As Head of Communications in a variety of places my two mottos were: “Everything is infinitely perfectible, so just pick a deadline and stop!” and “Don’t let the best be the enemy of the good”.
Judiciously employed, often together, at key points in our communication cycle, they served as a gentle reminder to colleagues that time is of the essence and saying something that serves your larger purpose at the right time is better than coming up with the polished ten page version of everything you want to say three weeks later, for 17 people to read it on your website.
Time is of the essence in four ways.
Journalists have tight deadlines and – as I explained somewhat tartly in an earlier post – the media doesn’t work for you. Unless you’re a general election result or a devastating tsunami, front page editions and programmes’ palimpsests won’t be held up because your Chief Exec wants to have one last check of the ‘rapid reaction’ press release’s punctuation. If you’re asked for a reaction to a breaking or ongoing story the time to do so is most definitely not tomorrow afternoon.
Relevance is three quarter of the game when it comes to impact. If the subject matter of the report you’re about to unveil becomes front page news because of some external event, you might want to ride that wave and release it a little earlier to be part of the conversation, even without the pretty cover currently being redesigned for the 12th time. Your big announcement on Covid something or other (new data, new funding announcements, new retrospective assessments) really shouldn’t go out a week after the third anniversary of lockdown, when the media will be Covid-ed out.
Don’t create expectations you can't meet. If you’re releasing something which has been widely trailed, building the expectation that this will happen at a certain time on a set day (regular data releases spring to mind here) it’s counterproductive to tinker endlessly with the final product only to lose your window of relevance/attention-grabbing.
“But data/release of new findings/updates of the action you’re taking have to be absolutely correct!” I hear you gasp. Yes indeed. They need to be correct AND on time. Media organisations will have your regular release date and time in their diary but they will switch to something else if you’re going to be four hours late (and possibly not bother reading your email or calling next time).
When faced with a crisis threatening your organisation silence and dithering are not an option. Time really is of the essence here. You need to regain control of events as soon as possible before a negative narrative gets too deeply entrenched. If it’s newsworthy and you don’t want it to be, it will be bad news. By issuing an appropriate holding statement and enough information to keep wild speculation at bay you have a chance to mitigate the damage and even turn perceptions around to your advantage.
But for your organisation to improve the timeliness of its communication, whether it’s talking about your own report, releasing data or reassuring stakeholders in a crisis, a sequence of important measures has to be already in place. You need to:
Create a true rapid reaction mechanism to draft and approve quotes. Mid-ranking employees are only as quick and efficient as the top managers taking the ultimate decisions. Once there’s a list of people who must to be consulted and ticked off it will be easier to resist the urge to drag in one more director or stakeholder in what then becomes an endless loop of drafts ad redrafts.
Create a pipeline of spokespeople. If you’re about to launch a big report you must have media trained spokespeople on tap and available around the clock for a couple of days at least. The time for that training is not the afternoon before the launch but six months earlier. People perform poorly under pressure unless they’re properly trained. They might be experts in their fields but might not be consummated media performers unless you’ve trained them ahead of time.
You wouldn’t send someone with one hour of driving school under their belt to race in a rally. It’s equally unfair and counterproductive to blame colleagues with no media experience if they don’t feel equipped to step up at a moment’s notice or perform poorly when obliged to.
Designated and trained spokespeople are also the cornerstone of any crisis communication plan. Again, you do not want to find out they are too paralysed by shyness or fear to appear on telly when the cameras are setting up in your reception area.
It is a comms truth universally acknowledged that investing in your employees’ media training will sound like a ‘nice to have’ luxury and seem too expensive or time consuming right up to the very moment when you discover it’s rather indispensible and possibly now too late to deploy it. I have seen this dynamic play out many times and I understand the various pressures at play. I do not mind. But I’m here, if you want to get ahead of this for a change.
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