Rowland Corporate Affairs Webinar: Communication, the most sought-after currency in business

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Powerful communication can help transform businesses, drive change, shape culture, and connect people. Communication is the most sought-after currency for business leaders today. Strategic external communication strengthens connections with key stakeholders and builds better relationships; applied well internally, it improves productivity, boosts culture and collegiality. Communication literally permeates every aspect of business.

In an increasingly complex global operating environment, where leaders must navigate diversity, equity and inclusion, sustainability, changing workplaces, and work patterns — the power of communication is key to achieving business success.

During the webinar, we heard from an expert panel of business leaders on how they have successfully and proactively invested in their own communication currency to achieve strategic leadership, relationships, culture and reputation outcomes.

With this context, our panellists were asked two questions:

  1. Has today’s operating environment impacted how your organisation views — and values — communication? Does your organisation recognise communication as part of business strategy?
  2. In your organisation, where does communication fit in the context of other important business and leadership skills? How important has communication been in your own journey?

Watch or listen to the full webinar here:

Short on time? We’ve summarised the discussion below:

 

QUESTION 1: Has today’s operating environment impacted how your organisation views — and values — communication? Does your organisation recognise communication as part of business strategy?

Anthony Ryan, Chief Executive Officer, BEDA

Three elements of how communication is viewed and valued as a critical role in the BEDA business strategy:

  1. Adapting Styles: The operating environment influences how we value communication, but the fundamentals haven’t changed. You must adapt communication styles for different audiences and learning preferences.
  2. Theology of Presence: Listen with eyes and ears and remember to go into each business interaction with a transformational mindset, instead of transactional. The work off the ball is just as important as the strategy itself. Think about how/what you can ‘give’ to add more value, instead only of what you can gain.
  3. Authenticity: Each business should establish their 3-5 core values, which are highly embedded and in all their deliverables.

Sarah Brokken, Manager – Equity, Inclusion and Diversity, Rio Tinto

Speaking from an internal inclusion and diversity lens:

  • The communication strategy needs to incorporate all levels of leadership in the organisation for it to be successful.
  • It is important to help the leaders in your organisation to find their authenticity in how they communicate their message to effectively reach the level/team they manage.
  • Communication should be viewed as a tool to engage and support the change management strategy and help people become advocates for that change.
  • Leveraging communication as a tool to drive change allowed Rio Tinto to develop the Women in Leadership Program. This enabled women from various industries and backgrounds to be recruited into leadership and front-line roles at Rio Tinto. Using communication strategies to effectively appeal to these targeted segments of women resulted in the ratio of females in leadership positions within the organisation, being less than eight per cent, to more than double.

Steve Zeppa – Editor of Newsreel

  • Authenticity will preserve brands: Clear, concise, consistent and continuous communication is essential.
  • The importance of not only regular communication, but strategic communication as today’s media and technological landscape rapidly evolves.
  • Technology has disrupted traditional media, leading to a more fractured audience as the algorithm continues to feed audiences the pre-conceived ideals they already hold.
  • Hence, it is important to implement strategic communication to take control of your message with authenticity in branding essence (your true north) and marketing strategy.

Fiona Sperou, Director of Training and Development, Rowland

  • Execution of strategy is much harder than building the communication strategy itself — it requires both technical and communication skills to run in parallel — when this fails, that’s when authenticity starts to slip.
  • Ruthless consistency of messaging is crucial — find new ways to deliver the same message to maintain authenticity.

QUESTION 2: In your organisation, where does communication fit in the context of other important business and leadership skills? How important has communication been in your own journey?

Anthony Ryan, Chief Executive Officer, BEDA

  • All effective, well-respected leaders have outstanding communication skills — play to your strength and find fresh angels to be authentic.
  • Collaboration and communication are key — revert to the people of your organisation, the core, when developing the core messaging and personality of your organisation.
  • Maintaining authenticity — when the people within your organisation get to contribute to the development of core messaging and personality, it incentivises them to be become the champions of change in the organisation.
  • Identify the key decision-makers within your industry, and form alliances and connections with them.

Sarah Brokken, Manager – Equity, Inclusion and Diversity, Rio Tinto

  • We use strategic communication techniques to train the women recruited into internal leadership roles — this training taught them how to effectively position themselves as a leader, how to develop their own personal brand essence to embody their style of leadership, and how to articulate what they bring to the role and their team.
  • It is important to invest in this sort of strategic communication training for the leaders in your organisation, so they are equipped with the tools to effectively communicate about themselves, and also be business change advocates.

Steve Zeppa – Editor of Newsreel

  • Listening and giving are crucial skills in communications and business.
  • This enables you to tailor your messages to suit the audience and be open to changing your message based on feedback.
  • Approach events/conversations with the mindset of what you can give and listen carefully to offer more in your services. 

Fiona Sperou, Director of Training and Development, Rowland

  • Personal brand essence and communication skills are essential in being able to successfully articulate what you can offer and to influence an intended outcome.
  • Effective communication can be the difference between making contact or making a connection.
  • As a leader, body language is another crucial form of communication that plays a significant role in moments of influence.
  • Conducting audience analysis is extremely important to understand what your target audience want/need to know and what sort of language and channels to use to successfully execute the communication strategy.

Summary of questions asked from audience members:

Question: How did Rio Tinto approach attracting a diverse female talent for their program?

Incidental conversations and passionate pitches to leadership teams played a crucial role. Remember that all individual conversations, formal or informal, incidental or intentional, can make or break the success of change initiatives/projects.

Question: When to communicate, when you don’t have all the answers?

You don’t need to have all the answers. People respect vulnerability if it is backed by a willingness to find out what they need to know. Always provide some information to stakeholders, even if you can’t give them everything. Audience analysis helps anticipate what questions they will ask.

Written by Remi Wright, Account Executive