammar yields a tinny, sanitized corporate voice.  Far too often, the game is about filling the eight pages of a magazine rather than on finding the eight words that people could put into action.  Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of attractive work being done by corporate journalists—and some of it’s beneficial.  And I’ve written my share of newsletters over the years.  But my aim has never been to fill a newsletter—it was to figure out how the newsletter can best further my client’s outcomes from issue to issue.

       

      1. What about the “marketing” approach.  Internal marketing was all the rage not long ago, and managers still talk about it

       

      1. Internal marketing is about selling—which is why it only works when what’s necessary to do is for people to “buy”. 

        The marketing approach is problematic in a number of ways.  First, it imparts a “selling” or “cheerleading” tone that is often inappropriate, or, worse, gives license to cynicism and resistance if the item being sold doesn’t address perceived or real flaws forthrightly.  Second, it treats recipients (particularly staff) as “customers”, a role that doesn’t give full value to their real role as “participants”—both in the achievement of the outcome and in the way the ideas being communicated ultimately get interpreted in the organization.  Third, and perhaps most dangerously, it can be seen as letting managers off the hook from collecting meaningful information from affected stakeholders initially if they can “do a really good marketing effort” on the other end.

       

      Q.                There’s a third approach you mentioned: facilitation

       

      1. Facilitation collided with organizational communication, particularly in the UK in the late 90’s.  I mention that because I was literally at ground zero—a leading UK internal comms consultancy that was quickly trying to morph its way into the facilitation business.

       

      Facilitation and advocacy are at opposite ends of the spectrum—in that facilitation is about creating and enabling a process that will allow the organization (most saliently, the managers) to develop their own solutions which they will then implement and own.  The facilitator’s approach generally involves him/her removing personal opinion from the resolution process, based on a belief that “the solutions are in the room itself”.

       

      Q.                Are you against facilitation?

       

      1. Not necessarily.  Some of my best friends are facilitators.  But I choose not to embrace it as my approach because it forces me to underutilize my strengths—and because some clients really need someone who is going to bash heads and make things happen—someone who is going to do the work as well as make sure a plan gets formulated—and most of all, someone who is going to be every bit as committed to making sure that the organization achieves its objectives as the leadership is.  And that’s not facilitation—that’s advocacy.

       

      Q. So what is advocacy, then?

       

      A.  For me, it starts by recognizing that I am working to promote the causes or desired outcomes of others—not my own notions of objectivity, and not my belief in the pre-eminence of some form of process.  So, my success is measured ultimately in whether the causes or outcomes have been achieved—or at the very least, they have been moved forward as a result of my involvement. 

      For me, being an advocate means bringing my skills to bear.  Sometimes, my writing skills are called upon—not to be a journalist, but to use the forms of journalism to make and further a compelling case for change.  Sometimes, it’s my strategic skills—developing plans and strategies that create winning coalitions and encircle and neutralize opposition.  Sometimes, it’ in developing research tools that get underneath managers’ suspicions about support, neutrality and resistance, and in conducting the interviews.  And some times, it’s about not only having a seat at the table, but in using that seat as a platform for making the case for the modifications and concessions required to build sufficient support from the key constituencies (often staff, customers, business owners, process owners) to make the outcomes happen.

       

      Ultimately, it’s about being willing to be a participant, and to be a partisan.  Unless you are advocating neutrality, you cannot be neutral and be an advocate. 

       

      1. What does being an advocate offer a communicator?

       

      A.  An opportunity to get out of the press box and onto the field.  To stop reporting and start playing.  To get measured on what you accomplish instead of whether people like what you do.  To move away from trying to rewrite the record book, and towards rewriting the rule book.  It’s not an easy transition—mostly because most clients aren’t used to communicators who not only are ready to play for the team, but who see them selves capable of scoring the winning goal. 

      But on the other hand, the advocate is sitting on the same side of the ledger as the leadership.  Has any CEO really paid for a newsletter or a workshop?  Or has he/she tolerated those costs as part of achieving a given outcome or set of outcomes?  The answer implies that there is a future for communicators willing to take on being advocates.