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Dear CEO, 11 starting points for creating your communications

by on 01. Sep, 2010 in Dear CEO series, Geoff's Blog

All relationships are based on communications, but you don’t just tell things to people, you also listen to them. You do this in your personal and social life, you must do it in your professional life as well. Many organisations are terrible listeners because they confuse the need to listen with the action of failing to take decisions or the perception of lack of leadership. Great leaders listen.

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Dear CEO, Communications isn’t just marketing either

by on 01. Sep, 2010 in Dear CEO series, Geoff's Blog

Putting all of your communications into the marketing category is running the risk of focusing on product to the detriment of relationships and reputation external to the product.

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Dear CEO, is the media that important?

by on 01. Sep, 2010 in Dear CEO series, Geoff's Blog

We accept media stories at face value until they are challenged by someone “in the know” or who we have a relationship with. Once challenged, we tend to favour the new version of the story because we know that “media world” is a mythical place, not the community in which we live. Short term stories rarely do the damage we believe, and are usually made ineffective by a quick, straightforward response. The real impact is on those who are the focus of the story, not the broader community.

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Dear CEO, is there a difference between internal and external comms?

by on 01. Sep, 2010 in Dear CEO series, Geoff's Blog

Your employees do a lot of your external communication, relationship building and reputation creation. And they are very, very credible. They are in essence similar to every other stakeholder and need to hear the same things and be heard in similar ways. If as CEO you want to create relationships with your employees (and you do or you wouldn’t be in this position!) then you should really communicate with them in the same vein as every other stakeholder. The tools may be different, but the values, themes, relationships and reputation effects are the same.

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