If you’re like most Communications teams you probably want to focus your efforts on the workflows that will have the biggest impact on business results; however, most teams find themselves constantly distracted by low-value business partner requests. And while we’d love to stop for a moment…take a breather… and reevaluate all the different communication activities that we’re working on, it’s hard to know where to start as well as how to get buy-in from our business partners that what we think is the best use of our time aligns with their view.
The reason why we typically struggle to breaking free of low-value business partner requests is because we do not include our partners in assessing how valuable different Communications activities are. This idea might sound simple and/or pretty intuitive, but most Comms teams don’t do it. Instead they create this own list of priorities (perhaps during a Communications functional offsite) and then try to pitch it to business partners. Needless to say this result usually fails to bring about any significant change.
One company who has been very successful in focusing their function on the things that truly make an impact to the company’s performance is ConAgra Foods’. At ConAgra, communicators partner with the business to determine the relative value of each activity, and then use the conversation to surface and build consensus around higher-value opportunities to pursue.
CEC Members can check out the best practice from ConAgra Foods which will help you to:
- Assess the value of Communications workflows
- Make activity trade-offs and eliminate low-value work
- Become a consultative partner with the business
- Ask probing questions to spot communication opportunities
CEC Related Resources:
Activity Value Assessment (ConAgra Foods)
Consultative Problem-Solving Worksheet
Principled Service Tier Levels (ING
CEC Related Blogs:
Communications as a Nice to Have
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