On January 18, 2016, the chief executive officer and chief technology officer of Geosoft Inc. (Geosoft) met in Toronto, Canada, with the company’s executive team and regional directors for a critical three-day strategic planning session. Geosoft was a privately held, employee-owned, mid-sized global company that worked to help earth scientists and explorers make discoveries through innovative data solutions and services. The focus of the meeting—a new technology strategy to protect Geosoft from the impact of a global economic downturn affecting its primary markets—was pivotal to Geosoft’s current and future growth. This new strategy, known within Geosoft as the digital intimacy strategy, would radically change the way the company communicated with its customers. Geosoft’s customers were located in five major geographic regions: Latin America, Africa, Australia (including Asia), Europe, and North America. Rolling out the strategy demanded seamless communication of change to multiple stakeholders in vastly differing cultures across five continents. The new digital intimacy strategy was planned for rollout in September 2016 with implementation in 2017. For the new strategy to work, communication was crucial.
<p style="color: rgb(197, 183, 131);"><strong> AWARD WINNER - Responsible Leadership category at the EFMD Case Writing Competition</strong></p><br>The president and CEO of Providence Healthcare needs to devise a plan to sustain positive change at the health care company. In just four years, she has led the organization through massive change and turnaround, from potential crisis to financial health and innovation. She now needs to consider how to integrate and embed the values that helped her drive change and foster collaboration, both at Providence and with its key partners. What more can she do to sustain positive change at Providence Healthcare through her values-based leadership and to win the support of key stakeholders well into the future? Much of the success thus far has depended on her values and character as a leader.
Molson Coors’ chief corporate responsibility officer has been tasked to use the company’s efforts toward global corporate responsibility to drive its global competitiveness. He must roll out new corporate responsibility initiatives to engage employees across the company’s range of geographic locations.
The global nuclear industry is at a pivotal point, as risk is weighed against opportunity. The debate is fuelled by the recent disaster at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant, the global focus on a secure energy supply, climate change, and political instability in oil-producing regions. This article, co-authored by the communications director of the Canadian Nuclear Association, describes what steps the Association is taking to communicate its strategy to stakeholders and increase their understanding of nuclear. <br><br>True to its scientific focus, the Association built its 2010-2015 strategic plan and communications on mental models research, which helps in identifying deeply held expert and stakeholder beliefs about an issue. With insights from mental models research, the Association developed a communications strategy built on sociology and psychology, insights from social science-based research, a dialogue orientation, and an understanding of network effects. What the association learned about successful communications strategy was to a) create impactful, consistent branding; b) enrich your web site and social and mainstream media to energize dialogue; c) hold milestone events for continuity, connection, and consensus; d) educate, inform, and engage; e) build strategic partnerships for inclusiveness and transparency; f) advertise key information and issues; g) engage with all levels of government; and h) engage and support members and employees. The Association measures communications efficacy using a variety of techniques, including updated mental models research, social media assessments of participation, web metrics, stakeholder surveys, and advertising reach.
A business leader's greatest battle today is to win the trust of stakeholders. The leaders who win are those who communicate open and often, have a clear and committed communications policy, initiate formal and informal programs and assess their own performance in communicating effectively. Here's sound advice from authors who have taught CEOs how to do it.
The management team must determine how to get the buy-in of the majority of its employees to ensure the success of the SAP (Systems, Applications and Products) project. The implementation of SAP would cause enterprise-wide change, replacing the current sales and distribution, human resources, finance/IS and materials management legacy systems. It would radically redefine how people, processes and technology would come together to drive the company's strategy.