David, I have a vastly different perspective on corporate communication than you do. I think it generally sucks because there AREN'T any writers in many corporate offices.

Few of my colleagues in the corporate communications biz are, pretend to be, or even think of themselves as writers. (It's the same in the PR and marketing biz, by the way.) Most have degrees in "communication," and their great loves are, variously, radio and television broadcasting, event planning, strategic planning, PR/marketing/advertising--in other words, anything BUT writing. In fact, the things they love to do almost PRECLUDE good writing. These are the folks who chuckle and say, "We'll just work out the big ideas, and then Jane can tweak it."

If corporate communication offices had a few more dedicated writers to uphold the concept that making ineffective, half-assed communication effective is a lot more than "tweaking," corpcomms wouldn't be so laughable.

A hell of a good point, Jane. In your experience, do these communication "generalists" get along better with one another than specialists like writers, graphic designers, TV people do?

Not exactly. I think it's even messier than that.

In my experience, the people who are trained to be and proud to be "generalists" are the ones who will do the backstabbing. I'm not sure why; maybe it's because they can never hold a thing in their hand and say "I made this," so they're eternally feeling shortchanged and disrespected. These generalists need affirmation from the people they work with, but their offerings are sometimes so vague that "collaboration" has little meaning.

On the other hand, specialists--people who will go to bat for sweating the "small stuff"--are by nature NOT collaborators. We'd rather be shut in our cube and left alone to do what we do best. But because we KNOW what we do and have confidence in ourselves, we can engage in true collaboration when necessary.

This is just one specialist's opinion.

David,

I am a "specialist" with a unique perspective. I am primarily an editor and specialize in editing the writing of all the "generalists" that Jane referred to. Yup -- they all work in my office. In my 20-plus years of editing such work, I will tell you that every office has good writers and every office has those who can't even spell -- not even with a spell checker. But all in the latter category walk around bragging that they are "writers." The real writers -- those whose work requires very little effort on the editor's part -- are few, perhaps 10-15 percent of the staff.

But I have to support your main point. It doesn't seem to matter whether specialist, generalist, bad or good writer -- communication is a huge problem in communications departments. Faulty assumptions are made about what people know or don't know, and so we don't bother to share stuff that we think they already know. Or something like that.

I'll be watching this thread for other possible explanations about why we have such difficulty communicating with one another. This is not a new problem, as I'm sure all your readers are aware.

Will

What Jane said.

It's human nature. We can always see the other person (department's) inability to communicate much easier and sooner than our own.

For example, when I was getting a master's in counseling, the program I attended was lead by two men, colleagues for over a decade who had written books on relationships, marriage, conflict resolution, etc. The year I attended school there they were in conflict most of the time, barely spoke to one another without seething, and parted ways and, last time I heard, haven't spoken since.

Were they brilliant and right on the money about what they taught? Absolutely, and I've seen their methods work miracles in people's lives. But the fact remained: they stunk at living out the priciples with one another.

And so it goes. We're really quite a mess if you think about it. Uplifting, eh?

It's human nature. We can always see the other person (department's) inability to communicate much easier and sooner than our own.

For example, when I was getting a master's in counseling, the program I attended was lead by two men, colleagues for over a decade who had written books on relationships, marriage, conflict resolution, etc. The year I attended school there they were in conflict most of the time, barely spoke to one another without seething, and parted ways and, last time I heard, haven't spoken since.

Were they brilliant and right on the money about what they taught? Absolutely, and I've seen their methods work miracles in people's lives. But the fact remained: they stunk at living out the priciples with one another.

And so it goes. We're really quite a mess if you think about it. Uplifting, eh?

Yes, and psychiatrists commit suicide at a higher rate than other doctors.

Maybe THIS is the problem: We really DON'T know so much more about communication than others. We know how to write, edit, design and make TV shows. We know how to organize communication campaigns and make them look rational on a strategy document. We know how to survey employees in a way that seems to show whether they understood our messages.

But do we REALLY KNOW how and when to have the hard conversations--and how and when to have the happy conversations--with our own direct reports, our own colleagues, our own bosses?

Perhaps not at a higher rate than anyone else in the organization.

OK, I don't mean to sound like a Pollyanna, but my communication department is extremely functional! I think in our case, it's a matter of having an excellent combination of personalities that work well together as well as having a good leader who has been with the company 20+ years (and that's a good thing in her case - I know it's not always). Not everyone is a perfect writer but we all recognize that and accepting editing and other suggestions willingly, and we don't feel threatened or insulted by the feedback.

In fact, I honestly think we have one of the most functional departments in the company.

Shall I let you all know next time we have an open position? ;)

Jane said "On the other hand, specialists--people who will go to bat for sweating the "small stuff"--are by nature NOT collaborators. We'd rather be shut in our cube and left alone to do what we do best. But because we KNOW what we do and have confidence in ourselves, we can engage in true collaboration when necessary." I totally agree with that. Even in our great department, most of us would rather just get our work done on our own but when we DO need to work together - which is, of course, often - we do it well.

Andrea, thank you for that shaft of light! Honestly, you guys should do a session at a Corporate Communicators Conference, on how to run a happy and healthy department. I'm going to be helping plan that conference next month. Are you interested in talking more about this?

Not me (talk in front of people - are you kidding me?) but I'd be glad to put you in touch with my director. Is the Earthlink e-mail address you've posted on davidrmurray.com valid? I don't want to post her contact info here.

Yeah, send that to her and tell her, if she's at all interested, to get in touch. Thanks, David

Will do.