This week’s journal assignment—most of the readings, actually—struck a chord of déjà vu in my mind: as mentioned in my discussion post, I have a particularly multicultural background. Additionally, my (Irish-Scottish-Welsh-French) Canadian husband works for a large German multinational, and is frequently required to travel to various European countries where cultural ideals sometimes seem to line up as little as the languages do. I myself work for a Canadian firm that employs very diverse staff and earned, for the second consecutive year, a “One of Canada’s Best Managed Companies” award. Add in multiple conversations a week with my own family living in retired glory in India, and it seems that we frequently tread precariously in the hallowed halls of strategic communication.
With the advent of a significantly more egalitarian and perhaps more symbiotic relationship between hierarchical levels in an organization, being actively cognizant of multiple diversity factors and situations is more important than ever before for managers and senior staff. In addition to increasing numbers of women joining the workforce, a typical staff today spans more generations and is more culturally and ethnically diverse than before (Hynes & Veltsos, 2018). CEOs serve as the face of their organization, and both internal and external audiences take their cue from that face. That cue directs everything from interpersonal relationships at the firm to the public image presented of the firm to hiring practices. If the CEO isn’t self- and culturally aware, and cannot translate the firm’s needs into ethical practices suited to an environment growing less homogeneous every day, the result will translate into misunderstandings, conflicted public presence, and an overall dissatisfaction among various levels of staff. Any member of management needs to stop thinking of their roles as top-down, issuers of directives and pivot into a more omniscient role, in which he or she works with the staff to enable them to work together, cohesively and collaboratively, and in a way that fulfills them as much as in a way that moves the company forward as a whole. I believe that this has always been a manager’s role, to actually manage people and not just make the larger salary, but as we’ve seen in this week’s reading, we have only recently seen the title of manager evolve from denoting status based on accomplishment (hopefully) to the acquisition of actual management skills.
The core change in contemporary CEO perceptions is a definitive shift toward proactive communications strategizing and pre-planning for crises or adverse situations, well in advance of any such adverse situation occurring (Arthur W. Page Society, 2013). Whereas before PR was mainly reactive and a means for salvaging reputation, it is now a solid method of anticipating negative outcomes and preparing for them in advance by not only drawing up response templates and outlining communications plans, but also by fattening the goodwill bank account, so that a firm will have positives to draw on in the event of an adverse outcome (“We know we made a mistake, but look at everything else we’ve done so far to prove that we are a true, caring member of your community”). The very significant side benefit of this approach—and a paradigm shift in its own right—is that the latter strategy taps into the core values of the firm itself, and lays the firm open in a transparent and genuine manner, which in turn bonds it further to public perception but also enables employees to live their employer’s core values as well. Communications, therefore, has become an integral part of the C-Suite, not just a peripheral to run to in times of crisis.
The key skillset for managerial communication, involves, first and foremost, active listening (Arthur W. Page Society, 2013). I do think that active listening, meaning the proactive give and take of conversation, is key to binding a team successfully together, and to discerning potential areas of conflict and hopefully mitigating or resolving them early. Active listening also enhances openness and transparency, lending a flavor of authenticity between upper echelons and general staff. Emotional intelligent is crucial to this process, as it is what helps managers build those very important relationships within the organization, and informs decisions pertaining to both internal and external audiences (Gouveia & SNHU COCE Assistive Technology, 2015).
These elements flow naturally into the question of diversity within the firm, an innocuous word encompassing the principles of gender, age, cultural, and educational diversity (Hynes & Veltsos, 2018)—it bears keeping in mind that even the concept of education diversity is one that differs vastly among cultures. The concept of a global economy necessitates diversity awareness; even if staff aren’t being sent abroad, even small towns are growing increasingly diverse, and not just ethnically—I presently live in North Carolina, where the combative discourse over the so-called “Bathroom Bill” demonstrated definitively how perceptions among multiple groups of people differ according to their own claim to diversity. The conversations I had with a member of a very homogenous subdivision, for example, were very different from those I had with a high school teacher in a heavily populated area of Charlotte, who, like the management staff under discussion, dealt with a student population diverse in all manner of ways.
The Bill demonstrated two key outcomes that serve as a fitting conclusion to this journal entry; first, as a result of North Carolina’s reluctance to embrace or, at least, accommodate this one aspect of diversity, notable events and traditional state sponsors withdrew their patronage, resulting in an estimated loss of almost four billion dollars in revenue (CNBC, 2017), along with employment losses due to companies—including PayPal and Deutsche Bank deciding to locate their premises elsewhere, an exemplary and cautionary tale to those organizations who do not believe that accommodating diversity appropriately can be catastrophic to the bottom line.
The other consequence is largely anecdotal, and personal: I regularly shop at my local Target with my children, and my family patronizes several local breweries. Hard on the heels of the Bill, we noticed that several of the single-gender restrooms at both Target and a handful of those breweries had been converted into unisex versions, with the appropriate, inclusive signage. When casually commenting thereon to serving staff at one of the breweries, the pitiful but heartfelt response was, “Well, duh.”
References:
Arthur W. Page Society. (2013). The CEO View: The Impact of Communications on Corporate Character in a 24×7 Digital World. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20150915202801/http://www.awpagesociety.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/The-CEO-View-2013.pdf
CNBC. (2017, March 27). ‘Bathroom bill’ to cost North Carolina $3.76 billion. CNBC. Retrieved from https://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/27/bathroom-bill-to-cost-north-carolina-376-billion.html
Gouveia, B., & SNHU COCE Assistive Technology. (2015, October 30). Emotional Intelligence1 [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6mbJDesjnc&feature=youtu.be
Hynes, G. E., & Veltsos, J. R. (2018). Managerial Communication: Strategies and Applications. SAGE Publications.