Page 174 - Corporate Communication

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162 Corporate Communications in Practice

which customer segments to invest in and at what projected returns … instead of asking
how to improve the number of hits to the website, [practitioners] should be asking who
their key stakeholders are and how to get more interactive with them. 9
Manager role enactment, however vital to the strategic use of communications and
its involvement in decision making, depends on a number of factors, such as the size
of the department and environmental uncertainty (as mentioned above), but perhaps
most importantly it depends on the willingness and ability of practitioners.As for their
willingness, some practitioners, it needs to be remarked, still have little aspiration to
enact the manager role, as they have built their careers around technical specializa-
tions and skills and exhibit high levels of job satisfaction in the stability of technician
role enactment over time.A recent survey among practitioners even found that the
majority of respondents were happiest performing the ‘down and dirty’ tasks, such as
writing, editing and production of news releases and publications.According to the
same survey, only 21 per cent of the respondents stated that managing, planning and
working with top management represented the parts of the job they liked best. 10
Apart from their willingness,practitioners must of course also be able to enact the
manager role.This ability depends on crucial experience gained in communications
‘on the job’, as well as training and education in a number of areas.

• A first area includes communications competence and skills:a practitioner enacting the
manager role needs to master the use of communications techniques and skills
(writing, editing, etc.) just as technicians, but importantly also needs to know
about different communications disciplines and how these can be integrated into
a comprehensive strategy for the organization.
• A second area includes management competence and skills: manager role enactment
requires an intimate knowledge of managerial processes of decision making and
strategy development, and of the role and use of communications in organiza-
tional development and change. Requisite management skills at the manager
level are the ability to consult, counsel, lead, plan, organize, galvanize support and
reflect upon strategic actions.
• A third area includes competence and skills in research and environmental scanning:
communications managers distinguish themselves from technicians in that they
base their actions on data that are gathered systematically and check whether they
have achieved their objectives.Technicians,on the other hand,go straight to work
and do not anticipate or check what they have done, either during or after the
task.Knowing about different research techniques,so that one can read and inter-
pret research reports, as well as having the skills to set up and conduct research
and environmental audits is thus crucial to manager role enactment.
• And a fourth and final area is general knowledge of the organization and the industry
or business sector in which the company operates: a manager needs to have an inti-
mate understanding of the organization – its structures, cultures and working
conditions – as well as of the industry and environment of a company including
the trends and issues within it.
Practitioners who are expected to enact the manager role, however, do not always
meet these requirements for competencies and skills in each of these areas. Many