As I write this England’s mens’ batters are dispatching Australia’s weary bowlers to all parts of the ground in the final Ashes Test (bear with me if you’re not an England cricket fan, there is a point to all this…)
by Darren Caveney
England’s now famed ‘Baz Ball’ has taken the cricketing world by storm. It’s about challenging some of the usual conventions of the game. It’s about scoring runs quickly and pressuring the opposition at all times. It’s also about entertainment. It flowed from a poor run of results by the England side, which was all a bit negative, scratchy and, well, reactive.
A new coach came in. A new mindset with him and a plan of attack that seizes the initiative and refuses to be bowed by the challenges thrown at them.
It’s very much a strategic decision with a clear approach which everyone in the team understands and where they fit into it. And, at the time of writing (crosses fingers), it’s going to plan.
Can any of this really apply to local government strategy?
OK, I’m possibly stretching the analogy a tad here but when we think about how communications works within local government it’s those council’s with very clear and consistent strategies who tend to fare best.
I’ve seen and worked with both strategic organisations and reactive ones and I know which ones I preferred. The reactive ones can be so chaotic. And, at their worst, quite dispiriting when you have that feeling that despite all your best efforts you’re not effecting much in the way of positive change. That’s hard for any individual and team to break free from - it has to be a whole organisation effort. A bit like Baz Ball.
The 80/20 rule strikes again
The 80/20 rule can be applied to many things. For sure it can to communications strategies. A large council delivers so many services, some of them really complex, and can mean it’s difficult to stick to a plan when there are so many competing demands.
There will always be new challenges and emergencies to support too – think Ukraine when the war began last year. Councils had to scramble quickly to be able to support Ukranians fleeing to safety in the UK. They responded so well too – councils almost always do when it’s really needed.
So there will always be leftfield demand at an organisational level and which flows into the ‘to do’ lists of comms teams as a result. I call it the ‘comms side wash’ It’s always been there and it always will be in local government.
However, I always think that the planned/reactive ration should be in the order of 80/20. A comms teams can deal with that and develop and deliver effective comms strategies to support the organisation’s key, agreed and published priorities. Obviously, if you give them 20 priorities to deliver against they’ll struggle, unless they are awash with resources. So keeping the number of priorities realistic is important otherwise they’re not really priorities, just a big list.
What a comms team can’t deal with is a 20/80 scenario – they exist, I’ve seen them – whereby in the region of 80% of their activity is reacting to different demands every day and every week without a clear plan and rationale to them. It’s a horrible place to be. To add to their woes the team often then get criticised for “not being strategic”. Warning signs of this are a flurry of last minute press releases being asked for on a regular basis and a lack of a signed-up to council communications strategy.
So what’s the answer?
On the face of it it’s really simple and with a hierarchy of plans in place.
- There’s a council plan
- In it the key organisational priorities are clearly stated
- Each priority has a service level business plan containing data and insights from which SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely) objectives are agreed
- The councils’ communications strategy flows from the council plan and the service business plans
- Then individual communications or campaign plans support these priorities and the bulk of the team’s resources are dedicated to them because it has been agreed that this is the most important work to the council and its residents
Councils like Liverpool and Tower Hamlets do this very well. In the Tower Hamlets strategy each campaign is graded as Gold, Silver or Bronze so that it’s clear what level of time and resource will be given over to them and this really helps to manage internal expectations.
Of course, it’s easy to shout advice from afar and much more difficult to actually deliver it but that’s the beauty of the 80/20 rule. It does allow some flex to manage the unforeseen because let’s face that isn’t going to go away any time soon.
Does your communications strategy meet the 80/20 test?
Footnote: The Baz Ball strategy worked pretty well in the end. But for rain in Manchester, England would have won the series. But that’s the point isn’t it – no strategy will ever be perfect but it can definitely improve you.
Darren Caveney is owner and creator of comms2point0 and specialist consultancy Creative Communicators Ltd
This article first appeared in the Municipal Journal
*Sign up for the comms2point0 eMag*
The comms2point0 eMag features exclusive new content, free give-aways, special offers, first dibs on new events and much, much more.
Sound good? Join over 3.3k other comms people who have subscribed. You can sign up to it right here
