Earlier this week, we facilitated a two-hour messaging workshop for a new Communiqué PR technology client. The goal was to discuss the company’s mission and vision, as well as hone in on its value proposition and distill that information into several compelling key messages.
The messaging workshop was a big success and it got me thinking about our work and methodology for facilitating these discussions, which can often be fraught with emotion as senior leaders and executives often have strong points of view about the subject matter. At Communiqué, we believe there are five key steps that should be taken when preparing to conduct the messaging workshop:
- Explain the importance of messaging and build the case for the workshop. Messaging is often the foundation of your PR program. To harness the full power of PR, you want to deliver messages that are accurate and credible, as well as concise and compelling as possible. It is also essential to arm employees, staff, investors and partners with the right messages so they can deliver them on your behalf. Given this, if a company has not outlined key messages, we recommend holding a workshop to identify and build consensus around the key points that need to be communicated.
- Determine who needs to participate. This is another essential step for a productive workshop. To have a meaningful discussion about mission, vision, values and a company’s value proposition, you will need the senior leadership team to be present. Typically this group of individuals are responsible for the direction of the company so it is important they articulate their perspectives on these topics. By gathering this group together to discuss vision, mission, values and value proposition, the facilitator can hone in on differences in perspective and help resolve them, which is important if you’re going to deliver consistent messages about the company and its products and services.
- Get the creative juices flowing. We recommend coming up with one or two ice-breaker exercises to help set the stage for an effective and engaging ideation meeting. These can be really helpful as you look to get people thinking in a new manner. For instance, you might provide executives with a list of emotional or functional attributes to describe their company and ask them to rank them. Each person could then present his or her perspective. This gives everyone an opportunity to share his/her thoughts at the beginning of the meeting and sets the tone in establishing participation with all the leaders.
- Set time limits. Determine how much time you’re going to spend on each subject. Give everyone a few minutes to share a point of view, but at the end of the allotted time, be sure to move on to the next section so you don’t get bogged down on one point. If there is unresolved conflict around a topic, feel free to table it so you can do some more thinking and analysis.
- Identify roles for the meeting. Designate one or two people to facilitate the meeting, and appoint someone else to take notes and capture key action items. We also recommend bringing a digital tape recorder to ensure that everything is captured and can be reviewed later.
We hope these tips are helpful. If you’re challenged to come up with the right messages, please feel free to call us. We are experienced and adept at helping companies identify and come to consensus on key messages.