Proactive vs reactive: why is fire-fighting the norm (and how can we change it?

Proactive vs reactive communications:

As with most things in business, if you wish to deliver effective and persuasive communications, detailed
strategies need to be researched, planned, and evaluated. Why then, do so many businesses believe
communications is a one-stop shop for last-minute crisis prevention, press release writing, and <shudder>
poster making?

As communicators, we’ve all been there – it’s 5:30 pm on a Friday evening, and your email pings.
“Urgent!” screams the heading. You sigh, grab another cup of tea, [Link] spend the next two hours sorting
out a problem that could have been solved (and should have been kujyve done a really poor job of
communicating the impact their function has on the bottom line. As a result, communication is still seen as
a nice-to-have, not a must-have. The communications team is seen as a function that comes in at the end
of a process, not one that’s an intrinsic part of the organization.

As a result, too many communications teams spend their time moving from one crisis to another. This
leads to slapdash communications to patch up a leak. If communications were more proactive, however,
you wouldn’t have quite so many holes in the first place.

So how do we start changing this? First, let’s have a closer look at what we’re dealing with.

What is reactive communication?

Reactive communication, as the name suggests, is when you’re reacting to a situation. It’s something you
haven’t planned for, something unexpected, something that has caused a response you didn’t foresee.
This type of communication normally takes place after the fact – when something has already happened.
The result is disjointed and often defensive. Reactive communication tends to be one-sided. It is
broadcast communications with little evaluation and no feedback mechanism.

In short, reactive usually means ineffective communication.

What is proactive communication?

Proactive communication is when you prevent problems instead of fixing them. You answer questions
before they’re asked. You deal with complaints before they’re made. You work with your audiences to
have a conversation about the issues important to you (and them). Proactive communication is planned,
flexible, and delivers on objectives.

How do we put proactive communications in place?

It’s easy to say “we need to be more proactive in our communications” but the reality is normally quite
different. In a corporate world full of conflicting priorities, lack of resources, and restricted time, it can be

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simpler (and quicker) to go the reactive route. You can deal with issues as they arise and then move on to
the next thing.

However, I would urge you to reconsider. Wouldn’t it be nice to know exactly what you’re going to focus
on for the year and be able to share your successes? Wouldn’t it be less stressful to have everything
planned out instead of scrabbling for content? Wouldn’t you prefer your time was spent on
communicating, rather than panicky meetings?

There are a few simple steps you can take to move towards a more proactive method of communications

1. Give yourself time

I can almost hear the hysterical laughter from here. But seriously, the first thing you need to do in order to
become proactive is to give yourself time to plan, to think, and to ask yourself difficult questions. The
whole process of developing a more proactive approach to communications is going to take time (see
steps below) so make sure that you factor this into your planning. If you’re looking to develop
communications strategies for 2019, for example, this process needs to start in August or September of
2018. Effective communication isn’t something that can be thrown together in a month.

2. Understand where you are now

In order to effectively drive communications in the future, you need to understand where you are now and
what’s happened in the past. You can’t improve a situation if you don’t know what the problems are.

Go through a comprehensive communications audit and risk analysis. Understand what works and what
doesn’t in your current setup. Make sure you understand what obstacles and opportunities stand in your
way. Establish if there are any concrete changes you can make to improve your situation or is it just a
question of mitigating risk? Who are you likely to be talking to? How do they wish to be communicated
with? What kind of information do they want? What kind of information do they need? How much
awareness do they currently have about business-critical issues?

At this point, you also need to be completely clear on overarching business and communications
objectives. All the work you do moving forward needs to slot back into these brackets. You shouldn’t be
undertaking any communications work that doesn’t help you achieve your communication objectives. In
turn, these communication objectives need to play a bigger role in helping your business achieve its
strategic objectives.

3. Get everyone involved

In most organizations, if a project is to work, it needs to be adopted and championed by senior leaders.
The easiest way to get buy-in is to consult your key stakeholders and work with them to develop your
communication plan together.

Set up a number of face-to-face meetings with your stakeholders and use them to:

● Discuss upcoming priorities in the department

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 ● Outline current challenges within the team
● Establish the key projects they’ll be working on over the next year which will need
communications support
● Question priorities and challenge assumptions
● Understand their audience and key messages
● Define SMART objectives
● Confirm the timing of the project
● Get an indication of the budget (if any)

All these elements will help you anticipate needs, offer strategic counsel, and most importantly, write
detailed campaign plans for each stakeholder.

4. Know where you’re going

Ah yes! We’re back on this old chestnut. Planning!

Once your research has been done, it’s important that you don’t store the information away but you put it
into a comprehensive communications strategy. For every department or stakeholder, you’ve spoken to,
you should develop an individual campaign plan. This campaign plan will outline the strategy the
communications team is going to take in order to reach the business objectives.

These campaign plans should be prioritized to determine the amount of time, resources, and budget
allocated.

By the end of your planning session, everyone in your team should understand every detail of every
campaign including:

● Objectives;
● Key audiences;
● Communications strategy;
● Timelines and deadlines;
● Tactical implementation; and
● Evaluation measures.

It’s also important to plan for the unplannable. Crises happen and it’s important you have a skeleton plan
in place to deal with them when they arise. Ensure that you have a clear communications structure to
ensure a steady of flow of information. Run scenario planning to see how well your methods work.
Understand who is going to lead your communications and how (what platforms do you have? Are there
any alternatives?).

5. Know when you’re doing it

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Once all your plans have been written and are in the revision stage, it’s time to plot out your time for the
year. Draw up a campaign calendar so it’s clear which projects are running when. Are there overlaps? Are
there four campaigns running in the same week? Is there a dead period in the middle of July? Make sure
that you’ve indicated any important events that you may be able to hang communications off of (annual or
quarterly results, town halls, award ceremonies, anniversaries). Spread your communications out evenly
across the year so that you’ve got a steady flow of information and your team is overloaded.

Develop a campaign tracker to show the status of each project. Use it in team meetings to highlight and
deal with issues before they develop.

6. Give yourself room for evaluation

As with all plans, while it’s important you have them, it doesn’t mean they’re set in stone. All of your
campaign plans should have clear evaluation measures in place. You need to track every element of your
communications to ensure that

a) you’ve achieved what you set out to;

b) you can amend any elements that aren’t working; and

c) you can show your value to your key stakeholders.

Being proactive in your communications isn’t easy. In most cases, you and your team will have to
undertake a huge culture change – not only in the way you work but also in the way you work with other
people.

Although it seems like a lot of work, the value of taking the time to plan out your communications can’t be
underestimated. You’ll have a happy, motivated team who understands their priorities. You’ll have happy
leaders who can see real, measurable progress. You’ll have happier employees who are kept informed
with business strategy and know their place in delivering final results.

If you’d like any help implementing a more proactive approach to communications in your team, get in
touch. We’d be more than happy to have a brainstorm and come up with some quick wins for your team.