Strategies for successful communication in companies
Aug 25, 2015
Communication affects company image and if listed on the stock market its share prices. Communications within and outside organisations has been taken to mean writing boring, routine letters, company newsletters and emails.
By John Odyek
Communication affects company image and if listed on the stock market its share prices. Communications within and outside organisations has been taken to mean writing boring, routine letters, company newsletters and emails.
“Communication has been complicated to make an industry out of it. Some people use ‘big English’ thinking they are communicating but no one understands what they are saying,” said Nii Ayikwei Parkes, an international communications consultant based in UK and Ghana.
He is scheduling communications trainings for companies in Uganda in collaboration with the Centre for African Cultural Excellence (CACE).
Parkes has developed a communications model termed the DESC system which seeks to make messages: ‘Distinctive, Effective, Simple and credible’.
He explained that distinctive communication is about making the reader or receiver feel you are speaking just to them. Effective communication is about having the right tone, content and achieving intended goals for communication.
For simplicity he says we must keep our audience’s needs in mind and minimise complexity.
Credibility in communication is going beyond creating believe but moving on to build trust and being consistent. He explains that emphasis must be put on the communication goal.
In delivering messages content and place are key issues to focus on. He stresses that ‘place’ for communication is not always physical but there is ‘place’ like emails, websites that virtual.
“There are places appropriate for building rapport and there are places for detail. A reception is a place to build rapport. Emails are for details. Conferences are for building rapport not for detail,” Parkes explained.
Parkes is a former corporate executive who has worked in leading global companies. He has also worked with various governments.
Parkes reiterated that all managers and employers know how to communicate but focusing on the model he has developed can improve the effectiveness of their messages. “The simple rules can make you have a successful bargain, a deal, a bid. It can make your communication succeed or to fail,” Parkes added.
He has witnessed board meetings where the same things are repeated perennially as if they are new and time wasted. He added that the DESC system is a response not a prescriptive system and assumes there is a union between communication and strategy.
He said honesty in communication was key because honesty builds long term relationships. “Politicians can lie to get votes because they do not care about voters. If the votes could be recalled they would not lie,” Parkes said.
The system can enable effective communication during conflict situations or even protests. “When communication in conflict situations you ask questions such what are the possible outcomes from the messages. Does the communication produce a best or worst case scenario,” he said.
Roland Niwagaba, communications manager Centre for African Cultural Excellence said they want to learn to find the story teller in ‘each of us’ and see how best to use it in ‘our day to day communications’.
“We want learn to cut off the rhetoric we spill in communication. Public relations managers have a template kind of text we just use,” Niwagaba said
Parkes knows the importance of ‘story- telling’ in communication. “He wants to educate the participants on how to leverage the power of narrative to build brands, nurture innovations and strengthen corporate messages, to create stories that people can identify with. Instead of the old boring messages. When you tell stories, you connect at a different level with the audience,” Niwagaba said.
Emmanuel Kwezi Tabaro, administrator Writivism, a literary organization said administrators like him stand to gain a lot from the model.
“How do we run an organisations? How do we communicate? The work we do has a lot to do with writers, the clients we sell books,” Tabaro said.
“We need strong communication skills to reach to different people of different backgrounds we need to package messages to see that it reaches across borders. Communication between the teams is important,” Tabaro added.
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