A work of the organizational communicator. How should you think about a Strategic Communication?
When talking about business strategic communication, we must start from its differentiation with other practices that are carried out in an organization and that are related to it.
From the definition of Eugenio Tironi and Ascanio Cavallo, it is the “practice that aims to convert the link of organizations with their cultural, social and political environment into a harmonious and positive relationship from the point of view of their interests or objectives ”(Tironi & Cavallo, 2004, p.27).
For more information on the definition of organizational communication by the authors Eugenio Tironi and Ascanio Cavallo, click on the following link to view the pdf of their book »Strategic communication: living in a world.
This is an excellent starting point to understand the function of communication in an organization. Beyond associating it with other practices such as marketing or public relations (which are attached and complementary disciplines), it is about the construction of what for the purposes of this analysis we will understand as the "vital world" of the organization.
I refer to the environment, climate or reality that arises from the interactions or links generated through communication by the subjects within them and through which a corporate culture is constructed, symbolically mediated by itself, and that resolve conflicts through the speech, for the coordination of activities to achieve a common purpose and objective ”. In this line, communication is oriented more towards the organization itself (understood as organizational communication).
How should strategic communication be thought?
Communication seen from a strategy-oriented thought loses all instrumental meaning. And it is because it is not just the dissemination of information.
In this sense, I consider Jurgen Habermas's contribution from the Theory of Communicative Acting to be especially relevant lies in the differentiation between communicative actions that “aim to achieve a predetermined instrumental strategic end quickly” and communicative action oriented to the “social situations that they seek comprehension".
Instrumental communicative actions are now widely criticized for their mechanical and tax nature. This resistance of the communicative actors has a strong reason for being (especially in the era of virtual social networks). They are constructed from calculation, probability, and mostly based on reactive-type predictions. This type of planning and execution of communications leave aside the social sphere to focus on the technical ability for its transmission in search of homogenizing the public as static and non-variable organisms.
In other words, they can always react the same way if the same type of communication is applied. Similar to chemical reactions in a laboratory.
Elaborated for the achievement of a specific purpose (which can be easily evidenced by numerical indicators), leaving aside the search for the understanding of the social complexity of which we are a part, ignoring the "active role of the subjects" in a communication process, reducing them in this way the condition of receiver-consumer.
I consider that the concept of consumption by the recipients of the instrumental communication of the organizations has changed. Although it is true that the paradigm that the object becomes a product continues to be handled, the product becomes a merchandise, and finally a differentiated and distinguishable brand in a market, the receivers begin to demand a greater role as "protagonists in their interactions ”(8) with organizations.
Interview with Enrique Dans, professor at IE Business School, for the newspaper Gestión in Peru in his article "Companies have moved into a radically bidirectional environment", published on July 18, 2012.
At this point, I think that Habermas's second contribution to the communicator's credit is to understand that both the members of an organization and its clients are part of a context made up of social situations, so in both In cases, communicative action aimed at understanding situations and understanding needs is more effective for business development (both for organizational purposes within the organization, and for purposes of economic benefit that allows the organization to make a profit) than a Instrumental communication that ignores this due process in which a subject is part of an environment and that seeks the solution of their daily problems (understood in its economic sense as the "demand" to be covered by the offer of an organization).
In the case of the communication professional, it opens a new field for the management of business dynamics, internal or external. The invitation is to put aside that myth of mechanical communication, in which we should only choose to achieve the transmission of information by seeking the least amount of noise during the process, so that the role of the communicator becomes who can mediate in that process of communication. the understanding and understanding of the interactions generated through communication in a social space (not only economic or decoration) both inside and outside the management of a company.
Thinking in this way, then, leads us to do different things, generating new management indicators where the numbers become just a support for comprehensive management of strategic thinking in communications.
Bibliography
- Tironi & Cavallo, A. (2004). Strategic communication. Live in a world of signs. Santiago: Taurus.Rad, Philipp, Rita. Jürgen Habermas's theory of communicative action. A framework for the analysis of socializing conditions in modern societies. pp. 103Rad, Philipp, Rita. Jürgen Habermas's theory of communicative action. A framework for the analysis of socializing conditions in modern societies. pp. 113Schein E. Corporate Culture and Leadership. Barcelona: Plaza & Janes; 1988 Rad, Philipp, Rita. Jürgen Habermas's theory of communicative action. A framework for the analysis of socializing conditions in modern societies. pp. 113 (BIS) Muñoz, Blanca. Critical Theory and Critical School of Frankfurt. (Cultural models and forms of collective consciousness.) (BIS) Muñoz, Blanca.Critical Theory and Critical School of Frankfurt. (Cultural models and forms of collective consciousness).Rad, Philipp, Rita. Jürgen Habermas's theory of communicative action. A framework for the analysis of socializing conditions in modern societies. pp. 115.
