Today, the words “two-way communications” and “dialogue” are often part of any communications-related professionals answer to what they do or how they do it. “We encourage and facilitate dialogue with our [clients’/company’s/organization’s] stakeholders.”
A few weeks ago, I heard University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Chief Communications Officer Paul Wood discuss the UPMC-Highmark ad war at a Public Relations Society of America event in Pittsburgh. It put the concept of dialogue front-and-center of my mind.
Some context: UPMC has said it will not renew its contract with Highmark when it expires in January 2015 now that Highmark is entering the provider market by establishing the Allegheny Health Network to compete with UPMC. Both health care provider/payers are battling it out over subscribers and access through, among other tactics, a series of antagonistic television commercials aimed at consumers.
The audience at Wood’s presentation was mostly comprised of students and junior level public relations pros. Wood’s presentation initially gave me a different perspective of him and UPMC. The business case for why UPMC would not contract with Highmark was convincing. I asked myself why UPMC wasn’t making this case in a similar format throughout the region instead of delivering one-way, top-down, tightly controlled messages through ads and news media.
Two-way, business-to-business communication is a noble aspiration, but it’s more than a
community meeting or even one-on-one meeting. It’s a philosophy of communicating that permeates everything an organization does relative to business communications. Today, despite the lip service dialogue gets, there are few organizations willing to commit to true dialogue, opting instead for, at best, monologue veiled as dialogue.
My colleagues Paul Furiga and John Durante wrote an excellent whitepaper on how stories deliver business success a few years ago, and I still reference it often. Here’s what they had to say about monologue and most contemporary communications and marketing approaches:
“Traditional business communication is driven by a top-down, ‘I have something important to tell you [and sell you]’ message that relies largely on the skill of the messenger in presenting problems (and their solutions) in a one-way, limited communication. Those receiving the messages can decide to listen or ignore them, but in short the messenger talks ‘at,’ not ‘with’ audiences, all the while hoping for the outcome that delivers the organization’s vested interest.
“Part sincerity, part bombast and part feudalism, this monologue communication style embraces the belief that careful message and content control will eliminate or silence whatever feedback might derail the intrepid business communicator.”
Social media is the easy, yet incomplete answer. A prospect asks, “Why do I need social media?” Well, we say, it will, among other things, help you develop and engage in a dialogue with prospects. Based on what I qualitatively know, unless you’re a major consumer brand, I’d bet your social media efforts – from Facebook to Twitter to LinkedIn – aren’t producing much dialogue. I’m not saying to scrap social media, because I believe there are other important, meaningful reasons for engaging in it. But in my experience, a low percentage of B2B companies are driving meaningful dialogue with social media.
Dialogue is defined as a discussion or series of discussions, or a conversation. WordWrite’s use of the term in guiding business communication message and development is slightly different. It is simultaneously an attitude of how to acknowledge a shifting vendor-customer sales process, a way to build effective business messages for this change, and a technique to effectively reach audiences with a new message “attitude.”
Every business and organization is different. So how could this approach to dialogue help your organization? How can you still largely control when, where and how business communications is initiated, yet acknowledge the unique needs and expectations of your audiences and invite their participation in arriving at a mutually beneficial dialogue and, ultimately, relationship?
Within the context of your business and mission,
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Acknowledge the significance of prospect behavior and decisions as challenges that need to be addressed on a continuing basis;
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Use civil communication as a guide;
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Build on existing target audience knowledge and sophistication;
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Emotionally align your interests with the audiences;
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Recognize the audience’s need for useful information in a fragmented world;
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Deliver authentic messages; and
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Reject sometimes popular but disdainful concepts of audience groups as sheep, lemmings or cattle.
As I mentioned, my colleagues have written an excellent piece that expands on not only dialogue, but also describes the importance of story in that dialogue. In the spirit of dialogue as WordWrite defines it, I encourage you to read it and tell us how you see two-way communications enhancing your business.
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Jason Snyder is a senior vice president for WordWrite Communications.
