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Archive for the ‘Strategic Communication’ Category

Lesson 177 Communicating Foreign Policy

Posted in International, Leadership, Lessons Learned, Strategic Communication on August 11, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Chautauqua Institution is a one-of-a-kind summer casual resort where individuals and families go to participate in lectures, concerts, films, sports, swimming, boating, bicycling, religious services and study… and to reflect on the issues of the day. Each week features a different theme, and this week’s theme was foreign policy.

My wife and I spent last week immersed in this wonderful place. From the world-class symphony, to sessions with acclaimed authors, to incredible arts exhibitions, and more, Chautauqua is nothing short of amazing.

But I must say that I also came away from the lectures even more troubled about how hopelessly complicated our world has become. Virtually every major speaker reinforced in great detail how each country in the Middle East and elsewhere has a different set of circumstances requiring a completely different set of strategic initiatives.

Some aspire at least partially to American basic values, while others are only strategically critical to our national security. And our inconsistency in explaining and dealing with all this has strengthened anti-American sentiments, making the task of diplomacy even more difficult.

There seems to be no one doctrine or policy statement that can cover all of these bewildering situations. Aaron David Miller, former diplomat and scholar in residence at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, said in a presentation this week that, “these problems are generational in character, bi-partisan in nature, and yield to only approximate solutions at best.”

As I listened to these lectures, I naturally found myself reflecting on the communication challenges and realities of making America understood in this volatile international climate. Reluctantly, I had to agree that there is no simple central message or statement that will adequately explain U.S. foreign policy initiatives. But I have been  thinking lately that there might be a set of communication “objectives” that could  explain Miller’s observation about the need to settle for “approximate solutions.”

Previous to Chautauqua I had already developed a hypothesis from periodic Washington interviews and conversations. What is missing, I thought, is the existence of one central executive branch strategic communication planner charged with involving every agency and department in an integrated planning process before anything happens. My impression was that only general guidelines are shaped, and then are carried out as each agency sees fit… essentially creating independent “silos” which end up adding to widespread confusion and clutter.

Would it not be possible for a central plan to focus on communicating two clear U.S  objectives: one objective for countries that support U.S. values, and another for those that are only strategically important to national interests? Then, as in all institutional strategic communication, key points that advance these two objectives can be repeated relentlessly through a variety of old and new media… all aimed to cut through the clutter of confusing daily news reports.

The weeks and months ahead for me will largely focus on assessing the effectiveness of strategic communication in U.S. foreign policy more systematically, and on exploring ways expanded public diplomacy initiatives and the internationalization of higher education can help improve world understanding. I invite you to follow my journey.

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Lesson 176 What Money Can’t Buy

Posted in Lessons Learned, Media Literacy, Strategic Communication on August 4, 2013| 1 Comment »

The 2012 book “What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets,” by Michael Sandel, Harvard Professor of government reminded me once again about the essential responsiblity communicators have to provide full context on important social issues.

My understanding of Sandel simply is that when financial market values dominate all other values, society is losing its moral compass. When money goes beyond buying a higher standard of living to buying political outcomes and virtually everything else, serious moral issues arise. Greed widens the distance between rich and poor, and eventually produces dangerous hostilities. When market economics trumps all other social values, everyone eventually suffers.

So what is the responsibility of journalists and communicators to provide context for possible social consequences such as this? Can this be accomplished without taking a political sides? I suggest that it can. I believe it’s not only possible to explain the various potential consequences of social and political trends with an observer’s detachment, but as professional communicators I believe making the good faith effort is our imperative.

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Lesson 173 Context and Social Issues

Posted in International, Lessons Learned, Public Affairs, Strategic Communication on July 13, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Could the recent controversial bill in the Texas legislature to curb abortion have come to a more amiable resolution? To do so would have required first establishing its “context” as a foundation for negotiation, and then for all parties to negotiate in an atmosphere of mutual respect.

1. The bill was written by a legislator who argued that his main concern is to protect the health of pregnant mothers. He is also a physician, which gives some credibility to his claim. However, critics see it as a clever way to politically advance the right-to-life cause and eventually eliminate abortions completely. The bill eliminates abortions after 20 weeks, and effectively closes all but very few clinics across the state.  Is there a way the goal of better protecting women’s health could be advanced while keeping a reasonable number of these clinics open?

2. The bill was also supported by people with a personal and/or religious commitment that the right to life is universal and the government simply must protect it. Is it feasible to revisit the separation of church and state principle on which this country was founded, and thereby seek some collaborative way forward?

3. The critics of the bill argue that a woman’s personal health is her private business and she should have the right to make her most private decisions on her own. The government has no right, they argue, to be making these most personal decisions for individuals. On this point, liberal thinkers seem to agree with the typical conservative position that governments should stay out of our personal lives. So is it possible to take government out of this discussion and find new more direct ways for those against abortion to make their case directly to the people.

In other words, can providing context on an issue like this make it possible to have a more intelligent dialogue about ways forward? Should the news media, strategic communicators, and educators, concentrate more on explaining the background and context of issues? For example, would explaining philosophical background, lessons from American history, possible alternative solutions, and more about how problem-solving processes actually work, help take the hard edge off polarized confrontation?

In the final analysis, will we ever again as a people consider that participatory negotiated compromise is the only true democratic way forward? After all our founding fathers certainly used compromise to launch this country. And, yes, amendments were made along the way to adjust and correct their initial decisions.

Facilitating compromise is a basic tool of the strategic communication profession. It’s a shame that few practitioners ever get to use it to help resolve polarizing social issues such as this one.

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Lesson 172 Context in Global Politics

Posted in International, Lessons Learned, Public Affairs, Strategic Communication on July 5, 2013| Leave a Comment »

One essential lesson I learned over the years is that understanding how to address issues requires first understanding their context. Breaking down complex problems into their component parts is essential before viable solutions can be found.

Let’s take the turmoil in Egypt this week as an example. Answering some key questions to establish context might offer clues about options:

1. Is it possible for a religious minority to advance its beliefs and govern the majority at the same time?

2. Is it possible for a military establishment to govern a complex and diverse society successfully?

3. Does history teach that militaries and religious minorities inevitably fail at building institutions, governing diverse populations and advancing economies?

4. Has it ever been possible to cast off this kind of past political baggage and reinvent a government from inside?

5. Or is it more likely that non-governmental entities such as experienced NGO’s, university experts, think tank specialists, and foundations can better assist in rethinking and renewing government structures, service institutions, legal systems, electorial processes, and business economies?

If informed analysis establishes that there are essential historical lessons to be learned from answering these questions, then should not appropriate “talking points” be written and used over and over again by reporters and strategic communication professionals alike in order to establish “context” for finding viable ways forward?

It seems to me that all this should be possible in our truly globalized world. And if not now, then very soon. What we need is a powerful spokesman to emerge with a new vision for an expanded definition of public diplomacy.

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Lesson 171 Global Education and Soft Power

Posted in International, Lessons Learned, Strategic Communication on June 28, 2013| Leave a Comment »

At the recent Worldviews Conference on Higher Education and Media in Toronto I had a very interesting conversation with Phillip Altbach, one of the top experts in the world on international higher education. We discussed the idea that international education was a major form of soft power and has the potential to significantly improve cross-culture understanding. And as such, it also is one of our purest forms of public diplomacy.

I have been approaching this topic from a perspective I gained from being associated with a think tank in Washington that concentrates on national security issues. The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) houses some of the world’s most recognized experts on national security problems and solutions.

Early in my association with  CSIS I became familiar with an often quoted report that introduced the concept of “smart power.” The report presented a set of strategic communication and diplomatic initiatives to advance US interests around the world that continue to influence U.S. foreign policy programs. In that report, the importance of the idea of “soft power” was also specifically mentioned.

In my study of strategic and international communication I have come to believe that soft-power and public diplomacy go hand-in-hand. People-to-people exchanges, and more recently interactive digital media, are the best tools we have to produce greater world understanding.  And through my long years of teaching and speaking abroad I have also come to believe that international higher education is the purest form we have of public diplomacy.

Teaching, learning, focused research, consulting projects and other interactive international educational collaborations all contribute to a more secure world. The more faculty and students get to know each across cultures and ideologies the more national security fears tend to fade, and the more mutual understanding improves.

Higher education is already a global industry. Our potential to enable world peace and diminish security threats is therefore unprecedented. If we use social media to encourage its potential, and the news media take initiative to both advance and monitor it, we can once and for all realize this potential.

In the months ahead I will be exploring this topic in greater depth. As I transition from a vice-chancellor and professor in August to a vice-chancellor emeritus and a research and teaching fellow, I will be posting more about what I am learning. Stay tuned.

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Lesson 170 Security, Research and the News

Posted in International, Lessons Learned, Strategic Communication on June 23, 2013| Leave a Comment »

This week I was on two panels at the Worldviews Conference on Higher Education and Media in Toronto. One of them was on branding, and I previewed it in last weeks’ post. The other one was titled: “National Security, Social Media and the Publicity of Academic Findings.”  This one could be addressed from many vantage points, and frankly I struggled with how to approach it.

We were told our topic was inspired by news media coverage of instances of the Canadian government censuring academics, raising academic freedom and transparency questions about accessing sponsored research findings. Of course, social media played a complicating role in these situations, and also raises additional complicated  security and privacy issues in general. To be sure, academic freedom, privacy and transparency questions abound today as universities become more global and find themselves operating in multiple cultures and dealing with multiple government policies.

I have been both a practitioner and an academic who has been teaching strategic and international communication in a journalism school. So fundamentally I believe in as much transparency as is possible. But as a practical matter, in my work I have come to accept the proprietary nature of commissioned research. And so these days I make the assumption that researchers who take commissions to do government studies understand that up front.

Now you might argue that governments are public not private entities and as such should be completely transparent, except possibly for a few national security activities. But it’s simply a fact that elected administrations will always be advancing their ideology related policies, and that information they gather will often be proprietary. This is a reality, even though they may have campaigned on a platform of more transparency!

So in today’s world it is the job of the news media to find out as much as possible about what governments are doing, especially  their wrong-doings. Reporters will therefore continue to try to uncover the findings of proprietary research, as they should. This is a critically important form of checks and balances, and I believe its in this ongoing process that gradual social progress can be made.

All this is to say that proprietary agreements must always be clearly understood upfront, be they with governments or with universities housing government projects. That means that even inside today’s universities, researchers must be clear about  when and if their findings can be published. For true academics, research projects with no strings will always be preferred, but that will not always be the case.

Just how much social media complicates these proprietary issues and raises additional issues about government intrusions into our personal lives, will confuse matters for a long time. Most of us still want to draw a privacy line that can’t be crossed. But today that line always wiggles a bit every time government intrusion charges, terrorists threats, or even exciting new internet opportunities, appear.

One of my students responded to all this by blurting, “There is no such thing as privacy any more. Get used to it!”  For some people this may sound simplistic and naive. Nonetheless, it’s probably true.

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Lesson 167 Communicating the White House

Posted in Integrated Marketing, Lessons Learned, Public Affairs, Strategic Communication on June 1, 2013| Leave a Comment »

The way the White House has been dealing with the recent crises in the state department, justice department and the IRS is certainly fueling the argument that the government is too large to govern efficiently. That may be so. But my experience would suggest that an important element of strategic thinking and planning just might be missing.

A complicated and rapidly developing competitive environment in higher education a number of years ago is what caused me to begin thinking about bringing integrated marketing concepts into our strategic communication practice. Bringing more sophisticated communication tools into marketing had been underway in business for some time. But bringing marketing thinking into strategic communication had not yet happened, at least to my knowledge. Yet it was coming to my mind now out of necessity.

There are many components to integrated marketing.  But one that can make a huge difference in crisis situations is facilitated group analysis and planning. Many people don’t think more meetings are feasible in a fast-moving setting. But my experience has been that taking enough time to get everyone on the same page before acting can really pay off. And these meetings can be quickly organized and effectively managed if an experienced trained facilitator is close at hand.

Admittedly, the larger the organization the more complicated the challenge. And it’s true that many executives are just not patient enough to work through appropriate group process in any situation. But when things go badly, as they have now at the White House, it takes even more time to work through an ongoing growing mess.

First the commitment to try must come from the top, as well as an understanding of how to go about organizing the initiative. In the case of the White House, the president and chief of staff would have to give some careful thought to who from the various involved segments of government must participate, and who has the skills to lead it. It could be the communication director, but he or she must have the facilitation skills… and many do not.

A working group like this has three specific tasks: First, identify all the relevent facts and get them on the table. What actually happened? What are we doing about it? Second, determine the most complete and yet concise way to tell the story. Stay focused on the heart of the story, but all of it must be told. Otherwise pieces always will continue to dribble out. And finally, choose the most credible and confident spokesman for this particular situation. The more important the story, the higher the level the  spokesman. In crisis situations this is often not the press spokesman, or even the communication director. It is the highest level person closest to the events. And in cases as important as this one, it’s likely to be the president.

For the White House, the need to concisely clarify its primary national policy “brand” themes and reinforce them in everything that is said has also become critical. Priority audiences’ interests must be understood and directly addressed. And they must now be carefully targeted. The most efficient interactive tactics for reaching each must be launched by experienced new and social media practitioners. One thing is certain: A circle the wagons and defend the fort mentality simply will not work in crisis situations.

Breakdown is inevitable. But broadly planned strategic and facilitated group message coordination, together with audience targeting and focused interactive communication, can effectively address critical issues and systematically move institutions and nations ahead. It’s clear now that the White House needs a new approach. What they are currently doing is not working.

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Lesson 166 Living and Working in a Global Village

Posted in International, Lessons Learned, Planning, Strategic Communication on May 25, 2013| 1 Comment »

In Washington last week I found myself mentioning the coming globalization of higher education to a colleague.  He instantly  responded by blurting out, “What do you mean “coming?” We have been living in an internationalized world for some time, and right now you are in a total international city!”

When you think about it, he’s right. Every taxi driver in the city seems to be from a different part of the world.  From the airport mine was from Ghana. I was greeted at a nearby hotel’s happy hour by a hostess from Prague, and my maid in the hotel in which I was staying was from Columbia. My taxi driver to a restaurant that night was from India.

And what about food? Would it be Thai, or Greek, or Chinese, or Italian, or Indian. Oh yes, American cuisine can be found too if you look for it. But the choices now are endless, and all are authentic. I chose a steakhouse, but in the same neighborhood were Mexican, Spanish tapas, and Asian fusion choices.

I commented to my friend that I was impressed how well all these people spoke English, and that I wished I had mastered more languages.  But he pointed out that in the global village of today it’s almost impossible to pick the one or two languages that cover the territory.  He argued that the whole world is rapidly accepting English as the common language, and that our challenge now is more learning how to better relate and adapt to other cultures and value systems than learning other languages. An interesting perspective, indeed.

If my friend is right, it is important to begin thinking about this world, not as a coming international community and marketplace, but rather as a global village that has already arrived. That means every university, nonprofit agency, association, business, city, nation and individual, in one way or another is already being influenced by other countries, or is already doing business with them.

This may seem to be a simple truth.  But seeing it in greater depth is likely to change our short-term thinking as we develop our organizations’ marketing and communication plans. How will we respond sooner rather than later to global competition right here at home?  Should we expand activities to other parts of the world earlier than we thought? Indeed, what are all the ways we must change our organizations’ culture in order to have everyone prepared with appropriate savvy and knowledge?

You better have a short-term action plan in mind. The global village is not coming. It is here.

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Lesson 165 Strategic Communicators in Foreign Policy

Posted in International, Lessons Learned, Public Affairs, Strategic Communication on May 18, 2013| 1 Comment »

This week I visited a meeting of the Young Professionals in Foreign Policy group in Washington. It was a gathering of 50 or more mid-career strategic communication professionals working in various foreign policy positions.  They came from government as well as NGO’s, embassies, think tanks, and more. They meet together mainly for professional development and to share their experiences and problems with each other.

The meeting kicked off with a panel discussion. Members of the panel included the Director of Foreign Affairs at the Brookings Institution, the Director of Arab World Engagement at the Center for Strategic Counter-terrorism Communications at the State Department, the Chief of Protocol at the French Embassy, and the Strategic Communication Officer at IFC World Bank.

YPFP is a very impressive group. I have long observed that students and graduates who make it to Washington as interns or young professionals are among the best thinkers universities produce. That evening I felt as I do when I am surrounded by our own honors students at TCU: The world will really be just fine when these talented professionals are in charge!

Even as a life long teacher I sat there thinking how much I can learn from their experiences. Everyone one of them is already on the front lines dealing with serious security and policy issues. One panelist described how she monitors websites in the Middle East to determine where young people gather and how to influence their thinking about the U.S. Another panelist addressed the challenges of simplifying messages related to very complicated financial matters for foreign audiences. Eventually everyone was discussing how to advance their foreign policy careers. Being willing and prepared to take on the most difficult national problems seemed to be their common theme.

The director of the group and I closed the evening by talking about how I might get involved and be of service to the organization. The real question will be, from my 40 plus years of practicing and teaching strategic and international communication just what can I offer them? One thing is clear: With this group I will be doing more listening than lecturing!

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Lesson 164 Communicating Past Each Other

Posted in Lessons Learned, Planning, Strategic Communication on May 11, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Several weeks ago I observed an extremely frustrating situation which I have been thinking about ever since. What made it worse was that I was incapable of influencing it. And as I reflected on it afterwards, I had to conclude that it was very typical of many communication situations we face in meetings every day.

There were two groups in the room. One group represented an organization about to be evaluated.  And as a part of preparing for this overall evaluation, its leaders had included a proposal for a bold new and comprehensive institution-wide internationalization program. To me, it was an extraordinary proposal with highly creative features.

The group doing the evaluating, however, chose to see this new program differently. And while they initially gave fairly high marks to the organization overall, their evaluation of this new program proposal turned very negative and dominated most of the meeting time. Rather than applaud the institution for its imaginative new initiative, the evaluators chose to review this proposal as if it was a program already in operation for several years. They focused on the absence of a fully developed institution-wide and long-term budget, a complete organization chart detailing every administrative staff position that would be needed for the total program, and specific methods for evaluating all outcomes. By the end of the meeting, all of this negativity led to an overall feeling in the room that the institution’s capacity to accomplish its overall goals was also being questioned.

On the other hand, my assessment as a listener was that this proposal to internationalize an entire institution was one of the most innovative I have seen anywhere. In fact, I thought it was so carefully thought out that it has the potential to actually achieve national distinction. To me, the start-up budget amount was clearly a strong initial commitment, and it did include a plan for  expanding resources as needed along the way. The proposal also described how all the programmatic details of organization-wide implementation would fall into place over time. I was energized and truly excited by the planners’ imagination and vision. But because the tone of the entire meeting was so negative, everyone representing the organization was depressed and demoralized in the end. I was ready to get on with implementing this new and exciting program, but everyone else was huddling after the meeting trying to understand what had just happened.

This clearly was a situation where two groups were communicating past each other, and the outcome was very disappointing. A preliminary meeting to clarify and set some guidelines might have avoided this negative outcome. Admittedly, pre-meetings are not always feasible. But preparatory conversations that try to anticipate both intended and unintended consequences can make all the difference when a constructive outcome is essential to moving forward.

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