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166 Corporate Communications in Practice

Table 6.1 Practitioners’ views about the qualities needed in communications
‘Personality is important … you are flitting daily from one thing [or] another, so you need your
wits about you’
‘One has to have lateral thinking like Edward de Bono’
‘Common sense [is important]. You need to be reasonably practical … You need to be able
to communicate’
‘Critical ability [is important, as are] … [being] persuasive in writing and verbally …, integrity …,
personal courage …, [and] a sense of humor … it doesn’t matter if they can write a press release.
‘[Practitioners should be] ideas men who … wish to change things, and that’s what I mean by
being creative’
‘People [who] speak up, who dress nicely, who’ve got something intelligent to say [can be
successful] … The old slap-dash approach is just not good enough … Personality and good
interpersonal skills [are important]’
‘Credibility [is important] … People who can operate at a senior level on very sensitive
topics [can be successful] …, so the ability to have those relationships is more important,
in a way, than technical training … There is a personality requirement … Salesmanship is a
crucial skill for the top people in consultancy … In the noncommercial area, the key skill is
persuasiveness’
‘More character than anything else [is important] …, getting along with clients, … being relatively
intelligent, a streetwise intelligence, … [and] a sense of humor … [to be able to] come up with
ideas and think at a bit of a tangent [is important]’

Table 6.1 presents some practitioners’ views on their occupation, and illustrates that
the job of the communicator is often vocationally defined by personality and social
characteristics (including elements such as ‘courage’,‘discretion’,‘empathy’,‘handling
people’,‘creative’,‘up to speed’,‘energetic’,‘attitude of mind’), which are often seen
as subjective and intuitive, as well as by technical skills (writing, editing, etc.), which
can be learnt. 18
In a sense, the effect of such a vocational view of the occupation is that the prac-
tice of communications is characterized by being gifted in the use of communica-
tions techniques and tactics, but that insufficient attention has been given to the
development and nurturing of specific professional knowledge that would lead to a
distinct domain of expertise.The result is that communications as yet does not qual-
ify as a profession, which is evident in the fact that many senior managers are still
unsure about the value of communications (as opposed to other functions) and often
just use it for tactical purposes rather than for its specific knowledge,that people with
little formal education can enter the occupation, and that communications contin-
ues to be under threat from other functions (e.g. marketing, human resources) that
may encroach upon its domain.
In recent years, many commentators have agreed that in the process of profes-
sionalization, the field of communications is developing and has shown considerable
progress,as it now possesses its own professional associations (such as the International
Association of Business Communicators (IABC) or the Institute of Practitioners in
Advertising), ethical codes of conduct and professional guidelines, as well as skills
19
training and education courses. But these commentators have also concurred that
the field still lacks a well-grounded and distinct domain of expertise that is difficult to
emulate and thus raises barriers for entry to novices and practitioners from other