865 1500 word + chart

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Meeting Week 3: April 24, 2019 Open Letter to the Class About the Case Study Report Dear Members of the CMN 6100 Class: After last night’s class, I decided to send you this note with highlights from our discussion last evening. I hope this will help you as you write the final draft of your report on the Charlotte Beers Ogilvy & Mather case study. First: a few points made in last night’s class:

• Write the report as if you are speaking to someone and explaining some of the key thoughts/concepts to this person.

• Read the directions carefully: • Part I should be short and briefly answer the questions posed? • Part II: Pay close attention to the directions for Part II

o You are to develop a 6-month communication campaign to generate a conversation with Ogilvy & Mather employees about what they should do, know, and feel to support Brand Stewardship

§ A couple of comments: O&M had a clear vision…this serves as a transformational vision and strategy….it was a mission statement of sorts

§ I highly recommend you review the three slide presentations from weeks 1 through 3….In Slide presentation for Week 3 (see slides 9 through 15) look at slide #9 and you will see highlighted 3 ideas that are worth considering:

• Leaders need to make the vision and organizational brand promise pervasive

• In cascade objectives, leaders need to involve every manager as participant and teacher

• When discussions occur from the top down, executives, managers, workers need to be able to know what they need to know but they also need to be able to ask questions. When this happens, the strategy can be revised according to smart suggestions. That way, everyone, from top to bottom, make the strategy a part of themselves.

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Another part of the directions include: Be sure to apply specific components of the People Channel in your recommendation and draw on the Action Equation we discussed in class.

• Make sure you understand the people channel: see pages 34 and the following pages in “Beyond the Babble” and review what the action equation means….and, very importantly, how you recommend Beers and her team packages the action equation into a conversation…. p.36ff Beyond the Babble

• Make sure you understand what the people channel is. Translation: what you are trying to do is get Beers et al to get people – leaders, managers, workers – excited about the strategy (the vision and the strategy to make it real) and to make it part of the overall conversation. A CEO wants everybody talking about this strategy. It’s almost like a strategy summed up in “Make Ogilvy & Mather Great Again.” This is what Beers and other leaders given the charge to re-energize companies are trying to do: make their companies great again.

• As part of the overall strategy, the process (let’s say the six-month period or plan you’re proposing) is something that has various steps that need to be taken. Page 137 (the entire chapter it’s part of) is very important because it outlines the various communication used to spread information to folks across the company.

s I strongly recommend you re-read pages 105 to 108: The Conversation Platform. The illustration on page 107 is quite good and it may help you to focus clearly on the cause/the vision you want Beers to bring to life. Another part of the directions states:

• As part of your campaign, you will recommend ways to tap the 'internal' groundswell using social media. Pick two or three objectives described by Bernoff & Li, the rationale for your selections, your strategy and social media technology for each.

• Re-read Chapter 4 of Groundswell: Strategies for tapping the groundswell and note the five objectives the authors state are objectives companies can pursue in the groundswell. Then, of course, in your paper, you need to be very selective as to which ones you choose.

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As I noted, you will also need to include how you are going to measure the actions taken to make the vision real. Finally, don’t forget that you are recommending a strategy that includes actions…. things that need to be done to educate and motivate folks who are threatened by change. Finally, and this is enormously important, remember that while your paper deals with a strategy and a communication process, there is a great deal of content to the strategy: what you want folks to know and to do and to feel. My talked last night about how a school was functioning well because it leader connected with faculty and students….and was able to inspire them. Everyone was on the same page. This presumably took a vision and strategy and it took time. She also talked disruptive change in the school and after some years, the school seems to be functioning successfully under new leadership. Dan raised a great point last night about of the first things O & M needs to do: re- organize in a way increased communication across the world, enables different O&M field offices work closer together, and enables workers in these offices get paid fairly for their work. Educating workers about the new structure would be part of the content O&M probably would include in its strategy. It’s part of the answer to the question: what does Beers et want folks to know. It would not be the major part of the paper but it’s nevertheless important. Now a few random thoughts about content or what it is that Ogilvy & Mather folks need to know and do and feel. Don’t forget Content: what folks need to know and do and feel…..

• They need to know what the vision entails. Remember it includes actions surrounding a brand audit, something that clients liked but that Ogilvy & Mather staff did not like – at first. So what does a CEO need to do to educate her team and to motivate them….so they can do and know and feel in a way that gives everyone something to believe in. Note the steps suggested in the two textbooks you have been reading.

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• Remember developing a communication strategy involves planning. What specifically does one need to do in this stage? And how long does it take?

• And if people are reluctant to change, how do you motivate them? How do you get them to come over to the CEO’s point of view. Consider Beers has been successful in convincing clients about the new approach she’s recommending the company is about to take with clients.

• We discussed motivating people last night and the idea that success stories work well. What should Ogilvy & Mather do to make sure the company has success stories to show workers this new approach to serving clients?

• And being practical, what new communication technologies would work today for Beers and her company if O&M was facing similar challenges in 2019?

• How would you measure success. This is an important part of any communication strategy. What idea did you cover that would work?

• Remember that the strategy is a six-month strategy and you need to include what would be done in each of those months.

• Review what a Gant chart is. Such a chart might help you in writing the paper

Please feel free to use some graphics to support your report, if you think that would be help. And let me emphasize how important it is to write shorter sentences, shorter paragraphs, the use of titles and subtitles, and, most importantly, language that reflects a conversation. Put differently – I’m repeating myself here for emphasis – write as if you were explaining something to a friend about Ogilvy and Mather and its dynamic leader. And you now know what you she looks like, what she sounds like, and what were her key approaches to leading: clarity, persuasion…… Hope this helps. Sean P.S. Re-read John Kotter’s “Leading Change” on page 15 of Oglivy and Mather case study. Those ideas as great. Borrow some if you think they would help.

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Directions for Case Study #2 Imagine that you are Charlotte Beers' communications advisor in December 1993. Beers realizes that her cultural change effort "was still fragile" and that her new strategy for O&M "was not well understood below the top tier of executives..." Part 1a: Diagnose what went wrong with Beers' first attempt to communicate a strategic change message within her organization and the relative strengths and weaknesses of the communication practices and the 'why nots' at O&M. Part 1b: Now imagine it's May 2019 and as Director of Communication advising Ms. Beers, you have the ability to use the media support that exists today. Provide communication advice to Charlotte Beers regarding the relaunch of the Brand Stewardship strategy. Develop a 6-month communication campaign to generate a conversation with O&M employees about what they should do, know, and feel to support Brand Stewardship. Be sure to apply specific components of the People Channel in your recommendation and draw on the Action Equation we discussed in class. As part of your campaign, you will recommend ways to tap the 'internal' groundswell using social media. Pick two or three objectives described by Bernoff & Li, the rationale for your selections, your strategy and social media technology for each. Assumptions -- Our focus is to communicate the strategy to O&M employees worldwide. Assume we fast-forwarded to March 2019 so that we can take advantage of the groundswell surrounding the numerous communication vehicles that exist today. Important note: this is not a research paper -- your analysis should be based solely on course materials and your own communication experience. Format and length: Word document, 1500 words, organized into the two parts. A goal in all our writing assignments is conciseness and clarity. If you cite a reference or use a quote, we follow APA guidelines. When using APA format, follow the author-date method of in-text citation. This means that the author's last name and the year of publication for the source should appear in the text. Example: According to Jones (1998), documentation practices are critically important.....

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If you are directly quoting from a work, you will need to include the author, year of publication, and the page number for the reference (preceded by "p."). Introduce the quotation with a signal phrase that includes the author's last name followed by the date of publication in parentheses. Example: According to Jones (1998), "Students often had difficulty using APA style, especially when it was their first time" (p.199). There is no need to list references at the end of the essay. Evaluation criteria -- In assessing the case analysis, we will be using the grading rubrics included in the syllabus, as well as the extent to which you apply course concepts in your analysis. As with all case studies, there is no one "right answer" - - rather, we will be focusing on the soundness of your rationale. This case study assignment is worth 30 % of your grade

DEADLINE: Tuesday of Week 4 -- April 30, 2019