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170 Corporate Communications in Practice

between academics and practitioners (through, for instance, conferences, associations,
practitioner journals) so as to better communicate and explain academic theories and
knowledge to practitioners.

4. Senior managers. For practitioners to develop themselves beyond their ‘craft’ com-
munication skills, and effectively move into more manager role related activities (such
as management counselling, support for organizational change trajectories, etc.), there
of course needs to be a supportive organizational environment for doing so. A sup-
portive organizational environment means, among other things, that senior managers
recognize the role of communicators as broader than just skilfully disseminating mes-
sages, and that they enable practitioners to develop themselves by getting involved in
management assignments,and through training and job rotation.Jon White and Laura
Mazur have suggested in this regard that senior managers should give senior commu-
nicators central strategic and visible roles in assisting the formulation of corporate
strategy and should spare them to engage in advising, research and evaluation rather
than having them stretched by keeping up with the day-to-day operations. 31

5. Practitioners. While opportunities for development need to be provided by the
other parties mentioned above,practitioners themselves also need to rise to the occa-
sion. One important point in this respect is that practitioners, as a group, may need
to reframe their occupation as a management function, rather than as a creative-artistic
or craft job.The perceptions and self-belief that communications is creative-artistic
and a largely technical activity hinders the progression into management ranks and
further professional development.Traditionally, however, this has been the dominant
view of communications with practitioners, who prefer the intuitive and creative
aspects of the communications process and even appear to avoid the activities asso-
ciated with the managerial role. 32
A further shift into manager roles is, however, needed not only for organizations
but also for the communications profession as a whole. In this sense, practitioners have
to take charge to train and educate themselves in matters concerning research, envi-
ronmental scanning and the strategic management of organizations.Jon White recently
suggested therefore that the fully qualified practitioner now needs to possess not just
creative skills and a good personality,but also managerial and organizational knowledge
33
and negotiating abilities. Moreover, practitioners may also need to become more
‘reflective’ in their approach to the communications job than they have been in the
past. James and Larissa Grunig’s study into ‘excellent’ practitioners shows that excellent
practitioners are the ones who increasingly have enjoyed some education,but also con-
tinually read,study and learn – through books,scholarly journals and professional pub-
lications.These practitioners think and approach their work as reflective practitioners
by thinking,searching the literature,and planning and evaluating what they do (see also
Chapter 1), and approach each decision by searching for research-based knowledge or
do research themselves to create the knowledge they need. 34

Together, these different parties may increase and solidify the body of knowledge
of communications management,and in doing so may advance what is now still seen by
many as an occupation into a full profession.The body of knowledge of communications
management, it has been argued, needs to be specifically built around the managerial