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Archive for the ‘Lessons Learned’ Category

Lesson 14 The Idea of America

Posted in Lessons Learned, Public Affairs on June 25, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Some years ago a travel agent I was having dinner with in Rome told me: “You know, Larry, all my European friends love the idea of America, but so often they just don’t understand the behavior of your government.  It can seem contradictory to them, and it often makes them angry.”

This comment came echoing back to me this week in Washington as I was meeting with some very talented and energized folks who are deeply concerned about how to get the world to better understand this powerful “idea of America.” After all, everyday extremists and terrorists grab the headlines and set the daily news agenda. Even failing suicide bombers succeed in making news and speading fear. And to make the situation worse, everyone else winds up sounding defensive about what happened.

Are not compelling human stories about freedom and independence an effective form of counter-insurgency? Cannot those stories be told powerfully enough to blow past the headlines directly into the everyday lives of millions of people all over the world? Could not countless Americans be involved through people-to-people exchanges, or new and social media?

In pondering all this I remembered my graduate student days at American Unversity when a government agency known as the United States Information Agency (USIA) was in full force. It was charged to communicate the larger story of the American people and their values, a story that would go far beyond official foreign policy. Based mostly on people-to-people communication, I thought this agency was very effective.

But the USIA I knew was eliminated by the Clinton admnistration and replaced by a smaller strategic communication activity inside the state department… losing independence, not to mention important credibility with the rest of the world.

The people I met with this week have formed a taskforce of think-tank fellows, university professors, legislative staffers, legislators, and current and former civil servants. They are working on best strategic communication practices in this new media age. They are also considering organizational alternatives, which  include  a new government agency, a quasi-govermental organization, a public private nonprofit, a private foundation.

But we have no time to waste. Extremests and terrorists are already winning the war to dominate the public agenda. The United States therefore should quickly re-establish a highly visible strategic communication and public diplomacy organizaton. Then we must find and hire the best and most creative professionals in the land to run it. When you think about it, do we have a choice?

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Lessons Learned 13 “The media makes it so…”

Posted in Leadership, Lessons Learned on June 18, 2010| Leave a Comment »

My daughter and I were talking this week about the congressional hearings on the Gulf oil spill.  We discussed the consequences of how some leaders in a crisis get associated with a negative theme which is then repeated incessantly in the news media. The result is often a lingering impression of overall ineffectiveness. 

We concluded that such impressions are unfair to any leader while trying to deal with the urgency of a serious crisis moment, and are likely to be counterproductive to finding real solutions in this terribly complex world.

How can this happen?  Simply put, the opposition states an extreme and exagerated position over and over again, a well-known debating tactic that can be used to establish the impression of legitimacy for almost any idea.  And then the news media reports it repeatedly as “breaking news,” influenced by its tendency to simplify, polarize, and dramatize. 

Examples abound: “Obama just can’t get on top of this oil crisis!”  Or, Afghanistan is Obama’s war!”  Or, “Heathcare is being taken over by the federal government!”  All are repeated themes by both the political opposition and news media, and the result is to obscure the public’s ability to appreciate and understand the complexity any president or leader faces when trying to fix a terrible crisis. 

I think we all know that every serious problem is solved only by trial and error. We try one solution, and if it doesn’t work we try another.  We learn as we go. But in this new and highly competive media world our public discourse unfolds as if we don’t know any of this.  

And so my daughter concludes: “The media makes it so.”

So, what are the lessons communicators  must learn here?  (1) In this competitive 24/7 news media world any serious crisis is likely to have at least a short-term negative reputation impact. (2) Ongoing issues and crisis training for executives will help your whole organization look more competent as it deals with issues and crises over time. (3) Effective reputation building communication is a long-term process targeted to your most critical audiences and favors direct and interactive media. It must begin well before a given crisis happens and continue long after the news media moves on.

One final comment:  As a society we must come again to appreciate what it takes to solve complex problems and to give those that find themselves in leadership positions a realistic chance to perform, no matter their political party. There will be ample time later to evaluate.  And legislators must again come to understand that once elected they are expected to work together to solve problems.  Since nothing  short of this is acceptable, we must also have a news media that can help make this happen.

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Lessson 12 Making a Difference

Posted in Leadership, Lessons Learned on June 12, 2010| 1 Comment »

As I looked out over my class of undergraduates in London this year I found myself thinking: “How many, if any, will go from here determined to make a real difference with their lives?

It’s common knowledge that many current college students come from families where their parents made success easy for them.  These so-called “helicopter parents” meant well as they helped their children excel with class assignments, sports competitions, social relationships, and even with getting into college.

But now, these kids are about to face the most complex and confusing economy, changing job market, and threatening social and international issues one can imagine.  So in this international setting I could not help but thinking: “Who among them will be both motivated and capable of stepping up to these challenges?”

I went on to tell them: “You will need to find and live your special personal strengths. You will need to persist and stay focused day and night. Yes, you can play hard and have a strong family life, but to make a difference in this complex world you will have to be able to carry a dream of achievement with you day and night.”

In the last two years I have been able to witness this kind of successful integration of professional and social life among the very smart and talented people in the Washington think-tank and association world. These are driven people, to be sure, but most also have strong families and know how to have fun!

So, I went on to suggest: “Find an enterprise or industry related to your strengths.  Make it your cause. Take on an innovative attitude. Embrace truly smart and creative people and put yourself around them. And learn to love the politics related to building support for your passion.”

Even so, as I said goodbye to head back to the USA, I was really worried that all of us, parents and professors, may be leaving them unprepared for real personal achievement, and for what it will truly take to make a significant difference in this complex and perplexing world.

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Lesson 11 International is Always Local

Posted in International, Lessons Learned, Public Affairs on June 3, 2010| Leave a Comment »

In revising the material for the course in international and intercultural communication I am teaching in London this summer, I was reminded once again that all international communication is really local.

Indeed all the analytical skills we use in integrated and strategic marketing and communication apply when working internationally. We must understand the specific needs, behaviors and social trends of our target markets; we must understand the media protocols and expectations of the region; we must know all relevant laws or regulations, we must identify the preferred media of each audience, we must take into account the controversies currently on the public agenda, and we must understand dramatically different customs and special cultural traits.

Indeed, in internatonal communication, cultural values and traditions are especially important.  But that is also true in every domestic communication situation.  Every organization, city, region, and country has distinct cultural characteristics that define its identity and communication parameters. The longer I do this work both at home and abroad the more I realize just how much these dynamic and emotional local intangibles defne success or failure.   

So what makes international communication different? For me, its mostly coming to grips with just how much local help I need when contemplating working in a totally “foreign” environment. It’s fully comprehending that a little knowlege about a country or culture can be dangerous. And it’s coming to a complete understanding of just how fast communication breaks down.

In the final analysis, studying international communication is an exercise in learning how much attention to local detail matters.  And it is also an exercise in experiencing how different those cultures can be, and therefore how important it is to know how to find those local people that can help you.

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Lesson 10 Don’t Always Call it “Marketing”

Posted in Integrated Marketing, Leadership, Lessons Learned, Planning on May 27, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Recently, I participated in an executive retreat where everyone immediately began raising questions and making comments about how the organization was perceived in the world. 

Comments ranged from identifying top reputation-defining programs to assessing the social trends most likely to impact the future. Participants even referenced the many communication challenges they will be facing in order to meet their goals.

But no one ever seemed to realize that what they were talking about was marketing 101. Everyone clearly accepted that dealing with these issues was their job, and yet no one ever turned to the marketing executive to ask what she would do.  

Reflecting on all this I thought: “The best way I could bring a big chill over this room would be to mention the “M” word right here and now! So I never did.

Rather, I noted to myself that sometimes you don’t even mention that word.  You let people talk about “their passion,” and then over time you help them see that what they were really talking about all along is called “strategic marketing!”

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Lesson 9 Beware of Benchmarking!

Posted in Branding, Integrated Marketing, Lessons Learned, Planning on May 20, 2010| 1 Comment »

Many university and nonprofit executives begin strategic planning by first listing the other similar institutions they admire– often referred to as “aspirant” institutions. They also list their direct competitors. Then they carefully study all the operations from top to bottom.

They study structures, staffing, salaries, HR practices, policies, marketing programs, budgets, all numerical success indicators, and more.

But this kind of benchmarking can be dangerous and misleading.  It can mislead because it can steer you directly into copying “best practices” and  blindly becoming just like the organizations on your aspirant and competitor lists.  When that happens your institution will always be number two and never have a truly distinct market position. 

Your study of other organizations should therefore be focused firmly on finding out how you can distinguish your institution from the others. You must find specific ways to behave differently. You should be searching for that very special market niche that allows you to be both different and better in some unique and compelling way.

Insead business school professors W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne wrote a book called Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant.   It is a brilliant description of how your organization with enough determination can find and reinforce that special difference that will allow you not to meet the competition head-on,  but rather to find the “blue ocean” and sail right past all your competitors on your way to an uncontested  number one!

Being the best in the world is simply a matter of finding your difference, being damn good at developing and polishing it, and then mobilizing  everyone inside and out to help tell the story!

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Lesson 8 New Book Coming Soon!

Posted in Internal Politics, Lessons Learned on May 14, 2010| 5 Comments »

It takes me about four or five years to produce a new book. 

First, an idea comes to me during a seminar I am teaching, or in a conversation with a colleague, or while auditing an institution’s marketing program. Then, I begin talking to colleagues and collecting notes. Eventually an outline emerges in my head. And finally, when I feel I can pull it all together in a meaningful way I commit to a marathon period of writing.

The idea for this book came when teaching in the CASE Summer Institute in Marketing and Communication.  At the end of each institute the faculty would ask the participants what was on their minds as they headed back to their jobs. Collectively, each summer they would say: “If I did not have to deal with the damn politics, I could do a great job!”

Hearing this repeatedly I soon found myself responding: “There is no way to avoid the politics. It can take half or more of your time. You better accept it, and maybe even learn to love it.”

But I quickly realized that dealing with insitutional politics is the one big part of our work that we didn’t learn anything about in school. And it is indeed difficult to find pertinent subject matter, especially material that speaks directly to academic and non-profit institutions.

Learning to Love the Politics: How to Develop Institutional Support for Advancement, will be launched by CASE Books at the Annual CASE Leaderhip Summit in NYC in July.  It describes universities as small cities, analyzes what it takes to teach their citizens what they need to know about marketing and advancement, identifiies their major internal political issues, and suggests some approaches for dealing with those issues.

Come to the CASE Summit and join me in a session on the topic and/or at the book signing.  Afterwards I will take up some of the issues in this blog,  where you can also join in the conversation and maybe even add some of your own war stories.

Some colleagues tell me that while the book’s point of departure is academic institutions, the content really applies to all types of institutions, domestic and international. Let me know what you think. As our markets become more global, this may be just the beginning of my writing about this topic.

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Lesson 7 Big Future for Institutional Advancement

Posted in International, Leadership, Lessons Learned, Planning on May 7, 2010| 3 Comments »

Last weekend I was invited to attend a meeting at Duke University. It was an especially enriching opportunity to meet some truly exciting scholars and academics who reminded me rather dramatically what my work in advancement is all about. In this time of extreme political polarization there are indeed some truly smart people around us who really do know how to make the world a better place.

Those attending met Dan Ariely, Professor of Behavioral Economics, who not only made behavioral research exciting, but made it relevant to everyday human problem-solving.  We met Michael Merson, Director of the Duke Global Health Institute, who demonstrated how creative interdisciplinary projects can mobilize virtually all academic disciplines to focus on solving major global problems. Cathy Davidson, Professor of English and Interdisplinary Studies, explained how the new media world is bringing left and right brain together to change how a whole generation is thinking about everything.  And we met many more people at Duke who are just as exciting and relevant to today’s pressing issues.

With the roles of governments changing and big budget cuts a reality the work of supporting these scholars, and the many like them everywhere, is becoming more and more essential every year. 

Indeed, this kind of interdisciplinary global education is actually public diplomacy of the first order, and the mobilization of our best talent to address our biggest problems will be critical to saving the planet.

When politicians insist on always going to the extemes of ideology which plunge us into constant conflict, the global challenge of educational and nonprofit institutions will be to bring people together to find real solutions.

I certainly came away from Duke last weekend more energized than ever about my work.

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Lesson 6 The Power of Partnerships

Posted in Branding, Integrated Marketing, International, Lessons Learned on May 1, 2010| Leave a Comment »

This week I had the pleasure of spending time with David Wheeler, Managing Editor-International, at the Chronicle of Higher Education.  For months David has been traveling the world assessing how the Chronicle can become the news source for higher education world-wide and happily he agreed to make TCU the only U.S. campus he will visit this year. So this week he met with TCU leaders to share what he is learning about the globilization of our industry and discussed everything from specific country trends to changing admissions and fund raising patterns.

The Chronicle will be launching a web-based international site that will have editorial contributions from all parts of the world. You will learn every aspect about how higher education is rapidly becoming a global enterprise and the impact that will have on your institution, family and friends.  It will change curriculum, where students choose to go to school, the role of governments, and how funds are raised. The Chronicle site should appear soon.

Questions for Wheeler centered around what institutions should consider when becoming more international.  As I listened, I listed these basic approaches: 1. Estabish your own campus abroad; 2. Expand traditional study abroad programs; 3. Initiate faculty/student/staff exchanges; 4. Form partnerships between institutions, or programs, or researchers.

Obviously there are pluses and minuses for each of these. Many institutions with foreign campuses are dealing with unanticipated issues and difficulties. People exchanges can be off or on depending on professional and personal compatibility. Expanding study abroad and international student recruiting seems to be the answer for many, but forming key partnerships is the most intriguing to me.

I have long recognized the power of strong partnerhips when advancing institutions. And lessons learned in the U.S. suggest that when going international there are at least three extremely important considerations: 1. Will forming this partnerhip result in more visibility and enhanced reputation for your institution? 2. Are the partners comparable in objectives, interests and programs? 3. Will management and leadership remain stable enough to enable a long-term relationship?

Many international partnerhships come and go or even fail completely with changes in leadership or financial support. Others prove to be incompatible because of unanticipated cultural or academic differences. Problems can also arise when the partner organization proves to have no capacity to bring new visibility or prestige to yours. 

But there is no doubt that a well negotiated partnership with a top quality institution has the potential to immediately lift visibility, extend market penetration, bring higher quality to academic and other programs,  enrich and expand research projects, and enhance the overall prestige of both organizations.  This is as true in other parts of the world as it is at home, and so partnerships just might be your best overall approach when considering going global.

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Lesson 5 What makes communication strategic?

Posted in Integrated Marketing, Lessons Learned, Planning on April 23, 2010| Leave a Comment »

This week I met with the students that will go with me and my colleagues to London in June. Each year as I prepare to teach “International and Intercultural Communication” I am reminded that the principles of strategic communication are the same no matter where I am.

Organizations and individuals, be they domestic or international, require the same kind of analytical thinking. It is true that market segment analysis, cultural norms, and preferred media tools vary from group to group and country to country, but strategic thinking processes remain the same.

Just as I do back home, I begin the class in London by discussing the importance of source credibility. That is the starting point in strategic communication for any organization or individual, at home or abroad.

Next, I describe the power of a differentiated brand identity for individuals and organizations everywhere. Then, we discuss how the meanings of words really reside inside each person, no matter where that person lives or works.

For example, when I use a word like “democacy” the receiver hears only a strange sound. The meaning of that sound is actually added  by the listener based on past experiences and beliefs.  And what makes it even more complicated is that when my message is retold only about 50% of it gets through, and the listener chooses which 50%.  Plus, the listener adds his or her own creative twist in the transfer. And just as in domestic situations, differing beliefs and values are to blame for many of the world’s misunderstandings.

This tendency for communication to break down makes it all the more important to have constant feedback and opportunities to respond. And it also underscores the importance of knowing what media each market segement prefers and how to use all the “tools” that will best cut through noise and clutter.

Connecting with each target market requires knowing their needs and trends. In fact, connecting by demonstrating a deep knowledge of  “the way we do things,” and “what we believe”  just may be the most critical factor of all in making communication successful anywhere in the world.

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