CMGT500 WK5: Personal Example Letter

I drafted a letter to my CEO to consider developing strategic communication strategies. The letter is not about particular strategies, but an effort to give strategic communication relevance. 

As a disclaimer, my CEO is an extremely talented professional and the agency’s growing success is a testament to that. However, it is no secret to the employees and clients alike are extremely frustrated with organizational communication.

To my favorite CEO,

First of all, I’d like to address the fact that you do an excellent job keeping employees and clients up to date on our role in the current socio-political field of Autism spectrum disabilities. Research indicates that as social expectations change, it affects business (Bonini, Mendonca, & Oppenheim, 2006). As the perceptions of the capabilities of a person with Autism has changed over the last 15 years, you have continued to increase services respectively to meet both the needs and expectations of affected individuals. Keeping us up to date on potential public funding changes and the political context helps us strategically determine the agencies next steps. Because of your personal attention to these issues, this awareness is rooted in the culture of our agency (Bonini, Mendonca, & Oppenheim, 2006).  

As the agency CEO, I would like to bring to your attention the concern of quality strategic communication. As you already know, employees in our agency and often struggle with communication and clients tend to complain about inconsistencies of messages. Although we continue to thrive as a successful organization, it is important to address this issue so we can take advantage of future opportunities for growth that may require well-established communication strategies (Argenti, Howell, & Beck, 2005). I’d like to provide you some insights that may start the ball rolling on strategic communication for the organization.

Perhaps first we might delve into a little bit of philosophy on communication. You and I agree that all actions are potentially communicative (Eisenberg, 1984). In our field, we often emphasis this when the question rises if people with Autism can communicate. Although their attempts to communicate can be unclear, one could argue that context, such as present and pre-existing knowledge, in which they do attempt, is how we determine what the person is saying. This context is pivotal to determine the meaning of their communication. The person may have a very clear message to say, but does not possess the relational channels to express it. Likewise, when we consider the information we want to communicate as an organization, we must consider the present and pre-existing knowledge of constituents. Considering this, we must understand that clarity is not the message itself, but a function of how present the message and how constituents understand the message (Eisenberg, 1984; Goodall, Trethewey, McDonald, 2006).

When considering how we will present the message, we will benefit from thinking in terms of strategic communication. Strategic communication is the method of communication that paves the way for us to take full advantage of our organizational strategies that are in place to meet our goals. When we talk about strategic communication it is basically the planning of how to send clear and consistent messages. It may require choosing the channels that are most effective for particular constituents and consistently manipulating only those selected channels. Strategic communication means thoughtful simplification. This means using technical language only when necessary, and while keeping message concise, being sure we include all necessary information. For example, e-mails that are written like “Take minutes. Bookstore? Tonight’s no good” is too simplified. The message would be better written, “I have three unrelated things to tell you. 1. Take minutes at 10/16/12 meeting. 2. Did you follow up with the bookstore rep and was she open to the offer? 3. I will need to reschedule our session tonight”. And although I know you think it’s a waste of time, strategic communication involves repetition. When we want to send a message to our clients, we must take the time to e-mail, post on Facebook, on tumbler, and having the exact same message on our website. This will eliminate a lot of confusion from our constituents. (Argenti, Howell, & Beck, 2005).

For now, picture yourself as the “strategic communications officer” or for our purposes, the strategic communication interventionist (Argenti, Howell, & Beck, 2005). Envision yourself as the one who sets the standard for the quality of our communication and teaches it to the agency. It’s like a behavior intervention style for a particular client. As the behavior interventionist integrates a behavior intervention throughout all the aspects of the client’s life, you must seek to integrate consistent communication throughout all aspects of our organization. Like we seek a balance for our clients, n we should strive to “speak in harmony” as an organization (Argenti, Howell, & Beck, 2005).

I look forward to going into detail with you about our next steps to accomplish this objective.