An Honest Day's Work by Chris Atkins

Author:Chris Atkins
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-07-04T16:00:00+00:00

Interlude:

Could You Land a Plane?

A fellow communications practitioner once said to me, “I may be the PR guy, not the CEO, but in an emergency I could land the plane.”

What did he mean by that? He meant that he understood enough about how his company worked—how it made and spent money, innovated, manufactured, marketed, and sold—that if called upon in an emergency, he could manage the company's operations, at least for a while.

By the time you've become a senior communications professional, you ought to be able to land the plane. I’m not suggesting communicators must master engineering, chemistry, information technology or the law. But whether you are asked for a plan to launch a new product or are ripped away from your desk to help the company manage a crisis, your recommendations had better be rooted in a deep understanding of how things work where you work.

Outside consultants can easily fall into this trap. Even if they bring relevant experience from work with clients in the same industry, some of their recommendations are bound to go wide of the mark until they really get to know a client’s company. (In fairness, I recognize that in many cases, the most valuable counsel agencies provide is valuable precisely because it is unsullied by the “why-it-won’t-work-here” syndrome.)

And even insiders can be myopic—so focused on the intricacies of their particular discipline they may never fully comprehend how things work out in the field or in the plant. Some companies rotate executives from one function to another. These tours of duty can mean that an engineer who has spent time in the PR department will understand the importance of a timely response to a media query (especially in a crisis) and thus be more helpful to the PR team.

Some advice I would give to anyone at any stage of her or his career:

If you work for a company that makes stuff, ask if you can take a tour of one of the manufacturing facilities. Talk with the plant manager about its operation and maintenance. Find out what kinds of problems he or she has to grapple with.

Ask if you can shadow a sales professional on a few calls. Learn the dynamic between sales and procurement.

See if you can sit in on some planning meetings with marketing, sales, operations and management teams—people you might otherwise never get to meet.

There is no substitute for walking in someone else’s steel-toed shoes. Some fast food chains regularly put middle and senior executives behind the counter to experience dealing with customers and stressed-out employees. Communication leaders might want to think about paying for agency staff to have some of these experiences, too, as it will make their insights all the deeper.

Become a voracious consumer of the trade press that covers your company. Understand the issues facing your industry and how your competitors manage them; it will make you a valuable counselor to management.

And for heaven's sake, read The Wall Street Journal. Every day. It will provide context for what is happening to and in your industry and in the economy in general.

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