The 4 Keys to Strategic Communication

What Board Members and Executives Need to Know

How many times have we heard this story – your everyday blogger stumbles across a questionable tweet by a company executive and soon, an entire corporation is in the midst of a reputational crisis? Companies must not only compete, but survive in today’s age of social media – where ordinary individuals have the strength to buoy or sink a brand, in 140 characters or less.

Carefully planned strategic communications are valuable tools for engaging shareholders and enhancing value. While there are few rules in this area, the smartest companies understand that transparency, including communicating both good and bad news, is crucial to maintaining investor confidence.

Given the speed of change now and how quickly market and economic conditions can morph, an effective process for informing and engaging the broad array of an organization’s constituencies starts at the top.

That means establishing a strategic communication process to enable directors to understand the context underlying important decisions that are under consideration.

Here are a few crucial elements that all effective and successful strategic communication processes share:

• The board first has to get its own communication house in order.
• The entire board should be engaged in the strategic communication process.
• Communication roles and responsibilities should be clearly defined and understood.
• Communication planning for a crisis is best done when there isn’t one.

Download our new whitepaper, 4 Keys to Strategic Communication: Both a Means and an End for Effective Governance.

Adam Ross is Vice President, Corporate Solutions, specializing in Governance. In this role, Adam has expanded the company’s approach to growth, blending strategic acquisitions with value add services to the corporate market.

The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.