Turning promises into profit
Satisfaction = Perception minus expectations.
This lesson was drummed into me when I started my career measuring corporate reputation and helping companies understand how they were seen by key stakeholders. Think about it – your own overall level of satisfaction with a product or service is not determined by the absolute level of service you received, but by how it compares to what you expected to receive.
As communication professionals we have a responsibility to deliver the best possible experience for our companies, our clients, our customers, our colleagues and our careers. It is our job to make things happen, and to make things happen efficiently. Beating expectations where we can.
Quality is in the eye of the beholder
But how do your ‘customers’ judge the quality of your work? The paradox is that as you get more expert – more senior – in your communications career, expertise is harder and harder to judge:
- If you are a junior media relations executive and your press release has typos, we’ll notice, but if you are comms director and your advice causes long-term reputational damage, this might take 6-12 months to manifest itself.
- If you are PR executive in an agency and your project goes Pete Tong, we’ll know soon enough, but if you are senior partner in charge of developing the whole strategy, we probably won’t discover your bad advice until after you’ve been given your end-of-year bonus.
- If you are a website manager and there is a 415 error, we’ll all know immediately that you uploaded the wrong media type. But if you fail to do a 301 redirect from the old website, we might not notice for a while.
The ‘curse of expertise’ is that the expert sees everything in their terms and forgets that others are not expert in her area. So how do you judge expertise? As a recipient of senior strategic advice, you can’t judge the quality of the advice – either immediately or in the short term. So you need to judge your expert on other factors such as ‘consulting skills’, customer service or project management skills.
Oh, did someone say, project management? Yes, project management, the unloved tool in the communicator’s kitbag.
Project management skills give you the ability to:
- Deliver on time or even ahead of schedule and beat expectations.
- Manage the Trust Equation in your favour via reducing risk.
- Avoid delays and mis-communication
- Reduce cost and increase profit.
Laura Desert, IABC UK&I past-President once said “Project management is not the most sexy thing to shout about…” I’d in fact argue the opposite: project management is sexy. And why not?
- You can have the best creative ideas in the world but where would Louis Vuitton be without project managers?
- You can have most expensive jewellery but where would Fabergé be without his comptrollers?
- You can have the best communication plan in the world but where would your great creative idea be without effective delivery?
Sexy is turning ideas into promises, and promises into delivery. Your ‘Cannes-Lions-worthy’ idea might do a great job at raising expectations but without effective project management you’ll dent satisfaction.
So why do we undervalue the key skill that turns promises into profit?
I think there are three reasons:
1. It makes the headlines happen, but doesn’t make the headlines. As a profession, we reward creativity, innovation, and ideas. No one ever won an IABC Gold Quill with the statement: “that was a terribly dull campaign … but the execution … wow!!”
2. It floats the boat, but doesn’t float our boats. We need project management to bring our ideas to life, but we personally don’t excited by it - - our passion is creativity, design, seeing our work come to life.
3. It’s Gantt and Excel but you can’t excel. Excel spreadsheets and Gantt charts don’t get us up in the morning. But this critical, undervalued skill is what makes everything sparkle.
Hakuna Matata? No: Asana!
Sure you can look at your next communication project and live by the immortal words of Timon, Pumbaa, or Bobby McFerrin. Or you can think about how you can make an impact with your key stakeholders, and how they will judge your performance. Will they judge you on quality in 6-12 months’ time, or competence in 6-12 days? How can you demonstrate competence before the end of your next campaign? Project management.
The IABCK UK&I Board use Asana to make things happen. Other tools are available, of course.
Remember:
- Expectations are raised by creative and innovative ideas.
- But the more senior you get the harder it is to judge expertise.
- Therefore your stakeholders judge you on other things, such as project management.
- Delivery is key
- Project management makes it happen.
Project management: the MacGuffin of the communications world.
Member of the IABC UK&I Chapter
