A point of irritation
I’ve been IABC Chair for right at three weeks now. I’ve done a couple of interviews, a few speeches and one chapter presentation in that time, and I learned today that people are really listening. That’s a good thing, generally. Unfortunately, however, something I’ve said (more than once) is a point of irritation for The Ragan Report’s David Murray. Sorry, David!
Here’s what David wrote in the June 26 issue of RR:
Held up at talking point. One other mild bit of IABC nonsense has stuck in our craw since the Vancouver conference. There, in our interview with the IABC brass, we asked incoming Chairman Glenda Holmes what her goal was for the year. Her reply was - we paraphrase - this isn’t about me. It’s about IABC … Any doubt she’d laid a lame talking point on us with dispelled later at the Annual General Meeting when she said, “This is not about me, it’s about IABC and you…” Then, in a blog post, she said it again! “I’ve been asked a lot about my goals for the year. I mentioned in yesterday’s Annual General Meeting that I don’t believe this is about me.”
Um, yes Madame Chairman, but you are our fearless leader. We’ll rephrase the question: How do you plan to use your role over the next year to improve our collective lot?
(And a word to the wise: Don’t try to get talking points past us, please: We’re professional communicators; we know what they sound like.)
In response, I’d like to reiterate the areas of focus that followed (and supported) the phrase that David mentioned in the recent issue of RR. (You can find out more about my goals in IABC’s In Session blog or in the podcast interview I did on June 6.)
Rest easy, no “talking points” follow.
1. Focus on the member experience
I’ve been a member of IABC for 16 years, and a leader at different levels of the organization for most of that time. I’ve heard a lot of members over the years talk about general perceptions of “the brass” at the international level. Those perceptions weren’t always positive, and there has been much talk about how those leaders weren’t focused on the “average member.”
I don’t believe that was, or is, true, and my goal in using the phrase David mentioned in his story was to emphasize that my focus, and that of the Executive Board, is on members and on the goals of the association - not on a personal agenda. Perception is often reality, and I’m trying to change the perception, in some small way.
2. Focus on Chapters and Regions
As Chair last year, Warren Bickford, ABC talked a lot about “servant leadership.” And, he definitely walked the walk. This was one of my attempts to echo that philosophy.
Volunteers at the Chapter and Regional levels are on the “front lines” of IABC delivering value to members. I believe the association should do more to support this “sales force” and to ensure they have the resources they need to deliver value.
I also think IABC needs to do more to illustrate the value of its internationalism and to ensure that we’re assessing the member experience through a global lens. Growth in key international markets is one of IABC’s greatest opportunities.
3. Focus on our profession
One of the requests I have heard most often from members is that IABC should do more to raise awareness of what we do as communicators and how we contribute to an organization’s bottom line. Specific examples of “raising awareness” have included things like mentions in prominent media outlets and consideration of more of an advocacy role.
Over the past year, IABC has made good progress on media coverage, with recent mentions in The Globe and Mail, The Wall Street Journal and Business Week, to name a few. How has the association achieved this goal? Well, one of the strategies has been to focus on real-world applications of research conducted by the IABC Research Foundation, and to illustrate the value of this information to business. I’d like to see this trend continue, and my role is to push to make sure this happens.
The other part of “raising awareness” involves IABC considering its role as an advocate for our profession. This issue is not a new one, but it’s time for IABC to really determine what that role might look like, and how the association can continue to raise the visibility of communicators and communications worldwide.
The idea of establishing an IABC Advocacy Working Group is one that originated during Warren’s term last year, and one that I support wholeheartedly. My role, again, is to push to make sure the group gets going, tackles this somewhat sticky issue, and presents the Executive Board with some recommendations about how IABC might go forward with this concept. Emphasis on “go forward.”
The final answer?
I think all of these things “improve our collective lot.” But success in these areas will be the result of lots of hard work by many dedicated volunteers and staff members. As Chair, I’ll be pushing, hoping to facilitate even more success for IABC.
Those are just some of my thoughts about my role as Chair. As you might guess by the length of this post, I have many.
I’d love to hear what you think…
June 28th, 2006 at 2:03 am
Bravo, Glenda! And very good to see the detail in your repsonse to RR.
Note to David: if you’d listened to the podcast interview with Glenda, you’d have had your answers
I suppose I ought to mention that I was one of the interviewers…
June 28th, 2006 at 4:42 am
Glenda, this is an excellent, concise overview of your priorities for the coming year. (And if David is reading, I’ll note that Glenda covered these points in her presentation to IABC/Richmond last week.)
As I was reading your “talking-pointless” thoughts, Glenda, it occurred to me that this is two-way symmetrical communication at its best. In your interview with David, you undoubtedly said a lot of things that you hoped would be reported in RR (message to receiver). But David picked up on something different and chose to write about that in his commentary (feedback to sender). Here, you have clarified and made adjustments to your original message based on David’s feedback. That’s two-way symmetrical communication defined. You adjusted your message — and to some extent your behavior — based on David’s feedback. As a result, your message is much more clear than it was before.
There’s a good lesson here for all of us who communicate on behalf of our organizations. Feedback, even when it is negative, is an essential part of two-way symmetrical communication, which is the best and most strategic kind of communication. We shouldn’t view negative feedback as a loss, but as an opportunity to bring our message into clearer focus.
Perhaps David will report on this clarification in his next RR column. If not, at least you have clarified it here.
Modern PR is all about building relationships that lead to mutual understanding. Congratulations, Glenda, on your first “win” as IABC’s chairperson.
June 28th, 2006 at 10:12 am
I enjoyed your summary, Glenda, and good on ya!
One of the best things about the “new and improved” IABC is that the entire organization stays keenly focused on its strategic plan - not individual agendas. At the end of the day it’s all about the members. We all need to keep keep that thought front and centre.
NOTE: All members have access to the five-year strategic plan and yearly action plan in the member centre at iabc.com.
June 28th, 2006 at 6:40 pm
Kudos, Glenda!
Thank you for demonstrating how to clarify something you previously shared with those in the audience that didn’t pick up on the message the first time you responded to the query. What a great model to remember whenever we encounter a similar reaction in our jobs as communicators.
June 29th, 2006 at 10:25 am
Thanks for reiterating IABC’s strategic vision Glenda! If we choose to find a lesson in this, it’s the reminder that nothing is that simple. The hard work that IABC leaders and staff have dedicated and continue to commit toward the growth and development our association can’t be summarized in one sentence.
In a world in which “first to report” wins over complete and accurate, sometimes people fail to pay attention to the details or make sure they have all the facts. And as Robert pointed out, these misfortunes give us the change to clarify and correct. For anyone who hasn’t had the opportunity to hear Glenda speak or read articles about her plans for the year, it never hurts to take advantage of every opportunity to reinterate our strategic priorities.
July 2nd, 2006 at 10:16 am
Glenda–
I appreciate your response here.
Just to clarify to others, Glenda’s talking point is not something I reported in my original “first to report” story about IABC’s conference and the state of the association and Glenda’s upcoming year. I wrote about the substance of their plans and the future of the association.
I wrote about it two weeks later, when I felt bugged by Glenda’s use of what I still see as a facile line, presumably used instead of saying something more plain: “My plan is simply to stay the course.”
Probably I didn’t cover this in my original piece about the IABC conference because I don’t think it’s a terribly big deal. But I covered it in a subsequent column because, coming from a sincere volunteer IABC leader, it rang false.
And unnecessarily so, in my opinion.
In any case, Glenda, I wish you the best of luck this year,
David
July 4th, 2006 at 11:10 am
It is unfortunate that your first speech to IABC members, as Chair, was part of an intro for the last keynoter. I wasn’t the only one — to judge from the whispers where I was sitting — who felt we weren’t getting your full message. I was sitting with IABC “old timers,” and all of us felt you had more to say, but didn’t have the time to say it.
Frankly, we were fairly disgruntled — no measurable goals, no assessment of the “state of the association”, no 2006-2007 plan against the strategic plan.
I think we wanted “Here’s where we are now. Here is the difference I am going to make. In 12 months, I will report to you that these things are improved in your association.”
But you had only four minutes.
IABC should reserve a serious spot for the incoming Chair to outline his or her goals for the year. 20-30 minutes, ideally with questions. While the “strategic plan” is a members-only document, I see no reason why its specific points cannot be addressed in front of what is, after all, a 95% member audience.
For example, I would have liked to have heard about what you (and Todd: we should never forget that IABC chairmanships are really a senior/junior team, as it should be) are going to do to help reach the 20,000 member goal. Or reduce our dependence on member dues as a revenue source. Or ensure the Research Foundation is a robust, effective, and self-funding body.
You can’t cover that in four minutes and intro a keynoter.
Luckily, you can do all that here, on the Café, where you have a bully pulpit, as TR would put it, to let IABC members — and prospective members — understand the progress we are making. But you and Todd should make sure future IABC chairs have the space and time to tell the membership where they are taking the association.
July 6th, 2006 at 10:24 am
Thanks, everyone, for your comments. I think this is an important and healthy dialogue to have, and I thank David for being the catalyst to get it started.
In response to David’s comment above, I’d like to offer that my plan is not to “simply stay the course.” Status quo is definitely not my ambition.
Having said that, however, IABC’s strategic plan sets out measurable goals and objectives, and it’s the job of the staff and the Board to be fully focused on achieving those goals. The items I’ve outlined as being particularly important to me are definitely within the scope of the plan, and rightfully so, I’d argue.
While it’s hard for me to imagine you being disgruntled, Allan, you certainly make a great point about the importance of keeping members updated on our progress against IABC’s goals. Many of the things you mentioned above were covered during the Annual General Meeting, which, as you know, is the forum where members are able to ask questions of the leadership team and get updates about association activities. It’s certainly reasonable that the association could look for additional opportunities for the Chair and Vice Chair (who absolutely are a team) to share goals and status against those goals with members.