Larry D. Lauer

As I prepare to once again teach a graduate seminar in integrated marketing communication I am reminded of my ongoing challenge to make sure that these advanced students go out into our profession fully prepared to be “proactive” professionals.

In the past, many of my graduate students come to my seminars from jobs where they are assumed to be reactive tactics experts. Managers come to them when they want to get out a press release, or need a new brochure, or want to produce a video, or promote a special event. New communication  practitioners find themselves in the role of taking orders for products.They constantly hear: “Here is what I want, when can I have it.”

My challenge always is to show my students the potential for being able to counsel managers, and eventually senior executives, about new and powerful possibilities. Indeed, experienced thinkers in our profession have the power through strategic communication tools and integrated marketing processes to literally transform organizations with their planning advice. I must show them how this works, but then also teach them the political skills essential for getting themselves in a position to function on this higher level.

The implementation steps are really simple: (1) Clarify the organization’s competitive advantage, usually referred to as “big idea” or unique brand identity. (2) Use ongoing group processes to get a critical mass of internal managers and staff “on the same page” with regard to this positioning messaging. (3) Use multi-platform communication tactics simultaneously, and select them based on researched media preference of each target market. (4) Influence management presentations by preparing talking points and offering speechwriting services. (5) And focus on high visibility initiatives, based on immediate opportunities, and implemented using carefully formed action teams.

With this understanding of the power of the profession mastered, the challenge now becomes how to use political savvy and strategies to get into a position of being able to use what we know. This involves having a “teaching plan” in mind  to help others understand our potential. It also involves imagining how to accomplish this “teaching” one step at a time– in one-on-one interviews, in regular meetings, and in other groups we can form for this purpose. And finally, it involves understanding the simple basics of grassroots politics, and how they apply to organizations.

This last topic, internal politics, is what we never seem to teach in typical academic programs, or even in professional development seminars. But, I have now come to think that it is actually the most imporant topic I can bring to these students.