The Hindu Business Line : Competing forces in communication

To those who routinely spin words and push papers in ‘corp comm’ departments amidst much carping around, here is something from Alan T. Belasen that should sound sweet on the ears: “Corporate communication is like the conductor or the maestro, and the decentralised communication operatives are like the musicians in a symphony orchestra,” he writes in The Theory and Practice of Corporate Communication ( www.sagepublications.com).

“The musicians (corporate communication functions) display specialised knowledge and use different tools with unique sound bites, and the conductor (centralised corporate communication) creates harmony by synchronising the various parts for more coherent and meaningful sound effects (corporate messages).” The author adapts CVF (Competing Values Framework) of Quinn and Rohrbaugh to draw up CVFCC for corporate communication. His framework for CC’s ‘systems and goals’ has ‘innovation, information, regulation and integration’ in the four quadrants, with associated words ‘transform, perform, conform and reform’, to answer important questions. Such as: To what extent is the communication insightful, mind-stretching, and visionary? And is the communication discerning and perceptive of the receivers’ needs? A book that can add pep to the hassled in ‘corp comm’!

Big ‘Indian’ picture

The Indians
Sudhir and Katharina Kakar

If you find the Indian mind inscrutable, try The Indians by Sudhir and Katharina Kakar ( www.penguinbooksindia.com). The notion of a singular Indian-ness may seem far-fetched, yet from ancient times European, Chinese and Arab travellers have identified common features among India’s peoples, the authors write. The underlying unity in diversity, perhaps, escapes our ‘modern eyes’, which are “more attuned to spotting divergence than resemblance,” they rue. Cautiously, therefore, the book attempts “an unfashionable big picture, a grand narrative,” because “without the big picture – whatever its flaws of inexactness – the smaller, local pictures, however accurate, will be myopic, a mystifying jumble of trees without the pattern of the forest…” Useful read.

Woo your customer

Ethics in Marketing
Shel Horowitz

Joining the league of apparently oxymoronic phrases, such as “truth in numbers”, “fairness in justice” and “honesty in politics”, is Ethics in Marketing by Shel Horowitz ( www.jaicobooks.com). “People do matter!” begins the intro, on a thumping note. “Too many businesses see marketing as a weapon of war. They think that to succeed, they have to climb over their competitors, fool their customers, and herd their employees into constricted conformity. I think that’s just plain wrong,” declares Horowitz. “Marketing is a series of partnerships – of courtships, really,” he entices. Businesses have to woo their customers, and look for “a deep and long-lasting relationship,” as in marriage, based on meeting the needs and wants of all stakeholders.

Unequivocal messages.

D. Murali

http://BookPeek.blogspot.com

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Competing forces in communication