As learning to communicate is one of the first skills we learn when we enter the world, one may be easily fooled in to thinking that we are all masters of it. I could speak for hours about the importance of open communication in both working life and personal life. Working with a range of clients over the past number of years, the most important thing that I have learned is to keep the lines of communication as open as possible – even when things go wrong!
It is all lovely to run to media contacts with good news and although it is of course more difficult to report bad news it is often still as important as the positive stuff. In the past number of weeks I have seen and heard of the annoyance of people who are kept outside the loop when things go awry. All of a sudden they are met with silence – nothing. How does this reflect on the company or organisation then? The fact of the matter is, the next time you have a story to tell, chances are it will be ignored because the very people you rely on will be too peeved to bother with you anymore.
Moral of the story? Keep interested parties in the loop when times are bad and good….Brian Cowen for one can take note!!
